William Mastrosimone’s plays have been produced around the world, and he has scripted feature films and worked in network and cable television for more than four decades. Born in 1947 in Trenton, New Jersey, he studied pre-med at Tulane, and, after a break in his education, earned a graduate degree in playwriting and directing from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

Mastrosimone’s many honors include the New York Outer Critics Award for Best Play of 1982–83 for Extremities and the NAACP Best Play Award for Tamer of Horses in 1988. Among his many other award-winning plays are The Afghan Women, Proud Flesh, A Stone Carver,and Cat’s-Paw. One of his most frequently produced plays, Bang Bang You’re Dead (1999), was written in the wake of three school shootings in 1997 and 1998 to be performed by students for their peers. In addition to many Emmy and Peabody awards, his screenwriting credits include the 1992 Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries for Sinatra. Several other scripts that established his career as a screenwriter are The Beast of War, With Honors, Into the West,and The Burning Season.

I met William Mastrosimone after a reading of his most recent play, The Gates of Heavenly Peace, about the lone protestor who stood firm in the path of a tank in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and he agreed to sit down and talk with me about his career.

The first two thirds of this interview appear in the print edition of NER 45.3 and focuses primarily on Mastrosimone’s early life and work. This online version contains additional detail and spans his long career.

—NGN

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NGN:
Let’s start at the beginning—with your childhood, your upbringing, and your parents—before we start talking about your long and busy career.

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I had a great childhood. Love was the coin of the realm. Emphasis was always on hard work. We were raised to believe that family is a sacred thing and we lived the Musketeer philosophy: One for all and all for one. I don’t know what there is in the world that is better than that.

I was born into an Italian family, five kids, four boys and a girl. My father was a builder and a businessman, a high school grad who excelled in math, and my mother was a homemaker. She had to quit school in the fourth grade to work babysitting jobs to support her family when her father went blind. My father died at eighty-nine; my mother lived to the age of one hundred and three. I inherited my mother’s heart and my father’s ambition and drive.

I say I had a great childhood because I kind of ran wild in the woods with all the kids in my neighborhood. We’d make crossbows and shoot blackberries at each other. We used to have eighteenth-century–type warfare with lines of soldiers approaching each other. I mention this because I wrote a piece called “The Woods” in a creative writing class at Tulane University, and it was the first thing that gained approval from a cranky old bastard. The story is now a feature film script.

When we got older, my father built a bowling alley, among many other things. We worked there and as kids—we ran it. Even when we were twelve and thirteen years old, we were dealing with adults. Sometimes we resented that we had to work when other kids went out to play. I look back on that as my school. I interacted with people from all walks of life. I love the whole experience more in retrospect than I did at the time as it gave me an abundance of interesting characters.

NGN:
You stated that the best job you had as a young man was as a grave digger. A grave digger?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I have to give you a little preview before I answer that question.

In my family aspiration was expected, and after being a star student in school, I went to Tulane University. I was caught up with the family ambitions; one brother was a stockbroker, and my two oldest brothers were doctors. I had three cousins who were doctors. So, what do you think we talked about at the Thanksgiving table? With all of that, I was pre-med in school. Like Shakespeare says in King Lear: “He hath ever but slenderly known himself.” That describes me. I did not know my own mind because I was caught up in the times. Everybody wanted to be a doctor. I took enough English courses, on Shakespeare, on novels, on poetry, but I was hard trained in biology and chemistry and mathematics.

In my third year of university I came across, in philosophy class, a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche to the effect of “A man should find in his work the joy he found as a child at play.” And I look back on my childhood and the joy that I had in playing war games in the woods. They were pretty elaborate. We would go there before dawn, and we would come home close to midnight. I had such great joy.

That made me realize that what we did in the woods was drama. We imagined characters; we had action; we had conflict. It just hit me like a brick. How could I explain to myself that the night before a big biology test, I decided to go to a play? On campus, off campus, even high school, I liked theater, whether it was good or not. I was always entertained by the idea of the soul of a character playing out on stage in a dark room before an audience.

In the spring of 1968, I was doing some real soul-searching. I said to myself, “I’m going to keep this a complete secret. I’m going to take a creative writing course.” With all the doctors in my family, a playwright in the family would be scandalous. And if I got a good grade in it, I would be more encouraged to take another step towards being a playwright.

Another story within the story is when I was in prep school I had a great teacher named Lawrence Garrett, who taught Shakespeare. We read Julius Caesar and were required to memorize all the major speeches and deliver them standing before the class. The language, the musicality, the power of words—all of it captivated my mind.

Here is another story within the story: I went to prep school because my father mistook it for a military school. I was such a bad student. I was so badly behaved that my father thought the only thing that would straighten me out was military school. So he sent me to Pennington Prep, and then what happened was, I loved it. My mind was stimulated. It was like a starving man finding a bakery.

So, I was going to take a creative writing course, but I wasn’t going to tell anybody. I only told my college roommate. He thought I was nuts. The first day of class, there are twelve kids in this room. There are only twelve places in this class. It’s a very sought-after course. You get in by grade point average. In walks a six-foot-six guy with a beard and a very severe demeanor. He is holding a piece of paper, and he says, “Is there a Bill Master—Mastersimian—in this room?”

I raised my hand. He said, “May I have a word with you in the hallway?” I went into the hallway, and he said, “Look, I have to tell you—you see that young man at the end of the hallway sitting on the bench. He wants to be a writer. But he can’t get into this class because you’re in it. And you want to be a doctor. You, you’re in pre-med. This is just like a fun class for you.” And I said, “No, that’s not the case.” But he just rode over me roughshod and said, “I’m asking you as a gentleman. Would you step aside, leave this class, and let this young man have your seat?” I said, “I can’t do that.” He didn’t want to hear me. He just walked away. And that was my relationship with him for the whole semester. It was really fraught with impoliteness, silences, and criticisms. I worked my ass off in that class. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this.

I went to my mailbox at the end of the semester. I got the little envelope to see what my grade was. And this was important, it wasn’t just a grade. I was looking for the sign from the cosmos. The cosmos said, you got a D in creative writing. I had turned in scenes from plays, poetry, scenes from novels. Anyway, I couldn’t accept the D. So, I marched across the campus, and I went to the professor’s office. And he said, “What can I do for you?” And I said, “I would like to talk to you about my grade.” He goes, “What about it?” I said, “It’s not fair.” He goes, “Well, you know it’s a subjective grade.” And I said, “I turned in more work than the whole class combined.” And he says, “Well, we don’t weigh it by the pound, Mr. Mastrosimone. It’s a subjective judgment.” I knew his snideness was purely personal based on the fact that I wouldn’t give up my seat. And I said, “Well, I think I deserve an A-plus, a D is a lie. And as long as we’re lying, let’s tell a whopper. Why don’t you change the D to an F?” He said, “Okay, I just did it.”

I tell you this story for a reason, because there’s a part of me that swims against the current all the time. It’s my nature. And it’s something I wish I didn’t have in me sometimes, and other times it makes me proud of myself. So, I left that class with a failing grade. But the story ain’t over.

A year later in the summer of 1969, I saw a movie, Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. I knew the play well and was fascinated how it translated to the screen. That was a real education; it inspired me. When fall came around, now my senior year, I again signed up for the creative writing course, not knowing I was going to get the same professor. When he walked into that room and saw me sitting there, it was worth the price of tuition. It was because it just felt like this is who I am. If you want me to go away, you have to kill me. So I took the same creative writing class again. The exact same story happened. He gave me a D. I went in, I asked him to change it to an F. When he changed it to an F, that’s when I really understood myself. I understood that the world does not advertise for writers; you become a writer by force of your will, by writing and then declaring yourself a writer. You don’t need anybody’s approval. And so the poor grades I received and asked for I wear as a “red badge of courage.”

Nietzsche says, “My formula for happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.” Achievement is a matter of one’s will.

Consequently, I quit college four months before graduation. My parents thought I was on drugs. I never, for the record, took a drug in my life. I hardly ever got drunk. Sometimes it was by accident. I just quit college and I went back to New Jersey. Because they had paid for my education, I refused to take a dime from them. I went out on my own to work. Thus, I became a grave digger.

Why was grave digging good? Because I left home with nothing, and I had to support myself. I stayed in some really awful hovels. Sometimes there was some hard bread and sometimes no bread. There were days I didn’t eat. They had machines to dig graves. They had a backhoe. But there were spaces in between plots that the machine couldn’t get to because of tombstones. So, they needed a grave digger, and it was really hard work. I worked three days, and I earned enough money to support myself for two weeks, just on those three days, and I was able to save money, too.

I spent those four days off, nursing the blisters on my hands. I was in the library reading plays, reading books, and writing. So that’s why grave digging was the best job, but it was later supplanted by another job, which was not as hard. I was a pizza maker for a much longer time than I was a grave digger. I did what I had to do to be able to do what I wanted to do; I worked three days a week. I worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights in the kitchen. Hidden from the world. I earned enough money to support my habit, writing.

NGN:
From my understanding, your first professional production was The Woolgatherer, which was produced at the Circle Repertory Company in Manhattan in 1980, after its original premiere at a theater at Rutgers University in 1979, where you were a graduate student. John Bettenbender (1921–1988), the dean of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, directed it at the Circle Repertory. How did a dean at Rutgers come to direct The Woolgatherer?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Jack, as everyone called him, was a playwright, actor, and director—a great director. Jack directed my graduate thesis play “Devil Take the Hindmost,” during the bicentennial, and won second place in the American College Theater Festival. So he was more than just the dean to me. You could say it was a kind of father/son thing. We became friends. We connected on a personal level. While I was in the first year of graduate school, I showed him my play The Woolgatherer. It was a short play and he encouraged me to expand it. He said there was more there than what was on the page. I dipped deep into my former job as a truck driver. And so I kept working on The Woolgatherer as a full-length one-act. Then later on, we got to talking about dividing it into act one and act two. The New York production was not the first professional production, because, technically, there were Equity actors in the first production at Rutgers. A really great actress named Mary Beth Fisher who made me a better playwright by the TLC she gave my words. She’s now a premier actress in Chicago and has been for years. I am in her debt for showing me Rose’s soul.

During that production at Rutgers, a Broadway producer was in town, and he came over to see it. Arthur Cantor (1920–2001) came up to me afterwards. He said, “I wanna take your play to Broadway. Who do you want in it?” And I said, “Al Pacino.” Everybody wanted Al Pacino for everything in those days. He said, “Who would play the woman?” I said, “I don’t know. I’m sure there are a lot of actresses who can do this.” Then I said, “Why not use this cast? I like this production. I like this director.” And he said to me, “The only thing that goes with the play is the playwright, and even then, sometimes you wish that wasn’t true.” Then he said, “Why don’t you come to New York and have a talk with me. Let’s talk about the kind of production you want on Broadway.”

A couple of days later I had to go to the Salvation Army and buy a suit. I bought this awful corduroy suit, but it was the only thing that fit me there. I got into my little jalopy, and I drove to New York. He lived in the prestigious Dakota. When I got there, I called him from the phone downstairs and he said, “Stay there, I’ll come and get you.” He came downstairs. We chatted in the lobby for a moment. Then he said, “Let’s go eat.” We were standing by the elevator; the door opened and who was standing there but John Lennon. He said, “Mr. Lennon, I want you to meet this up-and-coming playwright.” We shook hands. That was all there was, nothing more to it than that. So I met John Lennon.

We were having dinner and he said, “Okay, you want Pacino?” He called Biff Liff (1919–2015),, who was head of William Morris’s theater department at the time, and he said, “I’m sitting here with a young man who has a very intriguing play that I think Al would like and I’m going to send it over to you.” And I heard on the phone Biff Liff say, “Who represents the playwright?” The producer said, “Nobody, and he doesn’t need representation at present.” He was a great guy, but he was also a shrewd businessman.

They read the play—this was another watershed. Biff Liff contacted me privately. He said, “We could make a lot of money if your play goes to Broadway, but we’re not interested in one play. We’re interested in your career, not one play. Come in and talk to me. And let’s see what we can do.” So I went to New York again. I really liked Biff Liff. He was the archetype of the ideal agent—the man who knows the theater business and knows how to talk to a playwright. And he took me under his wing. He said, “You’re not ready for Broadway. You think that it’s just a step up; it’s a hundred steps up. Life is pretty rigorous there and you haven’t been to boot camp yet.” He said, “Now before you go into battle, I’m telling you, you should go to a nonprofit theater, Circle Rep., downtown. They’re doing notable work there.” And that’s what I did. That’s how the play got to go to Circle Rep.

NGN:
The Woolgatherer is a two-character play that takes place in Philadelphia. Rose and Cliff are two very different people; both are neurotic, and both are looking for love. Rose, a salesgirl, has had a difficult past. Cliff is a foul-mouthed truck driver who meets Rose while his truck is being repaired in Philadelphia. How did you come to write a play where these two characters will not only connect but will also find love?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I was a truck driver. That was one of my many jobs. I delivered supplies to pizza places and other restaurants in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. I was driving through Philly and my truck broke down. I had to find a repair shop and it was late Friday afternoon.

I walked to Ninth Street in South Philly to keep warm while a garage was fixing my truck. I came across this candy store that was just closing. I came across the character of Rose; she was a waif. She almost disappeared in front of your eyes. Behind her eyes she was carrying a heavy burden, but on the outside she was very pleasant and friendly. That was really the impetus behind the play. That character, the truck driver, is looking for a one-night stand. And he finds this girl. In reality, there was no romance of any sort. The trick that fate plays on him is he starts to fall in love with her halfway through the play. The real connection between them is that he can tell her things that he can’t tell his trucking buddies. When he has this monologue in the middle of the play, which I remember was clocked around seventeen and a half minutes, we discover he is as cooped up in his cab as she is in her crappy little room. That is the connection between them, that they both have that insularity in common. My mentor said, “When casting Cliff, don’t cast a truck driver. Cast a poet who happens to drive a truck.” That was one of the many brilliant pearls my mentor Jack Bettenbender tossed my way.

NGN:
In his review of The Woolgatherer, a major critic said, “As for Mr. Mastrosimone, he is a fresh voice who will be heard from again.” He was absolutely right. What did this mean to you for your first professional production?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Well, when a professional is rendering an opinion like that, it just tells you that you are on the right track so far. But honestly, I am careful not to get too comfortable with praise that leads to the feeling “I made it.” A little voice in the back of my head whispers, “Beware the adulation. It causes paralysis.”

NGN:
Let’s talk a bit about the Off-Broadway production of Extremities (1982), which was about rape and revenge, and it originally starred Susan Sarandon. It won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play 1982–83. What inspired you to tackle the subject of rape?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
One of my many jobs was working as a clerk in a liquor store. A woman came in who was a regular customer. I didn’t know her name. She was very pleasant, intelligent. One day she came in and she was black and blue on both sides of her face, and bloody. I glanced at her, and she, quite uncharacteristically, turned and said, “I’m not a monster. Don’t stare at me.” And I said, “I’m really sorry.” I didn’t realize I was staring; she bought something, and she left the store. Then she came back, and she said, “I apologize. I was raped last night. Some guy broke into my apartment and raped me. And he beat me with a lamp and probably thought I was dead and that’s why he left.” I didn’t know what to say to her. She walked out the door and she came back a moment later and she said, “If I had five minutes in a room with this guy, I would not be afraid of him right now. I could tear him to pieces with my own hands.” This very gentle woman had a volcano inside. I saw suppressed violence in her eyes. And she left and I went home, and I wrote the first draft of the play that night.

I was in a frenzied state of mind. Unconsciously, I became her. I was only half-conscious that I was writing a play. It was as if it all happened before my eyes. In the end, I saw that I was out to give her the five minutes she wished for. I didn’t know what would happen, neither did she.

I can tell you this over and over again—character is everything to me. That woman is what I was writing about, I wasn’t writing about the issue. What is the effect of that on this woman? I think about character first; it’s just my instinct. I didn’t learn that in school, it’s who I am.

NGN:
Farrah Fawcett (1947–2009) earned critical acclaim in 1983 when she replaced Susan Sarandon in Extremities, taking on the character of a rape victim who outsmarted her attacker. In 1986, Fawcett appeared in the movie version, your adaptation of Extremities. What was it like to work with Susan Sarandon and Farrah Fawcett in the same role?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Susan Sarandon was the only reason the play got done. People had their doubts about the play, but Susan championed it and that convinced the doubters to take a chance. She taught me a lot about letting the actor do what the words cannot. Susan Sarandon is an exquisite actress. Technically, she is perfect.

Everyone wanted to move the play to Broadway. I did not. The Westside Arts Theatre was perfect, and we sold out every night. But Susan was disappointed and gave notice. Karen Allen stepped in, and she was wonderful but was terribly hurt in performance and had to leave. When she left, the producer called me into his office, and he said, “I just got off the phone with somebody who wants to be in Extremities. Otherwise, we might have to close it.” I said, “Tell me who.” And he said, “Farrah Fawcett.” I laughed and then I said, “You got to be shitting me.” I said, “What are we going to get, Charlie’s Angels?” And he says, “No, she really wants to do this.” I said, “She doesn’t have any background to do this. I’m against this completely.” We argued about it for a couple of days. And then he said, “The polite thing to do—she’s a big star, we have to give her an audition.” And I said, “Okay.”

And he goes, “You’re going to be nice, right?” I said, “Of course I’ll be polite. I’m not going to be rude.” When she came in she was without makeup on, just street clothes, alone, no entourage, which kind of impressed me because she was showing how she wanted to look in the play. The people in the room—me; Bob Ackerman, the director; Frank Gero, the producer; and Farrah Fawcett—we were waiting for James Russo, who played Raul in the play. He didn’t show up. We’re waiting for him for twenty minutes and Bob Ackerman says, “We can’t wait anymore.” He says, “Bill, you know the script better than anybody. Get up on stage with Farrah and do the scene.” I said, “I’m not an actor. I don’t want to do that.” We argued a little bit. Frank then said, “Bill, get on stage, please.” So I get up on stage and we start doing the scene. My heart isn’t in it. Farrah turns to the director, and she says, “Is that the way James Russo is going to do it because it’s so lame. He’s not giving me anything.” And that really impressed me, because she was feisty. She didn’t care about being a Hollywood star. She wanted to mix it up. She won me over by her desire to rise to the level of violence needed to make the play work.

We went next door to a coffee shop and chatted. In the café, I came to understand that Farrah didn’t have to manufacture emotion to play the role; she lived it, and the emotion was pent up in her for years, and the play gave her an opportunity to give full rein to those emotions. I became her biggest fan and supporter. She’s not good technically like Susan Sarandon. She doesn’t feel entirely comfortable on the stage, which gives her an aspect of being an ordinary person who’s just plucked out of the audience and put on stage. She’s unjaded. She didn’t know properly how to stand or how to walk on stage. I really liked that, because I thought the awkwardness of it would be very good for the role. In boxing, when fighters just refuse to surrender to superior force, we say they have heart. When Farrah played the scenes every single night, the bad experiences of her life were all over her face. The audience connected with that. She was giving something. She gave it involuntarily. The audience just loved her. I have got to say, many of the New York audience were snobs who believed Farrah was a lightweight and they came to see her fall on her face. She didn’t. When the play ended, I’m getting a little choked up thinking about it, they gave her a standing ovation because she was so damn authentic. Not the best I’ve ever seen technically, but she wasn’t afraid to get dirty.

NGN:
Extremities had some history in Philadelphia before its Westside Arts Theatre production in New York. Did you make any changes before the production in Manhattan?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
This is a long story and I’ll shorten it. At first we couldn’t give that play away. Nobody wanted to do it. I sent the script around to different producers with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. One script went to a Philadelphia producer who sent the play back to me ripped in half, with a little note on it that said, “Find a new profession.” But I never lost faith in the power of the play and the effect it had on women.

I was working in a liquor store. A woman walked in, and she said, “Last night I went to dinner at somebody’s house and your play was on their coffee table. And instead of eating dinner, I sat down and read the play. I want to do this play at my college.” I said, “What college is that?” And she said, “Bucks County Community College.” That was where the world premiere production of Extremities was done because nobody else wanted it. It was done with the actors from that college. The night before the opening, I got a call from security at the college. And they said, “We have to advise you not to come to see the show.” I said, “Why?” “Because the town council of Newtown banned it.” I said, “They can’t do that. This is America.” They said, “Well, they can in their jurisdiction. You have to deal with it.” They banned the play.

And because of that, demonstrations sparked up all over campus, on both sides. Anyway, the play went on—the kids had heart and they just threw themselves into it. Then a guy with a producer from Philadelphia came and said, “Let’s take it to a little theater in Philadelphia,” and we did.

On opening night in Philadelphia, two busloads of women from NOW (National Organization for Women) showed up and stood on the curb in front of the theater with picket signs. I had gone to dinner after the rehearsal, thinking I would come back and see the play. I came back alone and many of the leaders of NOW were standing out in front of the theater. I said, “What’s all this about?” They said, “This play is really pornography. It shows women in a bad light.” I said, “Really, what do you suppose is on stage?” 

They had the wrong idea about the play. The producer wrote an ad that said, “A woman turns the tables on a man.” Well, some people thought that meant that a woman is going to rape the man.

I said, “Let me introduce myself. I’m the playwright. That’s not what you’re going to see tonight.” They then said, “We’re not going to see it.” I said, “You’re condemning the play and you’re not going to see it?” I then said, “Look, I’m going to invite two of you to come in; I’ll get the tickets for you. Come in and see the play. Tell your people to hold off. Don’t try to stop people from seeing it.” I persuaded them to see it. And I took them in. After they saw the play, they were so moved. They told all those women to put the picket signs away. Come back tomorrow and see the play. It’s really good. It’s really a woman’s play. It went from that crappy little theater in Philly to the Louisville’s Actors Theatre in Kentucky. And then it went to the Baltimore International Theatre Festival. And then after that, it went to New York, to Westside Arts Theatre. I must say early on, before anything happened, one of my favorite plays was Playboy of the Western World, by J. M. Synge. I perversely admired Synge when I learned that his play caused riots at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. I felt a kinship with Synge. I pondered: What does it take to cause sophisticated theater-goers to riot? Extremities took me to that place.

On opening night in New York, a famous feminist came up to me and said, “They told me you’re the playwright. I love your play. Too bad a man wrote it.” And I said, “That’s sexist.” She says, “You’re damn right it is.” So, I mean, those things, with the busloads of women, the protests, the town council banning the play, people began to see the effect this was going to have on people.

NGN:
Extremities is now over forty years old. What are your thoughts about the play you are best known for now?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
t’s a play that has been done all around the world, in different languages. The playwright was just a guy who worked in a liquor store, and whose molecules were changed when a woman told him her story. I did not know I grabbed a tiger by the tail. Turns out the woman I wrote about had much in common with women all over the world. I stumbled upon the truth in one woman that apparently was a universal truth.

NGN:
Let me get two questions in here about your play Tamer of Horses (1985): First, what inspired you to write this play? Second, Tamer of Horses was originally staged in New Brunswick in 1985 at Crossroads Theatre, a Tony Award–winning Black theater company. Lee Kenneth Richardson (1951–2020) and Ricardo Kahn, the founders and producers of Crossroads Theatre, were also students at Mason Gross School of the Arts and you knew each other. Lee performed in your first play at Rutgers and directed Tamer of Horses at Crossroads. Did they influence you to write the play, and what was your relationship like with them?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
They didn’t influence me to write the play, but we were chums in school together and we would hang out and have coffee and talk theater. Towards the end when we were all ready to leave school they said, “We’re going to open up a Black theater company, and we’d like you to write a play for us.” And I said, “Well, I don’t think I have the right pigment.” And they said, “No, no, no, we want you to do a play of yours.” And so when I wrote the play, I was thinking of them. It was just the natural consequence of our friendship at school. I got nothing but encouragement from Lee and Rick, which influenced the writing.

The play’s about a kid, Hector, who escapes from a youth detention center. (Next door to the liquor store I worked in was a youth detention center, and when I took breaks outside, I talked with the detainees through the fence.) Hector takes refuge in these people’s barn in Pennington. It doesn’t say so, but in my mind they are teachers at Pennington Prep. I vividly remember opening night in a crumbling warehouse in New Brunswick. It was raining hard that night. The roof leaked. Buckets were placed around the playing space and dripping water pinged in the buckets. I remember seeing imperturbable artists creating a thing of beauty under the worst conditions. Lee’s work was spectacular.

NGN:
Tamer of Horses had a Black cast and a Black director at Crossroads, but it later did not have a Black cast. What was that process like for you?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I wasn’t going to put it in the script that they had to be Black—I told Rick and Lee that they could cast whoever they wanted but that I thought they ought to cast Black after the nature of their theater. We knew the couple couldn’t be white taking in a Black kid. That’s too yesteryear. It had to be a Black couple. We talked about Hector. Who is going to be Hector? I was in L.A. and remember this phone call with Lee who was in New Jersey, and he said, “We turned this place upside down looking for a young Black actor. Who do you see?” I said, “Find a young Al Pacino, an outsider, a lone wolf, the passionate kind of wild guy that Pacino was as a young man.” And they looked. They called me back and they said, “We can’t find the young Al Pacino, but we found this kid. He’s Greek. And he’s white, and he’s what you want.” It was hard to make that decision. I said, “Well, I’m going to leave it up to you guys. It’s your theater.” They made a brilliant choice; a Black couple takes in and nurtures a white kid. Lee and Rick were always ahead of the curve.

NGN:
“In inspiration, it is noble. In theatricality, it is stunning.” This is what New York Times critic Alvin Klein (1938–2009) wrote about the original production of Tamer of Horses. Reviews, good or bad, what do these mean to you?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Alvin Klein meant a lot to me. He was an ardent supporter and gave me some of the best reviews I’ve ever gotten. He also did not hold back criticism if he felt I wasn’t living up to my potential. I had great respect for him. He taught me things about myself.

The way I feel about reviews, and I’ve always felt this way—a review is only useful if you can learn something from it. Alvin’s reviews were like that. But some of the snideness that creeps into reviews where the critics aren’t there to serve the play or to serve their readership, they’re there to puff themselves up.

One critic I really loved was Walter Kerr (1913–1996) at the New York Times. He gave me a metaphor that I think about all the time. In a personal letter to me, we discussed the playwright/critic relationship. He said, “A critic should go to a play the way a gardener goes into the garden. And prune what has to be pruned. But don’t bring in a chain saw. Don’t go in to ruin careers and destroy egos. Go in to prune it. Go in to be a teacher.” That’s what reviews mean to me. And if they’re not like that, I don’t pay attention to them.

Walter Kerr saved Extremities, by the way, because on opening night Frank Rich gave the play a sour mixed review that leaned negatively. Walter Kerr was so ticked off by it that he went and reviewed Extremities himself. He came out of retirement to review a play that his colleague had just reviewed. Walter Kerr technically gave it a mixed review, too. But one of the things he said was “It makes you feel great to be back in the theater again.” The producer was ready to close the play because of Frank Rich’s review. Walter Kerr’s review a week later, two days before we were going to close it, made the producer keep the play open.

NGN:
In the late 1980s, you explored terrorism and its coverage on television in your play Cat’s-Paw, which premiered at Seattle Repertory Theatre and was directed by Daniel Sullivan. Why was it important to explore the symbiotic relationship between television and terrorism?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Well, I think in the ’80s terrorists depended upon publicity, and news organizations wanted to give it to them because that was good for fetching eyeballs. In the early ’80s a splinter group of Greenpeace called Sea Shepherd filled an old ship with cement and rammed and sank whaling ships around the world without the loss of life. But another group of activists in the Northwest hammered twelve-inch nails into trees that were scheduled to be cut down. It was a booby trap designed to injure the logger who was holding a chainsaw. One guy lost an arm, and that really got my attention. I saw the big difference between passion, activism, and criminality. There was another case of an activist group in California who were bringing a car bomb to damage a building. On the way there, while two activists were in the car, the bomb exploded. They didn’t die. They were maimed. I just thought: they are eviscerating a perfectly good cause. We should all be environmentalists. We should care about the water we drink, the air we breathe. In Cat’s-Paw I wanted to ask the question: When do the ends justify the means?

NGN:
You worked quite a bit with Daniel Sullivan, the artistic director of Seattle Repertory Theatre—

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
He’s one of the great theater directors today, and we did a couple of plays together. I always wanted to be part of a company. That’s what Shakespeare did. That’s what Moliere did. To write plays for a company would have really been the crowning achievement of my career. But it never came about. For one thing Dan went to New York. I had moved to Seattle. He’s really the consummate artist. When he was directing somebody else’s play, sometimes I would go in and just watch him work.

NGN:
The Undoing (1984), which was originally produced at the Festival of New Plays at the Actors Theater in Louisville, is about a woman’s journey. Lorraine Tempesta is a woman whose husband was killed in a car accident when a drunk driver ran a stop sign. She runs Leo’s Poultry Shop in Trenton, New Jersey. She is drunk a great deal and she smokes incessantly, but she is slaughtering chickens all the time. Then a mysterious man, a one-eyed disabled person, enters her life. What more would you like to share about why you dramatized this predicament?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I had a second cousin who owned one of those old-school chicken shops where you go in, pick the chicken, and get it slaughtered right in front of you, which is the way I prefer to buy it. He was a great guy but he drank too much, and he basically killed himself by the drink. I wasn’t writing about the story that was before my eyes. I wrote about the spirit of the man as it was filtered through my imagination. I can’t really say that there’s anything else that’s autobiographical in the story, except that the neighborhood characters were very real to me. Lorraine thinks that the guy who comes into her shop, during a very busy time for her, has come to apply for the job. He has come to apologize because he was the guy who killed her husband in the car crash. And in the confusion, she’s drunk, she doesn’t really hear. He’s trying to tell her the truth, that he’s not there for the job, but she hears what she wants to hear. She ends up hiring him and they become lovers. When she realizes she’s in love with the guy who killed her husband, she sees that he’s doing this because his conscience is killing him.

As tormented as he is, she sees the beauty of a man’s need to do penance. Her insight leads to a purging of troubling emotions for them both. That’s what the play is about, the dire need to disburden the conscience of personal torment.

NGN:
Your play Nanawatai takes place when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. A group of Soviet tank soldiers gets separated from their crew and there is a war between them and the Afghan rebels. Nanawatai had its world premiere in Bergen, Norway, in 1984, and its American premiere at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in 1985; it became a feature film called The Beast of War (1988). Would you share the history of how this became a play and ultimately a movie?

William Mastrosimone (white hat) during the filming of The Beast of War, in the Negev desert, Israel, 1987.

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
While I was in rehearsal for The Woolgatherer in New York 1980, as I waited for actors to learn their lines, I wandered around the Village in New York, reading the New York Times in coffee shops. That was shortly after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.

The more I read, the more I wanted to understand and maybe go there and write about it. I found out about some Afghans, injured in the war, who came to New York City to get medical care, who now worked as waiters in an Afghan restaurant, the Khyber Pass, to earn enough money to fly back to the war. It took a lot of rice pilafs and kabobs before they trusted me enough to help me get into Afghanistan.

Before I went there, I had written Nanawatai as a play, realizing that it would change incredibly once I saw the reality of the war. In the back of my mind, I thought this might be my last play, considering I was headed into a war zone, so on my kitchen table I left the script with a note to send it to my New York agent if I did not return.

As per my Khyber Pass associates, I flew into Pakistan, and got smuggled across the border in Afghan clothes. I had to get permission from a warlord Gulbudin Hekmatyar, who hooked me up with a mule train of Afghans who were bringing ammunition to the front, about 150 miles away.

Probably halfway through that trip, I got sick because we were drinking the snow runoff from the streams in the Hindu Kush Mountains. It could have been a dead animal upstream in the water. I got deathly sick, so sick that I couldn’t walk, and they had to leave me behind on a mountain trail.

I understood. If you sign up for something like this, this could happen. I was taken in by a village and nursed back to health. Eventually, I got back to Pakistan. I knew that I was going to write a movie about it. I was thinking about the way Hemingway went to Italy to drive an ambulance in World War I. He wanted the experience to inform his work. I wanted to write about the war truly, so that’s what I did.

NGN:
You wrote several plays between the theatrical production of Extremities and the movie version, which came out in 1986. What can you tell us about the making of that movie?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Burt Sugarman, as a businessman, went to New York, and he optioned three plays, Children of a Lesser God, Crimes of the Heart, and Extremities. He produced two of those. And when he was ready to produce Extremities—it was going to be a big, top-notch production—he went through some hard times. He had to sell the rights to Extremities. He sold them to a schlocky company that basically did exploitation movies. This was the nicest piece of material they ever had. The director was awful. The producers were awful.

Halfway through the filming, I knew it was going to be a spectacular flop. I had to rewrite good scenes because the director allowed the actors to ad-lib, and the ad-libs spoiled scenes yet to come. I was a boiling cauldron of bitter resentment. It was Thanksgiving. Everyone had taken off for the holiday, but I was stuck in the house where it was filmed. I put the resentment out of my mind, made a desk of a big plastic trunk, and began to rewrite. Then I noticed the big trunk contained most of the cans of film we shot in the last week.

Perverse joy filled my heart. I thought if I destroyed the film, they couldn’t possibly reshoot, they didn’t have the time or budget. The film would be written off and I would be arrested. The notion of the artist destroying his own creation to preserve it appealed to me. I mused that every writer in Hollywood would hold me in esteem because they have been fucked by Hollywood. I got up and paced around the room, went outside to get some air, to get some perspective. The security guard said to me, “What’s up? You look agitated.” I let it go because it would have been only a symbolic gesture. A few days later, everyone returned to work. When the director, who was so proud of his work, asked me how I thought it was going, I said, “We’re the Titanic and we hit the iceberg a week ago, and we’re sinking. You turned an Off-Broadway hit into a second-rate TV movie.” He was so upset with me that he called security and had me thrown off the set. I never was allowed to go back again. Hollywood is that perverse. The creator is disallowed to be present.

The movie is a total piece of shit. Too bad it did not work out for Farrah Fawcett’s career. I can’t watch the movie. It makes me physically ill. The experience was so harrowing. Producers who lined up to schedule meetings with me before Extremities lost interest in me after Extremities was released. But Nanawatai became The Beast, and was optioned for a film by Columbia which was shot in Israel in ’87, but when completed, Stallone told Columbia that if they wanted his cartoon about Afghanistan, Rambo II, they had to kill The Beast, which they did. That was another blow to my psyche after Extremities. But a spec movie I had written, With Honors, was in the Warner Brothers pipeline. But I had a major gripe about the inexperienced director and boycotted the film on principle, to my own detriment. So the trifecta of failures, Extremities, The Beast, and With Honors, were devastating to my career, but not to my psyche. In fact, the adversity propelled me to do some soul-searching which resulted in a book about writing that I intend to publish someday—“What Is a Character?” As a student of Jung, I trace all my work back to the notion that the unconscious mind is the font of creativity.

NGN:
Would you expand on that idea, that creativity comes from the unconscious?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Any artist must be a seeker of truth. Jung says the unconscious mind sees correctly even when the conscious mind is blind. Since grade school, somehow, I’ve developed a pipeline to the unconscious. There was a time early in my career when it tormented me. I had no control over it. The pipeline had no spigot. But somehow I practiced a crude self-hypnosis which puts me in a trance that allows me toaccess the unconscious, especially when I am exhausted, when my conscious mind is half-asleep, the creatures of the unconscious come out to play, and help me see things clearly. Shakespeare knew this. Hamlet says there are more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of in our philosophy. We are made of flesh and blood, but our greater part is we are spiritual beings.

NGN:
Let’s turn to the topic of writing for the screen, as opposed to the experience of having your plays adapted for screen. You wrote the script for the miniseries Sinatra, which aired in 1992. What would you like to share about working on Sinatra?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I admired Frank Sinatra as a great artist. I did not listen to much rock ‘n’ roll when I was a teenager, but I loved Sinatra. I loved a lot of those old singers and old bands. I only had The Woolgatherer and Extremities to my name at that time. I had no Hollywood credits at all. Later on, one of the people who worked at Warner Brothers when they hired me told me that when that series was announced they had hundreds of Hollywood writers with credits as long as my arm who said they would write it for scale, with the lowest money possible, just to be around Frank Sinatra. I was unaware of all of that. To me, it was my first television job and I wondered if I was equipped to do it.

His daughter Tina was a wonderful producer who showed me the terrain. Before me, Frank had worked with another well-established writer who was let go. I had to step in, rookie that I was, and deal with the Hollywood superstars. At the outset the relationship was fraught.

Obviously Frank had to wonder if I was up to snuff. The turning point was when he told me a story that he thought should be in the series about his father, who was a fireman in Hoboken, New Jersey. In real life Frank had already started to be successful. He was in the limos, and he was in the papers all the time. He made a surprise visit to his father at the firehouse. As he walked outside, all the firemen greeted him. He said, “Where’s Pop?” They said he’s in there shaving. Frank Sinatra walked into the locker room and his father was shaving, with the door of his locker open. There was a mirror in the locker. Frank Sinatra walked up behind him and saw that the locker was chock-full of articles and pictures from newspapers about him. How proud his father was but he never said a word to him. Never said, I’m proud of you, never said, I love you. Never said, you’re a great kid. Frank always wanted a greater closeness with his dad. When his father saw Frank in the mirror, he closed the locker door real fast.

Frank Sinatra read the scene and said, “You really understand. It was like you were there.” I said, “I understand because I have always had a lot of conflicts with my father, especially when I wanted to become a playwright. My father once said to me, ‘You’re the only guy I know who started at the top and went straight to the bottom.’” When I wrote that locker scene the feelings about my own father went into it. Our relationship was always good, but it wasn’t easy; after that, it was a lot easier. It didn’t hurt that we’re both from New Jersey with Sicilian heritage. That helped me read in between the cultural lines.

NGN:
In 1994, you, Michael Tolkin, and Ron Hutchinson did the screenplay for an HBO movie, The Burning Season, based on Andrew Revkin’s book of the same title. It was directed by John Frankenheimer and was about a Latin American oligarchy that was backed by its military, where the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer. It tells the story of Chico Mendes, and it earned the 1995 Humanitas Prize for Best Teleplay and Best Director. How did this come about for you early in your career?

William Mastrosimone in Chico Mendes’s truck during the filming of The Burning Season, in Xapuri, Brazil, 1994.

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I heard the movie was going to be made and I really wanted to write it. So I flew to LA, and I met with Warner Brothers, who were in charge of it at that time. I went in and I pitched the way I wanted to write it. As I was walking out the door, I didn’t feel that I had made the sale. So the last thing I said before I closed the door was, “If you don’t hire me to write the movie, I’ll write it as a play. You’ll see it on Broadway.” I wasn’t being arrogant, and I really meant it. I loved the story so much I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. They hired me. They saw that I had a passion for the story of a trade unionist, a rubber tapper in the Amazon jungle, who was murdered because he wouldn’t back down. I identified with him.

One correction: Those other two credits, Tolkin and Hutchinson, they did not write the screenplay. They were hired to polish the script when my availability changed. When I returned, Warner Brothers sent me to the Amazon with a camera crew to get a feel for the place and scout locations. I was credentialed by the Trenton Times to cover the murder of Chico Mendes. I went to the jungle and turned in a bunch of stories as a journalist. That became the basis of the movie. The movie was not based on the book; The Burning Season was a research book and not an inspiration for the story.

NGN:
Thanks for that correction. You also did the screenplay for With Honors (1994), starring Joe Pesci, who finds a lost thesis by a graduate student (Brendan Fraser)—the two opposites become friends. How did you come to do the screenplay?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I was on the set of Extremities in California. There was a visiting producer on the set, and he sat next to me one day. We struck up a conversation and he handed me a folded newspaper, the Boston Globe, and it was folded to an article with a headline along the lines of “Harvard Grads Return for Homeless Man’s Funeral.”It was a true story about a group of activists living on the Harvard campus in the ’70s, and they saw a guy eating out of the trash. They invited him for Thanksgiving dinner with them. The homeless guy stayed in that house for fifteen years. As they graduated, new kids came and stayed in the house. He was very clever about how he related to everybody. He was one of the most interesting souls that ever walked the earth. Those Harvard graduates, who lived all around the world, came back to Boston for his funeral. I was interested. I got a producer interested. I went to Boston, and I talked to some of the people who remembered Damon Payne and the effect he had on them. I even went to the Salvation Army and bought some old clothes. I was staying at a five-star hotel. I would leave the hotel on my own and walk the streets in my beat-up clothes. I wouldn’t take any money; I wouldn’t even take my hotel key, I would leave it at the front desk. I wanted to see how that would feel. They all thought I was out of my mind. I walked around, and it was cold. Two cops stopped me, and they asked me for an ID. I told them my real identity and they didn’t believe me. I said I’m staying in the hotel, and they took me over there and found out it was true.

I wrote the screenplay in the hotel adjacent to the Harvard campus. I had a messy dispute with the director who wanted to cut a part of the script that dramatized the essence of the relationships between the students and the homeless man. I protested to the producers who refused to fire the director, so I refused to take part in the movie. I paid a huge price for my protest. I lost my contractual bonus. But I had no choice; I had to protect my work. Integrity comes with a huge price tag in Hollywood. Time revealed the shameless skullduggery involved. Enough said.

NGN:
One thing that is constantly stated about your writing career is that you have an ear for dialogue. It does not matter if the dialogue renders comedy, touches on serious matters, or captures the nuances of absurdity, you get the dialogue right. What is the significance of dialogue for you, and when do you know that you do not have the dialogue right?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
The study of character—the language of a character—is everything to me. William Faulkner has a famous quote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Meaning that our past, even as we’re speaking—you and I right now—both of our pasts are coming up. Everything that I ever learned, or did, or understood is coming out of my mouth at the same time. It’s all jumbled together. So, I make a study of a character’s language; I’m very meticulous about it. A character’s language is like a turtle carrying its house with itself. It is the character’s history. A character’s language is like an archaeological dig where you can see the strata of their history. I don’t want to start writing until I understand it. Arthur Cantor said I had “A tape-recorder ear.” If so, I was born with it and perhaps enhanced it by my study of characters.

A theme is an aspect of the conscious mind whereas a character is an aspect of the heart, the seat of emotions, the unconscious. Everything flows from motivation, conflict, plot, and themes. “A man’s character is his fate,” says Heraclitus. It is my proclivity to create autonomous characters, which is to say beings quite different from myself: different backgrounds, genders, culture, etcetera. What has helped me create character is that I am an ambivert—a social introvert. Creating character is both conscious and unconscious effort. But mostly for me, it’s a spiritual relation. I perceive a character’s presence as a spirit.

To perceive a character’s spirit, you have to surrender all control and let the spirit become autonomous, exhibiting predictable thought, speech, and behavior. Predictability is the holy grail of characterization. That’s what sustains the characterization throughout the play. I am drawn to character because character is fate, and fate is character.

NGN:
In 1998, your play Bang Bang You’re Dead became the most performed high school play in the United States. And, of course, in 2002 it became a Showtime movie with the same title. This play was motivated by a school shooting. There have been so many school shootings after your play: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Santa Fe  are just several that come to mind. Did you sense that the violence, especially the mass shootings, would increase exponentially as it has?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
No, I had no special knowledge of that. The scary thing is, we have very little insight into school shootings. Look, I didn’t write that play to be part of my career. I wrote it as a parent because we had kids, and they were going to school during that time. Sometimes they’d be walking down the driveway and I wondered if I was going to see them again. I heard of a shooting in Oregon, and I wrote Bang Bang You’re Dead overnight. I like to write in one sitting so that I can remain true to the impulse, and not have it watered down by other thoughts, or days, or anything else. I have an abiding belief that theater can change a heart. And I wrote the play after Hamlet’s play-within-the-play, aiming for the heart of the kid in the audience contemplating a school shooting.

Then there was another shooting in Oregon, and I looked up the address of the school. I called and I asked for the drama teacher. I didn’t even know if they had one. It just so happened that the teacher had done a couple of my plays when he was in college. And so we hit it off. I sent him the play. The town didn’t want it, but the kids did. CBS News wanted to interview me, and they came to this little town. It was exciting for all the kids.

Let me give you the bottom line because so much happened. When Hollywood wanted to do the play as a movie, I rejected it because I didn’t trust them. I didn’t trust them—they are going to exploit the subject; they’re going to make it a bloody massacre, and I didn’t want to see that on screen. I wanted to deal truthfully with the fragile psyche of a kid who was beyond the pale.

That’s a long story short. So, Showtime approached me, and I said, “I want to be the producer; I want to hire the actors and the director. I want to be in charge. I want the steering wheel in my hands. And they said, “Fine, let’s do it.” And we did. We did the movie for 2.1 million dollars, which is the catering budget of most movies, I think. Credit must be given to the line producer, who was Deborah Gabler. We won five Emmys and the Peabody Award.

The movie was broadcast and kids all over the world, thousands of kids wrote to the website. They wrote letters to me personally. The tenor of the emails was all pretty much the same. It was: “I have a hit list, and there are kids I want to kill; teachers, too. When I saw your play and or movie by accident, I changed my mind. I need help. Can you help me? Can you get help for me?”

Imagine, I put this play on the Internet for free. It cost me money to do that. It’s wrong to make money off a national tragedy. How sad is it that a kid can’t talk to his parents, or friends, or coach, or teachers, or relatives? They want help and they ask a playwright. It’s overwhelming to me. I tried to get them help. I failed to do it. I couldn’t convince the APA (the American Psychiatric Association) and others to lend a hand. So much for the Hippocratic oath. That was one of the greatest experiences I ever had in my career, dealing with those kids. My failure to help weighs upon me to this day. But the idea of speaking to the would-be killer worked. In fact, they wrote to me. A play can change a heart.

NGN:
I read that you were inspired to become a playwright after seeing Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke, and that you consider him to be your mentor. Did you ever meet Tennessee Williams or have any dealings with him?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I was home for the summer from Tulane. I can tell you what seat I was sitting in at Theatre Intime on the Princeton University campus. When I watched Summer and Smoke and Alma was talking about her emotions, I said to myself at that moment, “I have felt that way. I know what she’s about. I could have written that.” I think that was the moment I became a playwright. That was a feeling as real as stone. I keenly understood what the character was feeling and that was an actor on stage, which resonated more with me than a lot of people that I knew in real life.

Yes, I did meet Tennessee Williams. I might blush while I’m telling you this. When The Woolgatherer was on stage in New York in 1980, my agent called me and he said, “Tennessee Williams wants to meet you.” I said, “He wants to meet me? I want to meet him! How did this come about?” What happened was Tennessee Williams had an agent who contacted my agent to extend an invitation to me. I was living in this hovel in Trenton, New Jersey, when Tennessee’s agent called me and he said, “Tennessee and I would like to have you for dinner at my apartment. I will send a car for you that will bring you to New York. We will meet you at the theater, and the three of us will watch the play together. Then the car will take us to my apartment where we’ll have dinner. And I said, “That sounds great. I’d love to do it.” They sent me a black stretch limo.

I go to New York, and they don’t show up at the play. The stage manager handed me a note. It said, “We have a little change of plans. The car is waiting for you outside on the street. When the play is over it will take you to the apartment and we’ll have dinner.”

Well, I went to his apartment. You get in the elevator. You go to the top floor, the penthouse. When the elevator door opens, you are standing in the living room. That’s where he lived. I am standing there, and I hear somebody yelling and cursing, glasses breaking, dishes breaking, and I was a little concerned and then the agent comes out. He’s got a stain of wine across his blue shirt. He said, “I’m really sorry. Tennessee has been drinking, and he is a little upset. I don’t think tonight is going to work out.” I said, “That’s fine.” And I said, “What’s he upset about?” He said, “Well, truthfully, he’s jealous of you.” I said, “Wait a minute. This sounds upside down. My work makes it obvious I’m a student of Tennessee Williams.” He says, “Here’s the thing. He feels like his best days are behind him and yours are all in front of you.” I said, “Well, I still would like to meet him.” And he says, “Not now, some other time.” So, I left.

A year later, I went to Chicago to see my play The Woolgatherer at the Goodman Theatre, and when I pulled up in front of the theater in a taxi I saw a big banner up there: A House Not Meant to Stand, Tennessee Williams, and then underneath in a smaller banner, was my name, The Woolgatherer. I thought, “Wow, what surprises life will give you. You could never guess that I’m going to be on the same banner with Tennessee Williams.”

I left after the first rehearsal, and when I was walking out the door I saw a bar room with velvet ropes blocking the door. I looked at the end of the bar and there was Tennessee Williams. The bartender was cleaning. I stuck my head in the door and the bartender said, “I’m sorry, we’re closed.” And I said, “I just wanted to have a word with the gentleman.” And the bartender looked at him and Tennessee nodded yes, and I went in. And I said, “Mr. Williams, you may not remember me—” He said in that lovely Mississippi drawl, “I know exactly who you are.” He knew who I was. And I said, “I just wanted to say hello.” He said, “Well, you said it.” I thought, okay, he doesn’t want to talk. So I said, “Thank you. I hope things go well for you.” And he goes, “How’s it going for you?” I said, “Good. I had a good rehearsal. I think I’m ready to get the play published now.” I just felt nervous about even trying to be friendly with him. And I said, “How’s it going for you?” And he says, “Oh, swimmingly. I’m Tennessee Williams. Everything I write is golden. I can’t write anything that’s bad.” He said, “People tell me how wonderful I am.” And he said, “That’s why my play is going down the drain. Good night.” I learned a lesson there: He needs vigorous discussions in rehearsals. Flying sparks force him to see clearly and make changes. And he wasn’t getting that because people were worshiping him.

It was a year later that he had that horrible death in a New York City hotel. He was a master playwright.

NGN:
Wow.

Now, skipping ahead many years, in 2004, you created and were the head writer for the TV miniseries Into the West, which received sixteen Emmy nominations. What would you like to share now about that venture?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Spielberg asked ten Hollywood writers to think about a story of the opening of the West, beginning around 1835. He didn’t give many parameters. He said, “What I want you to think about is two families, one white and one Native American, and how these families meet at some point.”

He gave us two weeks to think about it. It was a lot of research, and a lot of hard thinking. The ten writers were flown to Hollywood. We all waited to be called. I was number seven in line. You would go up to his office and the producers, and you would pitch your story. And they would say, “Thank you very much.”

It was my turn, and I pitched the story. It was the greatest pitch I ever gave in my life. I was really at my best. That was lucky because the thoughts that I had all came together the night before—the fourteenth day of the two-week deadline. At the end of my pitch, Spielberg turned to his right-hand man and said, “Please tell the other writers it would not be fair to have them come in and pitch because I found what I want.” That’s what happened. That’s how I learned I got the job.

Then we sat there for a couple of hours talking about the movie and what it should be. I was supposed to write six two-hour episodes—twelve hours of TV. I was prepared to do that. They dragged their feet and took their time. They said, “We have to shoot by a certain date. You’re not going to have enough time to write it.” I said, “I can do it. I can write a movie in two weeks.” They didn’t trust that. They said, “We’re making you the head writer. You can hire three other writers, and you can write three of the six.” And that’s what happened. I hired other writers. I actually wrote all of the episodes. I allowed the other writers to get creative with my scripts, but the guardrails had to stay in place. The day after I got the job, my then-agent told me everybody in town wants to meet with me because I know “How to speak Spielberg.” It’s amazing how that town works: hype in, hype out. They have yet to learn Steven Spielberg doesn’t run a sausage factory.

NGN:
I read that you were supposed to do a movie on the boxer Muhammad Ali. What happened with that project?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Oliver Stone contacted me, probably fall or winter of 1992, and he said, “Let’s talk.” We met. He said, “Muhammad Ali wants to do a movie and I want you to write it.” He then said, “How do you feel about that?“ I said, “I really admire Muhammad Ali, right from the beginning.” Ali was a lightning rod for important things in our society. A lot of people just said, “No, he’s not patriotic,” but I was on his side the whole time. I was eager to look more deeply into him. So we had a talk with Ali. Ali started out by saying, “I’m going to tell you things that nobody knows about. I’m going to tell you about orgies and behind-the-scenes things. I’ll give you everything, but you have to promise me one thing. You’re not going to go after Islam in any way.” So, Oliver Stone asked me, “How do you feel about that?” I said, “Well, if I’m going to write a biographical story, I need to have the freedom to exercise my thoughts and, of course, I wouldn’t do that recklessly.”

Oliver Stone then said, “Every castle has one king; my movie is my castle.” Between what Oliver said and what I said that kiboshed the whole thing. I could have been a bullshitting Hollywood writer and just said, “Yeah, of course,” say anything to get the job. I’m really not like that. I really was taken by Ali and how he took on the powers-that-be and paid the price for his principles. He was one of the great people of our time.

NGN:
Your play Ride the Tiger (2013) was based on an interview you did with Frank Sinatra. Originally, this play was called Dirty Business (2008) at Florida Studio Theatreand at the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, and it was directed by Gordon Edelstein. The drama takes place between 1959 and 1963. Locations are Cape Cod, Las Vegas, Miami Beach, New York, Palm Beach, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the White House. The foundation of the play involves a young senator, a Chicago mob boss, a well-established singer, and a young, sexy woman who goes between these intriguing and powerful men. That tells a great deal. You are dealing with power, danger, and politics. In essence, you have an interview that you use to fictionalize the real characters and relationships between Jack Kennedy, Joseph Kennedy (his father), Frank Sinatra, Sam Giancana (the mafia boss), and Judith Exner. What would you like to share now that you could not share back in the day?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Well, for one thing, it’s the kind of playwright I wanted to be. It was Shakespeare—larger than life characters, aspiring to something grand. Frank Sinatra told me a story about how he was a liaison between the Kennedys and the mafia, Sam Giancana in Chicago. We tried to put that whole story in the series, but Sam Giancana’s daughters threatened to sue. CBS and Warner Brothers told me, “You have to cut that scene out.” I said, “Well, if we have to cut anything, let’s cut out the objectionable part,” and that’s what we did. Sinatra was very upset because he felt we had cut out an important thing. He believed that Sam Giancana was suspect number one in the assassination of JFK. After the series, Giancana’s daughters wrote a book that claimed their father was the assassin. That was ten years after we cut the scene.

I think it’s my best play.

NGN:
You like Ride the Tiger better than Extremities?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
Yes. It’s a much better play. But what do I know?

NGN:
Are you still sending it around?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
No. My agent sent that play to all the major producers in New York City. They all got back to him, and they said how much they loved the play. They all pretty much said the same thing: it would not ever be produced because they did not want to be part of tarnishing the reputation of JFK. And I said, “There’s nothing in this play that the world doesn’t already know.”

With the possible exception that Frank was a liaison between JFK and Sam Giancana. Frank said that the mini-series would be part of his legacy, and as in life, he wanted to tell the truth, warts and all, about his need to help his friend JFK, who later betrayed him. In America we have our own more subtle form of censorship.

NGN:
You have not only done the adaptations of your stage plays to movie scripts, but you also did numerous revisions of your plays. Could you describe your revision process for the various productions of a play?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I embrace the adage that good plays are not written; they’re rewritten. If I see a better way to tell a story, or see a new facet of a character, if I see rookie mistakes, if I have new insights, if the character is talking to me, I will rewrite. Nothing is ever done except for a movie because it’s on film, but if it’s a play and it’s on paper, it’s subject to change. Everything.

NGN:
What is the difference between writing a screenplay and a stage play?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
People have written volumes about this. But for me, it’s very simple. A play is telling a story with dialogue. A movie is telling a story with pictures that has dialogue written to support the pictures, but the pictures are primary. That’s basically it.

NGN:
What would you like to share about the A&E television network drama Benedict Arnold: A Question of Honor (2003), in which the title character is played by Aidan Quinn?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I wrote it on spec, and when you write it on spec, nobody’s paying you. You’re taking a chance. It means you have to believe in the story before anybody else does.

I always had an interest in history and that was a story that I was intrigued by for decades, because Benedict Arnold has become a synonym for traitor. You call somebody a Benedict Arnold—that’s not a compliment. When I looked at history, Benedict Arnold was considered by George Washington to be our best general. How does a guy go from that kind of reputation, as being the best general, to being a traitor? I really needed to know. I delved into it, read books and thought a lot about it. And I said, this is really a great story. It’s like a Greek tragedy on American soil. This is like Sophocles. The movie was supposed to be done by a really big Hollywood producer. They said, “We don’t want to shoot it for another year.” I said, “There are two other Benedict Arnold movies that are in development now. I don’t want to be the last one. Because I feel like I’m the first one; I wrote this years ago.” They said, “We can’t move the schedule.” Then A&E offered to buy it. So I did it just so mine would not to be the last one. It was a huge mistake, a great error of judgment on my part. It is one of the best screenplays I ever wrote, but it had to be cut down in order to fit into an hour and a half. It should have been about two hours and fifteen minutes. It was very exciting. It had love and war. It was my mistake. It was terrible.

NGN:
What can you tell us about your play Rules of Desire, which was directed Off-Broadway by William Roudebush and premiered in February 2020. It is said to explore self-preservation, issues of power, and humanism. What would you like to share about it now?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I don’t like that description. I think that touches upon it, but it doesn’t get the essence of it. The play is about a man who is destroyed by pornography. The play is absolutely vile, the language and the action in it. But I had to go to that place if I was going to be honest about the subject. I had to go there if I’m going to get inside his head. People are squeamish about it.

It really was a terrific production. Producer Erik Krebs had the guts and savvy to mount it. The audience was shocked. If Extremities is about an attempted physical rape, then Rules of Desire is about psychological rape, and it’s very, very effective. Some women in the audience were just livid and actually left the theater, but then came back when they thought about it. They were offended, but they were moved by it, and they came back. Audiences recognized the subject matter was part of the zeitgeist. Many young men today are addicted to porn. I really like the play. I doubt that it’s going to get any more productions.

NGN:
What was the most challenging play you have written?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
That is the one, the most challenging. Three times while I was writing it, I threw it in the trash because I didn’t want to mess around with porn. I didn’t want to go there. It was like the play was at the bottom of a cesspool and if I wanted to understand it, I would have to suit up and get down there in my scuba gear to get it. I threw it away three times and I came back to it a fourth time. I just thought it had something to say. I felt vindicated there was nobody that wasn’t affected by it. I don’t want the audience to like anything; I want them to be affected by it. I want to connect with their psyches.

NGN:
One thing that you hear often is that a writer needs strength and resilience. You have resilience because you have survived many struggles. As a screenwriter and a playwright, what do you consider your greatest strength? 

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
When I was young and dumb in a boxing club, my opponent, a Goliath, stepped in the ring. My coach said, “Don’t look at the size of your opponent. The winner will be who wants it the most.” Funny how those words always come up for me. I never give up, no matter what. No matter how bad things get, you never give up. That’s how I survived many struggles. It’s part toughness of spirit and part being completely given to the magic of theatre. The stage is a place of poetry and infinite possibilities. A place where I can be who I was born to be.

NGN:
How would you advise young playwrights who would love to travel your journey?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
I would say travel your own journey. There’s no room on my journey. It’s just me. It’s a one-seat airplane. Just go deep into yourself, deep into your psyche. It’s a Joseph Campbell kind of journey. It’s Jesus in the desert, Buddha under the Bodhi tree. There’s no formula because you are a unique being. I don’t have the keys to your kingdom. Look for those keys to yourself. I never woke up and asked, “What does the world want from me?” Give the world your uniqueness. You’re the only person in the world who has that. There’s a Sioux adage that I learned from Chief Red Eagle: “You were born with everything you need to be great.” Go into your own mind and find your way. Don’t look for the path outside of yourself. That, I think, always leads to the wrong place. If my plays were never done, I would be sitting in a room somewhere, eating rice and beans, just living to write the next thing. Lucky for me, somebody found some truth in my work, and actors wanted to say those words, and audiences wanted to hear those words. One thing followed the next.

NGN:
What can we expect from you next?

WILLIAM MASTROSIMONE:
You attended the reading of The Gates of Heavenly Peace. A Stone Carver seems destined for Broadway. If so, I have hopes that the powers-that-be might have another look at Ride the Tiger. I have a bunch of things started. To me, it’s like a horse race. At one point, one of those horses will break out of the pack. Right now, I can’t tell you what’s next. I’m still watching the race.

What I’ve been doing for six months is editing books. I’m going to have sixteen of my plays published—including Bang Bang You’re Dead, Ride the Tiger, and Sleepwalk. A whole bunch of other plays are going to be published this year, so I’ve been editing them because I’ll never have a chance to rewrite them again. I’m not getting any younger. I have more ideas than I have time to write. ■

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