Feature: BEFORE THE INK DRIES at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Presented a Delightfully Candid Conversation with David Henry Hwang & Rajiv Joseph

Back when Giovanna Sardelli was first planning TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s 20th Anniversary New Works Festival, she had not yet been appointed the company’s new Artistic Director and was still acting in her former capacity as Director of New Works. Even so, she was determined to come up with something special to mark the two-decade milestone that would also double as a much-needed fundraiser. So what did she do? She reached out to two of America's most ambitiously creative and frequently-produced contemporary playwrights, David Henry Hwang and Rajiv Joseph, who readily agreed to help. On August 11th, TheatreWorks hosted a kickoff event for the New Works Festival called Before the Ink Dries. A special dinner was followed by an onstage conversation at the Lucie Stern Theatre in Palo Alto where the two playwrights shared fascinating insights into their careers and process.

As Sardelli was conceiving of the event, she immediately thought of approaching Joseph (King James, Archduke, Describe the Night, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo). When I spoke to her recently, she explained, “Rajiv is one of my dearest friends, he’s like a brother. I met TheatreWorks because of Rajiv when he brought me here in 2009 to direct his The North Pool in the New Works Festival, and he was also part of my first Festival after I became Director of New Works. He’s the reason I know the company so for me to do a milestone event without Rajiv would have been just too weird.”

Once she had Joseph on board, Sardelli’s next thought was “Well, he won’t be happy alone up on that stage.” And that’s when decided to ask Hwang (M. Butterfly, Chinglish, Yellow Face, Soft Power). She was aware that he and Joseph had been leading the Lark Playwrights Development Center at New York’s Second Stage Theater together, plus she knew Hwang’s especially long history with TheatreWorks, including Yellow Face and two different productions of M. Butterfly.

The two men proved to be a delightful pair onstage, providing a trove of insights into their work that was both bracingly honest and just plain old fun. As Sardelli noted afterwards, “The two of them in conversation was one of my favorite things that has ever happened on our stages. It was really entertaining, informative and exactly what we wanted. They were very unfiltered and generous with our audience in a way that was incredibly moving and inspiring. They really took us through their journey.”

Although neither man is primarily known as a writer of musicals, one of the more fascinating topics they covered was the various difficulties they’ve come up against while writing one. They were both refreshingly candid about the places where they struggled to find themselves in that form. As Sardelli notes, “Rajiv has been working on a musical for many years and he walked us through what he was chasing, what he was trying to create, what they were trying to do as a team, why it didn’t work and where in his creative process he thinks he didn’t set them up for success. You could feel the playwrights in the audience going ‘Oh good, so it’s normal! I can be as confused and lost as you are and end up being a genius, too!’”

The evening included a “cupcake toast” to Hwang in celebration of his birthday. This was augmented by video greetings from various theatrical collaborators, including Obie-winning actor and longtime TheatreWorks alum Francis Jue. It was a lighthearted moment in a joyous evening for a company that, like virtually all theaters across the country, is currently experiencing significant financial hardship due to an incomplete recovery after the COVID pandemic devastated the performing arts economy. Toward that end, they recently launched a “Save TheatreWorks Now” campaign to raise $3 million to ensure the future of the Tony Award-winning company. Based on the lively buzz of the audience at Before the Ink Dries, it looks like they’re off to a promising start. And their 2023-24 season commences just six weeks from now on October 4th with Heidi Armbruster’s mysterious and sexy Mrs. Christie, directed by none other than Sardelli herself.

(all photos by Reed Flores)

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