Playwright Spotlight: Tim Kochenderfer

The very funny Tim Kochenderfer is a playwright, comedy writer, and television producer. His plays have been performed across the United States and around the world. A graduate of Michigan State University, Mr. Kochenderfer's work is featured in The Best Stage Scenes of 2006 (Smith & Kraus), Cracked Magazine, various newspapers, and he is a producer for WXYZ, the ABC affiliate in Detroit.

How did you start writing?

I guess you could say I started writing write from the womb.  I remember right after delivery I motioned to the nurses for a pen and a pad of paper.  “B+ doctor,” I scribbled.  “That was a good delivery, but it needs improvement.”  He immediately grabbed me, flipped me upside down and smacked me right across the butt. I was terrified to write from that moment on, or provide constructive criticism for that matter.

Eventually I conquered my fears and by age 18 I had mastered most of the alphabet.  By college I could brag that I knew well over 100 words. I began writing skits in high school and videotaping them with a group of friends.  Because I only had 90% of the alphabet mastered, some of the words didn’t make any sense but people got the point.

In college I had a creative writing assignment to write a story based off of the following line, “My uncle drinks like a fish….”  I carried on with, “over time I noticed my uncle also eats like a fish.  Eventually I noticed other things, like flippers, gills and a tail.  Finally, I realized my uncle was a fish.”  This would eventually become my play, The Fish Story, A Young Man’s Search For The Truth published by Playscripts, Inc..  I also wrote my first play, Canned Hamlet in college, a spoof of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (title inspired by David Letterman and canned meats.)

What inspires you to write?

The fact that I don’t always like what I read.  Like Shakespeare for example.  That guy thinks he’s so great.  Well if he’s so great, he would have noticed his glaring lack of vampires and mob bosses in Romeo & Juliet. I took the liberty of adding them in my play Romeo, You Idiot. Also, killing off the main characters?  Please.  I had them escape that fate and then I killed everybody  in the play. And Macbeth? Didn’t Shakespeare realize this play would have been better set in a Southern American fast food chain. That’s what I did in my play, Old Macbeth had a Farm. And Othello should have been set in a boy band, that’s all I’m saying.   I’m sure he’d give the lame excuse that no such organization existed at the time of his writing.  Whatever.

Did you write or act in plays in high school?

I had a creative writing class in which the assignment was to write a series of comedy skits. This was in the mid-90’s, a time in which if you wanted something printed you had to wait 3-10 days next to an excruciatingly loud dot-matrix printer. Valuing my time and hearing, I hand wrote my book of sketches.  My assignment was marked down to a B for penmanship!  What does penmanship have to do with creative writing?! I wrote my teacher a terse letter complaining about the injustice, but she couldn’t read it.

I also acted in a play in which I played Gepetto.  For some reason, my character was forced to wear tights.  This traumatized me, although I would have to say that it made my legs look sleek.

What's the best piece of advice you've ever gotten in regards to your writing?

Don’t write while running away from an angry grizzly bear.  ONLY focus on escaping from the bear.  I mean this literally.  There is no deeper meaning to it.

The other best piece of advice I’ve gotten was that the next line, the rest of the story, the answer to your problem is out there, you just have to devote the time and energy to find it.

What advice would you give high school students  in one of your plays?

My first piece of advice has to do with comedic acting.  My personal theory is that comedy is most effective when acted as a drama.  Many directors may disagree with me about this, but comedy is a balance of realism and exaggeration. I would argue the more exaggerated the script, the more realism you add to the acting, the more hilarious it is.  Consider the movie Airplane.  Leslie Nielson is the perfect comedic actor in this film.  When someone says to him, “Surely you can’t be serious?” He responds, “I am serious, and stop calling me Shirley!” He delivers that line with offense and anger, as one would in a drama, and it is hilarious because you believe he actually believes he’s being called ‘Shirley.’  Consider too, how ineffective this line would have been if he would have goofily replied, “Stop calling me Shirley.”

I would also advise to really think and pay attention to the lines you’re delivering and how you’re delivering them.  Sure you need to project and you want inflection, but don’t let that get in the way of believability.

Are you working on anything now?

I just finished a very short play titled If Bob Cratchit Was A Kiss-Up. It’s a quick retelling of how A Christmas Carol would have been dramatically different if Bob Cratchit was a sycophant.