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Stagecraft: Michael Griffo on “Pen Pals”
00:21:47
The Stagecraft podcast is hosted by Jan Simpson. It is a series of interviews with playwrights (and musical book writers) of shows opening on Broadway and off-Broadway. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@broadwayradio.
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- [00:07]
Jan Simpson
Every play, every musical begins with some writer putting words on a page. Hello, and welcome to Stagecraft, the Broadway radio podcast that talks to playwrights and musical book writers about the shows they've created. My name is Jan Simpson. My guest this week is Michael Griffo, the author of Pen Pals, a two hander charting the changes in women's lives over the last half of the 20th century. Told through letters and by a rotating cast of actors, it is currently running through February 9th at the Theater at Saint Clements in partnership with the breast cancer organization. Susan G. Komen. Hello, Michael Griffo. Welcome to Stagecraft.
- [01:01]
Michael Griffo
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
- [01:04]
Jan Simpson
We start these conversations with a brief description of what the play is about. So could you tell listeners who haven't yet had a chance to see Pen Pals what it's about?
- [01:18]
Michael Griffo
Absolutely. So Pen Pals is inspired by. By my mother's real life pen pal relationship with her pen pal Sheila that she had remarkably from the time she was 14 until 77 when she passed away. And I just thought it was amazing. And I remember growing up and it was always Sheila from Sheffield, Sheila from Sheffield, my pen pal. And I thought it was just this wonderful premise, this wonderful connection that these two women had. And the older I got, the more I realized, nobody does this. Like, people don't have pen pals anymore. It's a lost art. So what I did was I said, I'm going to write a play. I had access to Sheila's letters that she had sent my mother, the later ones. And I started reading, and I just really did feel like I was violating their privacy, even though by, by that time, you know, they weren't really sharing their souls to each other. It was more of a litany of things that were happening and, and references to things that I didn't about, because they were talking about names and stuff that they knew, but I didn't know who they were. And the interesting thing is you got to remember my mother was born in 31. So this is like 1944, 1945, when, when they were kids, Sheila's penmanship was so beautiful. It was like art. And because, you know, the letters got a little smudged, I couldn't read some of them. It was really hard to read because they had this gorgeous penmanship. So I used their relationship as a springboard. You know, Sheila is from Sheffield, so I put one of the characters in Sheffield. So the Pen Pals play is about two women, Bernie and Mags, Bernadette and Margaret Bernadette is from New Jersey, Margaret's from Sheffield, and they become pen pals. And there are a few specific things that I lifted from my mother's life. I remember she told me that she was not supposed to be pen pals with Sheila, that she picked a boy, and her friend, a boy in the class, picked a girl, and he's like, I don't want to write to a girl. So they switched, which is really kind of funny. And there are very few things that I really know about Sheila's life, but I just didn't want to put them in because I honestly, I've lost contact with her because I suspect she may have passed away. After my mother passed, I sent some Christmas cards to Sheila, but I haven't gotten one in about two years.
- [03:58]
Jan Simpson
When did your mom pass?
- [04:00]
Michael Griffo
2009. 2009. And so, interestingly as well, the other thing that I lifted was my mother. They never met each other. They spoke once on the phone, but they never met each other. And I said, oh, this can't be. So I took my mother as I bought her a trip as a Christmas gift back in. It was 2001, right before. It was before 9, 11. So it was about March 2001, we went. And I remember I had to call Sheila to make sure they were going to be there before I bought the ticket. And I remember I said, hi, Sheila, this is Michael Griffo, Jean's son. She's not dead because why else would I be calling? Yes, yes, as well. And it was delightful. She was thrilled. We went over there. We went to London. We took the train up to Sheffield. And it truly was like out of a movie. We were pulling into the station. We see Sheila and her daughter on the platform. They're waving and smiling. It was lovely. They took us to the Red Raven Pub, which I stealed. I stole that name and I put that name in the. In the play. We. We stayed over and it was great. It was really just lovely. So that's in a very long winded way to tell you the inspiration came from real life events. So I like to say that Pen Pals is inspired by my mother's real life pen pal relationship, but not based on it.
- [05:29]
Jan Simpson
And so, just like in the play, this was originally a school assignment where people here in the US and people in England wrote to one another.
- [05:41]
Michael Griffo
Correct? Correct. And I don't know if they do it now, but they did it when I was in high school. I had a pen pal in France for about five years. And, you know, like Most relationships, they sizzle away, especially before the Internet, before email nowadays. Honestly, I, I honestly don't know if they, if they do. And I think there probably are some older teachers who might try to suggest it, you know, if there's a language club or an international club of any. But you can just text people now. So, like I said, it's a lost art. People don't do this.
- [06:19]
Jan Simpson
How did you settle on the characters of Bernie and Mags? Because although they were inspired by your mom and her friend Sheila, I'm assuming they're a little bit different, except for the fact that one's American, one's British.
- [06:40]
Michael Griffo
Right, Right. Bernie is very much like my mother in her personality and tone of voice. Very straightforward, very much. You have a problem, fix it. Very talkative, very communicative. She was an only child, so. And her father, her mother was divorced. And back then in 1934. Right. Nobody got divorced. Nobody got divorced. They may have lived apart, but nobody got divorced. So my mother kind of was a little bit of an older soul, kind of, you know, she grew up a little faster. So her tone of voice, like I said, her personality, the way she views life, her thoughts about things, they are part of Bernie's character, Sheila, because I didn't really know her very well other than that one meeting.
- [07:37]
Jan Simpson
You made her very free spirited. She sort of adventured.
- [07:43]
Michael Griffo
Yes. Thank you. It's interesting she is adventurous within the confines of Sheffield because early in the rehearsal process there was our conversation of how bohemian, how hippie ish Mags is. And I said she isn't at her core because she never leaves. She has many opportunities to leave Sheffield and she chooses to stay. So she always feels, and I hesitate to say that she feels better than anyone because that's really not the truth, but she feels different. She feels a little bit like a fish out of water. But the truth of the matter is she stays. And what I wanted to do was once I knew who Bernie was, I wanted Mags to be different. So there is some sort of a conflict and it's not like two like minded souls. So I did make her a little more free spirited, a little bit less moral, shall we say, without the strict, you know, Catholic barriers that, that, that a young girl in the 40s and 50s who went to Catholic school and had a Catholic family would have. Mags didn't have that. Mags is also an artist. She's a little bit more intellectual. She reads, she. She's artistic, she sees the world through a different lens. And what I wanted to do with that was to show that these two women who are very different and probably if they were in the same city, would not be friends, play charts this.
- [09:13]
Jan Simpson
Intimate friendship between these two women. But it also is a survey of the lives of women over a 50 year period. And I was wondering how you settled on which events, which sort of social developments to settle on. I mean, you have the rise of the Beatles, you have issues of abortion, the acceptance of gay people. How did you settle on which stories to tell over this 50 year period?
- [09:52]
Michael Griffo
When I first wrote it, it was a two act play, so it was much longer. It went on too long for, for what it is. So I had to cut a few things out. And the way I wrote it was that it was going to be very, very simple. You could have a lot of production values, you could have projections of the flashing of time, you could have video. But at its core, if the play is going to work, it needs to be two women sitting in their own spaces reading the letters that they wrote to each other over the course of the 50 year lifetime. So they age in front of your eyes with no makeup, change of costume, no hairstyles. I say it's the challenge and the gift of the play, or the gift and the challenge. Maybe start with the good one for the actresses to, to age from 14 to about 60 plus with no help whatsoever other than the words and what they have, you know, what they can bring their, their own talent, their own emotions. So having said that, there were some specific beats that we wanted to play and through the rehearsal period we took a few out. And it's interesting because we didn't have a very long preview period. So I've been watching the play and thinking, hot. Is there anything that I need to put back in? We had mention of jfk. What I wanted to do was because those are touchstones for everybody in America, right, or the world quite frankly. You all know where you were at 9, 11, you all know where you were when Kennedy was assassinated. You all know where you were when we landed on the moon. Those types of very specific things. And I think it helps while you're listening, you're, you know, listening to these women as they're growing. It helps. Oh yeah. Now I know exactly where we are because they say the dates of the letters. But you know, quite frankly, we don't say every letter because it gets a little redundant. And, and sometimes when an audience hears 1959, 1962, 1970, they kind of, it goes in one ear and out the other. So we wanted to make sure that there were some touchstones, like she mentions Bobby Darren. We talk about Rock Hudson, we talk about Natal. Would they, they, they do things like that, that connect to the audience on an emotional level, but also a chronological level. As far as the, the other issues, you know, breast cancer, abortion, gay rights. I just thought that they were important to touch upon because then we see how these women look at these issues. What is their point of view, how do they react to them? And that tells us even more about who they are and how their relationship evolves based upon maybe their differing opinions about an issue. So I thought that was really important to be there. And, and it plays out really well. It resonates with the audience, I have to say, more than I thought it would.
- [12:47]
Jan Simpson
One of the things I think people may think about when they hear about your play is the play Love Letters. I was wondering, did that have any influence on you in terms of structure? Did you think about it at all?
- [13:09]
Michael Griffo
I absolutely did. There's no getting around it. I mean, it's one of those, they call them the epistolary plays. A play of letters which, like, what is it, 84 charing, crossroad love letters. And I'm sure there are others that I'm Daddy Long Legs maybe is a similar one.
- [13:24]
Jan Simpson
Yes.
- [13:24]
Michael Griffo
But you know, it's, it's, it's a really, it's a novel device. It's a very interesting device. And again, the other challenge is that you're not, you're, you're speaking, but you're not speaking to anyone. They don't look at each other because they're in separate worlds. So that's another challenge that they have. And what I purposefully did was you don't read the. We're not seeing the full letter of every single letter that they wrote because it's just too much. Sometimes we're seeing snippets and sometimes I've cut those snippets. So it's almost like a dialogue. They almost overlap. Even though they're not looking at each other. You get the feel and the rhythm that they're speaking to each other. So, so I, I love all those plays. And what we do here is we set up a device at the very top where Mags as Mags in the present day is reading the letter that Bernie gave her. And then we hear a school bell ring and we're immediately in the past and Bernie as a 14 year old girl reads the letter that she wrote as if she's writing it for the first time. So I Think it's really, I think it's fun, I think it's unique and I. It really does give the actors this great acting challenge of, all right, I'm 14, you know, and in an hour I'm going to be 50, so let's see where we go. And I also think it gives the audience a little bit more intimacy. Suzanne Barabbas, the director, had a really great idea during rehearsal when we were at New Jersey Rep down Long Branch. She had the actors write like take a pencil and as if they're writing part of the letter. You know, if it's just the PS or the D or whatever. And it's again, that's another layer of, oh, they're actually writing it at the moment and they're thinking about what they're writing. It really makes it more intimate and more immediate, even though it all takes place in the past.
- [15:27]
Jan Simpson
You've also structured this so that there's going to be a rotating cast of actors. Was that from your initial conception or did that develop as well as you were rehearsing and, and developing the play?
- [15:46]
Michael Griffo
That always was the main idea from the very beginning, I always thought that this play, because of the very simple production values and because they are reading the letters they're reading in love letters, you read those letters. In pen pals, you're doing the same thing. Now, of course, you want to memorize as much as possible so you can have eye contact with the audience and you can look up and you can actually act and perform. But at the, at its core, you are reading the letters. So it's not that crazy an idea to think two new actresses can come in every week or every two weeks or something with a minimal rehearsal. Because the staging is minimal. You know, they move around, but it's flexible enough where each set of actors can move at another point, you know, if they feel compelled. You know, I want to sit here, but I think over here I want to move. There's not very far move. So we're not, we're not at the Winter Garden, so it's not like they could do much and you can't cross into the other person's space. You know, you always have to be in your own contained space, so there's liberties you can take. We're at the point now where we're going into rehearsal with Katherine Curtin and Sharon Lawrence, which I just think it's amazing. First of all, I can't believe that Johanna Day two time Tony nominated actress and Nancy McKeon, a TV icon from Facts of life are in my play. That's like number one. So kind of haven't gotten over that. And now I look at the list of these other women, you know, Caper and Neil Vardalos, it's. It's. I'm like, they want to be in my play. So I am over the moon of it all.
- [17:28]
Jan Simpson
I think this play is going to have a very long life because it's really a gift to. To actresses and particularly to older actresses. And I. I can see it just being done across the country.
- [17:47]
Michael Griffo
Well, as my mother would say, from your mouth to God's ear, let's make it happen. But thank you for that. I appreciate it. Anyone who's created anything, when you're so close to it, you know, it's really hard to judge, but seeing the audience's reactions, you know, we. We partnered with Susan G. Komen and, and the women who have cancer survivors, some of them going through chemo as they're seeing the play, you know. You know, the play isn't all about that, but it is an important part at one point, and I am so proud of it because they basically told me that the play captures a part of their life and what they're going through and the emotions that they're going through. So I like to say, you know, these women don't cure cancer. They haven't invented anything. They're very ordinary women. Yes, but they're related relationship. Their relationship is extraordinary. And I think that's what makes it so relatable. You see yourself in these women.
- [18:50]
Jan Simpson
Well, I was going to say, I think it is very relatable for women. But at the performance I attended, I was sitting in front of a guy and behind a guy, and I have to say, they were laughing the hardest at. At your. At your.
- [19:10]
Michael Griffo
They were probably laughing at Joey. Poor Joey. I've had to. I had to soften him up a little bit.
- [19:17]
Jan Simpson
He was.
- [19:17]
Michael Griffo
At once I looked at it like, oh, why'd she marry him? But, oh, but he's a. He is who he is. And when she says at the end, he was my husband and I chose him, those are the words right out of my mother's mouth. And the women of her age, that is what they felt, though. That is exactly the way they looked at life. And it kind of gives me chills, actually, because it is such a truth. But I love to say I make grown men cry because, you know, I sit in the audience and I, you know, nobody knows who I am. And there are men crying, reaching for the Kleenex to suck the women. And I'm like, yes, yes. I cry almost every single time I see it. And I'm like, my God, come on. I can recite practically the whole thing. And it's just something. Because it. It really is a slow build. It, It, It. You know, it starts out. We don't really know what's going on. You know, they're young kids, so they're kind of funny, but nothing dramatic is happening. You know, it's dramatic to them. You know, what, boy you gonna kiss? You know, we got the prom and all that stuff, but then sort of out of nowhere, these things happen to them just like they happen in life unexpectedly. And before you know it, you're like, oh, my God. Oh. You know, you hear that in the audience. You hear the gasps and the. And the sniffles and the quiet. You always know when you have an audience when it's quiet. Yeah. And it's really great. It's wonderful.
- [20:47]
Jan Simpson
It is, it is. And thank you for taking some time to share your thoughts with us.
- [20:55]
Michael Griffo
My pleasure.
- [20:56]
Jan Simpson
About it and continued success with it.
- [21:01]
Michael Griffo
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And to all the listeners, come bring your tissues. I seriously tried to get them to have a marketing of, like, get regular Kleenex and put a pen pal sticker on it, like, sell them in the lobby. Come on. But I guess we couldn't do that. But definitely bring. Bring some Kleenex.
- [21:23]
Jan Simpson
Absolutely. It can get you. It can get you. Again, thanks a lot.
- [21:28]
Michael Griffo
Thank you so much. And.
- [21:30]
Jan Simpson
And thank you for joining us. We hope you'll come back next time and that you'll listen to all the other Broadway radio podcasts, which you can find on broadwayradio.com.