'Boom' Writer Has Comedy Down to a Science

By Jane Horwitz
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

"If I was having a hard time with theater people, I could go have a good time watching bees," remarks playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, when asked what possessed him to do a double-major in theater and biology at Brown University.

The San Francisco-based writer-actor's play "Boom," which premiered off-Broadway in March, has taken the stage at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company through Dec. 7. The script, which he's been revising and blogs about at http://www.peternachtrieb.com, reveals Nachtrieb's multiple passions for biology, comedy and dramaturgy. (His first successful play, "Hunter Gatherers," won the 2007 Steinberg New Play Award from the American Theatre Critics Association.)

In his intimate, yet apocalyptic comedy, a nerdy grad student in biology (played by Aubrey Deeker) meets a journalism major (Kimberly Gilbert) online and invites her to his underground lab for a "date." It turns out he has other things on his mind, such as a very large comet, evolution and saving the human species. Without revealing more, let's just say it gets complicated.

Evolution has fascinated Nachtrieb, he says, since he was an intern for a marine biologist in Panama. "We went out every morning to a reef and watched fish spawn for a couple hours . . . and in the afternoon we would go out and count the number of eggs that had been laid," he says. "It was exciting." But dramatic?

Apparently. When Nachtrieb began to write "Boom" in 2005 he had evolution on his mind, but "in a personal way." He wanted to write about "the effects of fate versus randomness and their influences in our lives." Add to that a grad-school professor at San Francisco State, who challenged him to stop worrying about getting laughs and create "robust, complex, interesting psychological characters and also still be true to my voice, which is inherently comic."

So Nachtrieb took his thoughts about evolution and people and humor and science and posited a human-size scenario for a species-changing event. "There are these moments where huge changes can happen in the path of life, in the state of the world. . . . I thought that's true for people, too," he says. "We're going along in our lives and it feels very static for a while, and all of a sudden, an event will occur, or a realization that makes our life take a sharp turn . . . and dramatically, that's what interested me."

Arena's Bargain Economics

Arena Stage is announcing a "New Deal" special for theatergoers whose pocketbooks may feel lighter in the financial downturn. The idea is to keep derrieres in seats with an anticipatory offer.

From midnight Thursday to midnight Friday, the theater will offer $25 tickets for the first week's performances of each of the theater's seven remaining shows this season. That's a discount of 48 percent to 60 percent off Arena's typical single-ticket prices, which normally run from $47 to $74, Arena communications director Chad Bauman says.

Theatergoers can call the box office (202-488-3300), or visit http://www.arenastage.org and click on "buy tickets," or go to the sales office (1800 S. Bell St., Arlington).

Arena's shows have done fine so far this season (with Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" a genuine hit), Bauman says, but the company is bracing for a drop in ticket sales. "We know that when a tight economy hits . . . the first targets are discretionary spending. And we have a duty . . . to our community to make tickets available at a better price," he says, adding it's also "a good business strategy for us." He expects other area theater companies may soon follow suit.

The 24-hour super-sale has worked before. "We did a one-day-only sale last year for 'Christmas Carol 1941' and we sold $55,000 in tickets," Bauman notes.

Arena is offering the discounted seats for the opening weeks of each show because those performances are usually previews, before the show has been reviewed. "We want people to get in early to boost word of mouth," too, Bauman says.

Theater Alliance Returns

After taking several months off from producing shows, Theater Alliance is ready to announce productions for the first half of 2009 (see box).

With a $100,000 Upstart grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Artistic Director Paul Douglas Michnewicz has worked with consultants to get the financially shaky theater on firmer ground by using better practices in budgeting, development, marketing and technology.

By substituting less expensive productions to end last season, the company finished in the black. In July, Michnewicz was elevated from interim to full artistic director and took a break from production to confer with the consultants and reboot Theater Alliance's infrastructure.

He's decided to reopen Theater Alliance (which performs at H Street Playhouse) with a musical, "The Women of Tin Pan Alley," because last year's "A Nite at the Dew Drop Inn" was "a huge success for us," Michnewicz says. "I don't want to lose doing the great, artistically adventurous stuff, but we have to balance it with stuff that is appealing to a big, broad audience."

Follow Spots

· Chris Jennings has been named managing director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company. As general manager since 2004, Jennings oversaw the growth of the company's budget from $12 million to $19 million during its expansion into the Harman Center for the Arts. Jennings will now handle business and external affairs and partnerships with other arts groups.

· "Kick," a play for families about racial stereotyping and sports teams that use American Indian mascots, will run in daytime performances Friday and Saturday at the Rasmuson Theater in the National Museum of the American Indian. It is a production of Encompass, a Los Angeles group that specializes in "Compassion Plays" about diversity. Call 202-633-6644 to reserve seats.