Each semester, we have the honor of profiling some of the incredible professional artists involved in our TDM productions. Our next artist spotlight this spring shines on Jay Stull! Jay is the playwright for the spring TDM production, The Singularity Play. Check out more of Jay’s work at www.jaystull.com.

What inspires you as an artist and creative?

I'm inspired by collaboration: performers; a director's perspective; the patience and organizational logic of the stage manager and technical director. Designers. Discovery. Failure; I think I'm comfortable enough with failure these days to be inspired by it. Theory + philosophy. Ingenuity. Spectacle. Very difficult texts. A thing I don't yet know how to do or make. 

What excites you about The Singularity Play?

I'm excited by the hard problem of consciousness and how the questions that unspool from it intersect with theater and performance. 

What has it been like collaborating with the team on this project?

I was a little wary to give this admittedly difficult play over to students; I worried about the task being too large, too much. But my wariness and worry was unjustified. What these performers and this director (to say nothing of the extraordinary design and production team) have been able to do so far has been nothing short of thrilling. 

What projects are you working on next?

I am working with Keenan and the playwright Johnny Lloyd on a play about James Baldwin, Marlon Brando, and Giovanni's Room called baldwin[GIOVANNI]brando. I'm also working out some of my thoughts on social movements, imagination, and devised theater in a new play I'm writing called My Utopias.