Tara Dairman always knew she wanted to be a writer. She just never knew what avenue of writing she wanted to pursue.
“I wrote some fiction and some short stories, but I never thought about being a playwright,” said Dairman, who has called Weehawken home for the last two years.
Then, as a freshman at Dartmouth College, Dairman decided to take a class in writing plays. It just happened that the guest instructor that semester was the legendary playwright August Wilson. “I guess it was my lucky break,” Dairman said. “To be eligible for his class, you had to submit a short story and I was selected. At first, I knew very little about him, except that he had plays done on Broadway. I have to say I was a little unfamiliar with his work.”
Wilson, who died in 2005 after a battle with liver cancer, is the most successful African-American playwright in history. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for drama (Fences and The Piano Lesson), Wilson was nominated for a Tony Award seven times for best play and won once for Fences in 1985. Some of his other famous works are Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Radio Golf, which is currently being performed on Broadway in a theater that now bears August Wilson’s name.
Learning from the master
“I have to say I was very intimidated learning play writing from August Wilson,” Dairman said. “I have to say I was so intimidated that I only went to his office to speak to him once. He sometimes read to us from his plays. As I learned more about his work, I became more interested and I think I learned a lot from his play cycles and his character development.”
Dairman said that she remembered the last piece of advice she received from the immortal playwright.
“He told me that I had potential,” Dairman said. “At least he didn’t say I was awful.”
Dairman said that she turned her focus toward play writing after that fateful semester with Wilson.
“I did a lot writing after that,” Dairman said. “August Wilson was very inspiring to me, because his life told me that I had to keep trying. Even when you think you’ve written five things in a row that you think are crap, the next idea might really be a good one. He had to struggle for a long time before he was widely accepted. I know his history. I know how he had to persevere. It’s very inspirational. I kept coming up with new stuff. I think it was a combination of being truly inspired and his freedom to share his own story with us. It was very helpful to have had him as a teacher.”
Honing her skills
After that one semester, Dairman didn’t dare take another play writing class during her days at the New Hampshire Ivy League institution.
As a junior, Dairman submitted an entry for a competition of one-act plays.
“They chose three from the entire school and mine was one of the three,” Dairman said. “That was very exciting.”
After graduation from Dartmouth, Dairman won a fellowship to study for a year in Dublin.
“The classes were very interesting in Ireland,” Dairman said. “Plus, I got to go to the theater all the time. The playwrights in Ireland are immensely talented and they have a tremendous reputation. It really was an important year for me there.”
Dairman said that she always dabbled at writing plays while juggling a career as an editor for a New York-based health magazine.
Dairman wrote a few short plays, like The Question House, a play where all the characters speak only in questions, and The Wedding Cake, which was a finalist in the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s 10-Minute Play Contest that went nationwide.
Fringe festival
But now, the 27-year-old Dairman has branched out into the world of full-length plays. Her first full-length work, entitled PB&J, will be featured as part of the upcoming New York International Fringe Festival. The play is a dark comedy with a sordid twist, featuring two sisters from Vermont who make the best peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the state. There’s only one difference. The secret ingredient in the sandwiches is not exactly peanut butter, but rather the male sex organ.
A radio host who is especially well-endowed (with the appropriate name of Dick Longfellow) comes to interview the sisters, but it is not known whether he will uncover the secret or become the sisters’ latest victim. The Soho Theatre of London reviewed the play and called it “a witty, engaging piece of theatre,” and was named by Playbill as “an eye-catching show.”
So how does an Irish girl with an Ivy League education end up writing about the male organ being in sandwiches?
“You’re not the first to ask that,” Dairman said to the interviewer. “I tend to write about the absurd. Since studying with August Wilson, I’ve been developing more characters like escaped convicts. So this one, I’m just putting the idea out there and see what the reaction is. So far, it’s been positive. People have laughed a lot. That’s a good sign. And they didn’t stop laughing until the end.”
The play started rehearsals last week. It will be performed five times during the Fringe Festival August 10-26. “I’m incredibly excited,” Dairman said. “My parents and sister came to a reading and they didn’t know what it was going to be about. I expected them all to be shocked, but they laughed and enjoyed it.” Dairman said the next challenge is raising money so the play can be produced.
“I’m very fortunate to get it into the Fringe Festival,” Dairman said. “That’s a good first step. We just have to see what happens.”
Weehawken playwright Tara Dairman’s first full-length play, called PB&J, will be performed as part of the New York International Fringe Festival – FringeNYC, from August 10-26, Tickets are priced at $15. For tickets visit www.FringeNYC.org or call (212) 279-4488 or toll free at (888) FringeNYC.
For more information, please visit www.pbandjtheplay.com.
Jim Hague can be reached via e-mail at either OGSMAR@aol.com or jhague@hudsonreporter.com