5 Questions for Keen Teens 2012 Writer, Janine Nabers

Janine Nabers is one busy playwright.   She is  a member of The MCC Playwrights Coalition, Ars Nova Play Group and the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group.  Her most recent honors include a P73 fellowship, Sundance residency and being named a 2012 Keen Teens writer.

What are you up to right now, besides being a new 2012 Keen Teen Writer?

Well, I just started my fellowship program at Juilliard where I'm studying playwriting for two years (once a week) with Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman.  Being in the room with them has been really amazing.  In December I had a workshop of Welcome to Jesus that I'm currently re-writing.  And I'm hoping to finish my commission for Playwrights Horizons this spring/summer.  I'm also working on a couple of musicals with my wonderful composer/lyricist, Sharon Kenny.  We're hoping to develop our musical, A Beautiful Something, this summer. We started working on it last summer at Williamstown, and it was the most amazing place.  We work really well together.  Sharon is just the best thing that's happened to me in a very long time.

What's the difference when you write adult characters vs. adolescent characters?  

I just find young characters to be so much more free and dangerous.  I love writing bold characters of all ages,  but I have so much fun writing teenagers/20-year-olds.  It's the only time I really feel funny.  Teenagers are so complicated and unpredictable.  They are so incredibly passionate about every single thing they do, and that is what makes me love writing them.  I love examining the minds of teenagers and their relationship to each other/the world.

Who inspired you in high school?

I was a pretty eclectic kid.  I was a track runner who wrote poetry and went to an all white private school, until I begged my parents to let me go to a predominately black public school... so I was inspired by a lot of random things: Alex Haley, Radiohead and Smashing Pumpkins, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Tupac, My So Called Life.  The weekends I spent with my family in Louisiana, my best friends, the WNBA, and old films.  One of my favorite things in the world was watching really old films with my parents.

Do you have any tips for aspiring high school playwrights?

I think it's important to write from the heart and really let your emotions just live in what they are.  Are you mad?  Write about it.  Are you in love with your friend?  Write about it.  I used to write my friends/boyfriends/parents letters when I was in high school/college, too shy, or scared, or goofy to say something to their face.  I was far more eloquent in the letters/poems/plays I wrote than I was in person for a really long time.  I honestly think writing those letters to whomever helped me find my voice.  And it helped me be brave.  I can honestly say that my plays today are very brave.

Just for fun, did you ever act in or write a play in high school?

I DID act in high school. I was a good actress, and left high school as the only actress in my class who got into acting school in New York.  I didn't write my first play until I was 19.   I occasionally wrote comedy sketches and short stories/poetry, but that was it.  Looking back I would love to go back and write a play at 16.  Oooof.  That play would be cra-zy.