An Interview with Playwright Ozzie Jones
Jacqueline Lawton: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
Ozzie Jones: When I was in Bates College I was very socially and politically involved in the life of the campus, the city of Lewiston, New England as a whole. While there I was constantly trying to find new, hip ways of throwing parties, rallies, fundraising, concerts, etc… And a professor named Buddy Butler from the Negro Ensemble Company told me I had a gift for directing. I had always been a writer and musician, but I was in no ways a “theater kid”. I actually had no idea that the events and parties I was throwing had narrative and drama. I just saw them as ways to make the event memorable, sexy, and fun. Through Buddy I learned of and met people like Paul Carter Harrison, Ntozake Shange, Amiri Baraka, Sonja Sanchez, Douglas Turner Ward, and Woodie King. And I chose my life’s work.
JL: Next, tell me a little bit about your writing process. Do you have any writing rituals? Do you write in the same place or in different places?
OJ: I believe that all art is born from dreams and soul. I frankly am more interested in the internal world of the mind and soul than I am notions of “real life experience”. So when I get an idea I try to construct and see it in my head before I write anything. Then once it is I feel like the writing part is just taking dictation of my soul’s voice. I don’t believe in beating work to death. I try to execute getting the words from the inside to the outside world in as close to one sitting as is possible. 10/ 12 hours a day until the first draft is done. So people may watch how I write and think that I write a new play or novel or screenplay in just a few days, but the closer truth is that I may have been writing a particular piece in my head for years before the proverbial dam breaks and it hits the page. And I like to write where there is noise, life, and confusion; bars, trolleys, busy coffee shops, etc… the idea of a quiet place to write makes me bloody nuts.
JL: Describe for me all the sensations you had the first time you had one of your plays produced and you sat in the audience while it was performed...what was different about the characters you created? How much input did you have in the directing of that work?
OJ: I by profession am a director, composer, and writer. So I always direct what I write. In fact the only time one of my pieces was directed by someone other than me was a production of a play I wrote called Sanctified Jook Joint. I directed its first production at Freedom Theater in the mid 90s and some years later a company called the Paul Robeson Theater in Buffalo did a production of it, but I could not go to see it. From all accounts I heard it was lovely and well received. That’s why I am excited about Kind of Blue because a director I have never met is going to be directing the reading. I write in a very musical impressionist way, so I want the people who work on it to be creative with it, investigate it. Do it like they feel it. My work is not realism obsessed, nor do I feel like there is some idea of perfection that can be reached. When I am directing my work I have a very clear vision of how I want it to look. But that is just me. I fully expect and am excited for anyone else to direct it as they see it. And if I disagree with their vision of it than I just disagree. There are truly worse things in the world. I try to write my work like a jazz. It is specific to my voice and vision, but the changes and melodies are for the next man or woman to express and explore the self, with and through the work.
JL: What do you hope to convey in the plays that you create--what are they about? What sorts of people, situation, circumstances, do you like to write about?
OZ: Most of my work as a director and a writer has been about the human beings seeking to find and understand the relationship to God, self, and family/each other. Music drives and is at the core of all of my work. When I write a play, in my mind, I am attempting to write one big song. I want the work to groove, swing, rock, shake, rattle, roll, burn, soothe, stand, sit, bang, bump, step, run, etc. I want my plays to feel just like all the greatest songs made me feel. So for example, if I were writing a play about the struggle for black and women’s rights in the Civil Rights Movement, I would not be trying to capture accurately who the people of the time were, I would be trying to make the audience feel like they just heard the song RESPECT. I am more interested in how a work feels and swings than I am in some sort of detailed notion of “facts” I write a lot about God, family, sex, war, and redemption. Frankly I am just trying to make work that feels like David’s Psalms. Yes I know that puts me in a position of perpetual failure, but hey, we do what we must.
JL: What inspired you to write Kind of Blue?
OJ: As a writer I very interested in framing and crafting what my body of work is and not just thing piece to piece. So Kind of Blue is the second part of a much larger collection of plays I am writing called The Real Book. The Real Book in Jazz is a collection of the most important compositions in Jazz. The idea of my collection is to write a number of plays that are inspired by America’s most important black jazz composers and compositions. The first piece in my Real Book is a Bopera called Chasin’ the Bird. In short it is my imagining of the dream Charlie Parker had as he lay dying where Billie Holiday and a childhood friend help him transition to the other side. Chasin’ the Bird was just developed in the Gym at Penumbra Theater in Saint Paul, Minneapolis. Kind of Blue is the second work in the Real Book. Its first public reading will be at African Continuum Theater. YEAH!!! Kind of Blue is a narrative poem about love and relationships birthed from the music of Miles Davis’ record Kind of Blue. The Man and Woman in the piece represent the trumpet of Miles and the Sax of John Coletrane and the 2 dancers are the rhythm section. The goal of Kind of Blue and each piece in the Real Book is to write plays that feel and move and swing like the songs and artists they are named after and inspired by.
JL: What advice do you have for up-and-coming playwrights?
OJ: Write a lot. Find a community of actors and directors that WANT to perform your words. Have people read your work who love you, care about you, are smarter than you, and will give you criticism you can use to move the work closer to its best most powerful condition. And most importantly KNOW THAT YOU ARE RIGHT. If you don’t believe your own vision and purpose for writing whatever you’re writing than no one else will. Mean spirited, scumbag haters will rip your vision and dreams apart if you let them. The blank page and the empty stage can be cold vicious lovers. You must believe in yourself because they will NOT believe in you unless you force them to.
JL: What next for you as a writer? Where can we follow your work?
OJ: I’m just trying to get the visions and ideas in my head that keep me up at night out before they drive me fully insane. So to that end, what is next is perpetual. I both know and have no idea. I am doing a lot of teaching and directing, so I am constantly sharing, developing, and working on new ideas. I am the artistic director and founder of the Rhythm One Company. I have developed a performance technique called the Rhythm Form and teach it at the CEC building on 3500 Lancaster Ave in Philadelphia, PA to children and adults. I am also working on developing a reality show where I work with young people in failing school teaching writing and documentary film making. The documentary can be seen on Youtube under My Block is Crazy by Ozzie Jones. But since Honey Boo Boo is on the learning channel I am sure you can all understand that selling the show is rough going . Difficult, but not impossible. So I guess the best way to follow my work is to contact me at [email protected] and I’ll let ya know everything that’s happening and coming up. Peace, power, soul! Ozzie Jones
Ozzie Jones: When I was in Bates College I was very socially and politically involved in the life of the campus, the city of Lewiston, New England as a whole. While there I was constantly trying to find new, hip ways of throwing parties, rallies, fundraising, concerts, etc… And a professor named Buddy Butler from the Negro Ensemble Company told me I had a gift for directing. I had always been a writer and musician, but I was in no ways a “theater kid”. I actually had no idea that the events and parties I was throwing had narrative and drama. I just saw them as ways to make the event memorable, sexy, and fun. Through Buddy I learned of and met people like Paul Carter Harrison, Ntozake Shange, Amiri Baraka, Sonja Sanchez, Douglas Turner Ward, and Woodie King. And I chose my life’s work.
JL: Next, tell me a little bit about your writing process. Do you have any writing rituals? Do you write in the same place or in different places?
OJ: I believe that all art is born from dreams and soul. I frankly am more interested in the internal world of the mind and soul than I am notions of “real life experience”. So when I get an idea I try to construct and see it in my head before I write anything. Then once it is I feel like the writing part is just taking dictation of my soul’s voice. I don’t believe in beating work to death. I try to execute getting the words from the inside to the outside world in as close to one sitting as is possible. 10/ 12 hours a day until the first draft is done. So people may watch how I write and think that I write a new play or novel or screenplay in just a few days, but the closer truth is that I may have been writing a particular piece in my head for years before the proverbial dam breaks and it hits the page. And I like to write where there is noise, life, and confusion; bars, trolleys, busy coffee shops, etc… the idea of a quiet place to write makes me bloody nuts.
JL: Describe for me all the sensations you had the first time you had one of your plays produced and you sat in the audience while it was performed...what was different about the characters you created? How much input did you have in the directing of that work?
OJ: I by profession am a director, composer, and writer. So I always direct what I write. In fact the only time one of my pieces was directed by someone other than me was a production of a play I wrote called Sanctified Jook Joint. I directed its first production at Freedom Theater in the mid 90s and some years later a company called the Paul Robeson Theater in Buffalo did a production of it, but I could not go to see it. From all accounts I heard it was lovely and well received. That’s why I am excited about Kind of Blue because a director I have never met is going to be directing the reading. I write in a very musical impressionist way, so I want the people who work on it to be creative with it, investigate it. Do it like they feel it. My work is not realism obsessed, nor do I feel like there is some idea of perfection that can be reached. When I am directing my work I have a very clear vision of how I want it to look. But that is just me. I fully expect and am excited for anyone else to direct it as they see it. And if I disagree with their vision of it than I just disagree. There are truly worse things in the world. I try to write my work like a jazz. It is specific to my voice and vision, but the changes and melodies are for the next man or woman to express and explore the self, with and through the work.
JL: What do you hope to convey in the plays that you create--what are they about? What sorts of people, situation, circumstances, do you like to write about?
OZ: Most of my work as a director and a writer has been about the human beings seeking to find and understand the relationship to God, self, and family/each other. Music drives and is at the core of all of my work. When I write a play, in my mind, I am attempting to write one big song. I want the work to groove, swing, rock, shake, rattle, roll, burn, soothe, stand, sit, bang, bump, step, run, etc. I want my plays to feel just like all the greatest songs made me feel. So for example, if I were writing a play about the struggle for black and women’s rights in the Civil Rights Movement, I would not be trying to capture accurately who the people of the time were, I would be trying to make the audience feel like they just heard the song RESPECT. I am more interested in how a work feels and swings than I am in some sort of detailed notion of “facts” I write a lot about God, family, sex, war, and redemption. Frankly I am just trying to make work that feels like David’s Psalms. Yes I know that puts me in a position of perpetual failure, but hey, we do what we must.
JL: What inspired you to write Kind of Blue?
OJ: As a writer I very interested in framing and crafting what my body of work is and not just thing piece to piece. So Kind of Blue is the second part of a much larger collection of plays I am writing called The Real Book. The Real Book in Jazz is a collection of the most important compositions in Jazz. The idea of my collection is to write a number of plays that are inspired by America’s most important black jazz composers and compositions. The first piece in my Real Book is a Bopera called Chasin’ the Bird. In short it is my imagining of the dream Charlie Parker had as he lay dying where Billie Holiday and a childhood friend help him transition to the other side. Chasin’ the Bird was just developed in the Gym at Penumbra Theater in Saint Paul, Minneapolis. Kind of Blue is the second work in the Real Book. Its first public reading will be at African Continuum Theater. YEAH!!! Kind of Blue is a narrative poem about love and relationships birthed from the music of Miles Davis’ record Kind of Blue. The Man and Woman in the piece represent the trumpet of Miles and the Sax of John Coletrane and the 2 dancers are the rhythm section. The goal of Kind of Blue and each piece in the Real Book is to write plays that feel and move and swing like the songs and artists they are named after and inspired by.
JL: What advice do you have for up-and-coming playwrights?
OJ: Write a lot. Find a community of actors and directors that WANT to perform your words. Have people read your work who love you, care about you, are smarter than you, and will give you criticism you can use to move the work closer to its best most powerful condition. And most importantly KNOW THAT YOU ARE RIGHT. If you don’t believe your own vision and purpose for writing whatever you’re writing than no one else will. Mean spirited, scumbag haters will rip your vision and dreams apart if you let them. The blank page and the empty stage can be cold vicious lovers. You must believe in yourself because they will NOT believe in you unless you force them to.
JL: What next for you as a writer? Where can we follow your work?
OJ: I’m just trying to get the visions and ideas in my head that keep me up at night out before they drive me fully insane. So to that end, what is next is perpetual. I both know and have no idea. I am doing a lot of teaching and directing, so I am constantly sharing, developing, and working on new ideas. I am the artistic director and founder of the Rhythm One Company. I have developed a performance technique called the Rhythm Form and teach it at the CEC building on 3500 Lancaster Ave in Philadelphia, PA to children and adults. I am also working on developing a reality show where I work with young people in failing school teaching writing and documentary film making. The documentary can be seen on Youtube under My Block is Crazy by Ozzie Jones. But since Honey Boo Boo is on the learning channel I am sure you can all understand that selling the show is rough going . Difficult, but not impossible. So I guess the best way to follow my work is to contact me at [email protected] and I’ll let ya know everything that’s happening and coming up. Peace, power, soul! Ozzie Jones
Arena Stage's Cradle Series - African Continuum Theatre's Fresh Flavas Festival
On Saturday, November 10, 2012, as part of Arena Stage's Cradle Series, African Continuum Theatre will present readings of two exciting new works as part of the Fresh Flavas Festival: Without Trace by Eric Lockley at 2:00pm and Kind of Blue by Ozzie Jones at 4:00pm. This event is free and open to the public. There is a $5 suggested donation. Click here to learn more.