What character do you play?
I'm fortunate to embody the character of Jamie. It seems that her place in this story is to say aloud what others think quietly. She provides comic relief while also expressing realities that many people can relate to. Also, she's fun.

What do you think you will find challenging about playing Jamie?
At a basic level, Jamie's physicality is much different from my own. It's incredible what posture and gait will do for character development. Emotionally, Jamie is a challenge due to how weighted she is with life and negativity.

What is this play about?
American Hero is a story of people trying to survive: Not in an apocalyptic manner, more so in the way we are all trying; as people with hopes, dreams and lots of responsibility. The humor and slight social commentary from the playwright are what I enjoy  most in this show. 

Anything you want the audience to leave thinking about?
Kindness. Be kind to the people you interact with at every day places such as the deli, gas station, grocery store, etc. They are providing you a service in a place where they have little control. A compliment and smile can go a long way.
 
What's the worst job you ever had?
Being a Waitress in a chain restaurant. There is such a lack of creativity and flexibility that just feeds the machine of corporate greed.

What is the worst job you've ever had?
I worked as a busboy/bar-back/dishwasher for a dive bar in Chicago, right out of college. It was the only job I could get that would allow me to take improv classes during the day and further my passion. I was told going in that I would just be the bar-back and restock the bar during service, but found out the day I started that I was also bussing tables and washing dishes. The customers treated the place like their personal dumpster, and the owners were never around. My manager Sherry made things bearable at times, but usually she was in the back room trying to get the owners on the phone to take care of some "VIP" patrons who would show up regularly on Wednesdays searching for them. During a typical evening, I would have beer bottles thrown at me, people would hock loogies onto a plate I was clearing, or trip me when I was loaded down with bottles, or glasses. A real gem of an establishment. The day I quit, I walked in and the owners and my manager were being led out by Chicago PD on charges of money laundering and racketeering, so I guess I can say I was employed by the Russian Mob for a very short period. The experience never turned me off from working in the service industry, but I made sure I met the owners and did my research on potential sites after that. Still, that was not the weirdest job I have had. I can tell you about that one another time, should curiosity take you.

What characters do you play?
I play 4 different characters. Bob, the franchise manager, Customer, a hungry patron of the store, Gregory, the corporate representative sent to check in on our protagonists, and Sandwich, a literal hero in every shape and form. Each of these characters help to add flavor to the zany world of American Hero while presenting challenges to Sheri, Jamie, and Ted that they are ill prepared to handle. Each character holds the mirror up to the other characters, showing their development as they fight back against a system that has failed them. Even Gregory, the corporate schill, provides them with opportunities to grow, even though he is touting the company line.

What do you think you will find challenging about playing these roles?
The biggest challenge for me will be creating 4 different arcs, one for each character, in a short amount of time. Usually within a play an actor can live with them and spend the entirety of a play exploring the path their character takes to growth or discovery. In this production, I have the challenge of walking 4 paths and having maybe 1 or 2 scenes to develop these distinct voices and mannerisms to inhabit the world of American Hero. Also switching from the character of Bob, who is described by the playwright as having an indecipherable accent, is both freeing (so I don't feel boxed in to one single accent) and daunting because I still need his lines to be understood by our audience.

What is this play about?
American Hero is a satirical view into life in the corporate structure and how fragile that facade truly is. It is also a story of perseverance over institutional obstacles that are meant to keep the worker stuck in a low paying, high stress structure. It's also a look at the modern culture of desperation for the thing that fuels the world: money. I love the pace of the dialogue and the distinct characters who remind me of when I worked in food service a little too well. I feel that the play begins with a clear thought on Corporate America and the ills it brings, but backs down from its critique quite quickly to serve the satire instead of the characters. However that turn is still extremely entertaining and will not disappoint.

Anything you want the audience to leave feeling and/or thinking about?
I would love our audience to come away with a respect for those who struggle in the service industry. Having worked in it, this play speaks to quite a few issues that arose to do with customer respect and individual effort recognition. I want the audience to know that those employees that put your food together are people too, with experiences, loves, and mistakes just like all people. Truly though, I just want them to laugh and leave the theater remembering that all aspects of life are truly comedic, because with all the darkness in this world, we all need to laugh in its face to truly stay sane.

What is your favorite line in AMERICAN HERO?
My favorite line is one of Jamie's. " Don't you get it? We've been abandoned! There's only one set of footprints!"

What character do you play?
Ted, Ted Cranston. Ted represents men of a particular generation and place. At home and in the office, they find themselves often struggling to prove that they matter in a world they no longer exclusively run or comprehend.
 
What do you think you will find challenging about playing your role?
 It often feels like a yawning chasm between Ted's sense of self-worth and evolving new reality. The challenge is to flesh out the humanity and heart that beats at the character's core.
 
What is this play about? What do you like most about the play? What do you like least? 
My take on AMERICAN HERO is that it is an economic "folk-song" that contains frustration, comedy, and self-discovery in equal parts. These human characteristics are especially relevant in this age and time where uniformity and profit are often valued over creativity and inspiration. What I really enjoy about the play is its compassionate, ironic, biting sense of humor, which perfectly encapsulates the spirit of the American worker who battles valiantly each day to stay afloat in our current economic uncertainty. Does AMERICAN HERO flirt occasionally with a patronizing attitude towards its characters, their situational challenges, their sympathies and empathies toward the world at large as well as with each other? Perhaps. But it is the play's ability to penetrate through this and assess its characters strengths that shines through.
 
Anything you want the audience to leave feeling and/or thinking about? 
Yes. That they are able to leave with an upbeat, reflective, response to the inherent desperation that exists in a post-recession world; a reassurance that they, the audience, and their equivalents in AMERICAN HERO, still matter and have a place in this world.
 
What is your favorite line in AMERICAN HERO? 
"Do you mean here, like, on this planet? Or here, like, in this sub shop?"
 
What is the worst job you have ever had?
Among the most memorable would have been emptying, rinsing out, and disposing of the remnants of large containers of various toxic-chemical ingredients for a well-known, well-regarded Company. A tiny cog in a very large technological-corporate entity.

What inspired you to write this play?

The play was actually inspired by a couple of different true stories [about sandwich franchises] that I read in the media. And then I sort of morphed them, and put them through the weird sieve of my twisted brain, and added a life-size sandwich. And then it became a play! It also came from my looking at what’s going on in the economy and what’s going on in the world, and the state of our culture—and wanting to respond.

What is the worst job you’ve ever had?

I’ve had a lot of really bad jobs. I would say the worst one was being a waitress in a Tex-Mex restaurant. Just a lot of greasy Mexican food. I gained like, no kidding, about fifteen pounds because I ate so many nachos all the time. And I also was a terrible waitress. I was always forgetting people’s orders, and then I would have to give them free dessert because their order had gotten messed up. So I had a lot of angry customers and angry management. And on the day that I was supposed to leave anyway—because it was a summer job, I had to go home—they fired me on my last day, just to make a point. Because I was that bad. I was like, “I’m leaving anyway! You don’t have to fire me!” They were like: “In case you thought you would have been allowed to stay on… It’s over.” Yeah. I ate so many nachos. So many nachos.

How did you get started as a playwright?

My start in playwriting actually came when I was getting an MFA in acting at Yale School of Drama. I had all these actor friends, and I wanted to write plays for them. So the first play that I wrote was for five of my classmates in acting school. And we got to do it in this little space where you could put up your own thing, and I was like, “This is kind of cooler than the thing that I’m in school for.” So that was the moment that really opened my eyes. And then I just kind of kept doing it from there, and writing parts for my friends. It’s fun to have an acting background and be a playwright, because I find myself really inspired by actors and by acting. I love watching their process. I feel like a lot of what drives me as a playwright is trying to create roles that are fun for actors and make them a little playground to play in.

What are the ingredients in your favorite sandwich?

I like anything with some melted cheese. I think my favorite sandwich is just a classic grilled cheese. In fact, grilled cheese is my biggest skill, to quote Sheri from the play. I put the butter on the bread, and then cheese in between. I use a multi-grain bread, and then I use a sharp cheddar. And then the butter’s on the outside. And then I perfectly calibrate the heat so it gets really gooey on the inside, while at the same time it’s really salty and crunchy on the outside. (It has to be a salted butter.) And it’s amazing. I can’t even make it for people because its power is so intense that it’s not fair. If I make it for anyone, they’re just under my spell. So I use that power very, very, very carefully.

Originally printed in Second Stage Theatre's blog June 2014.