Theresa Rebeck knew from a young age she wanted to be a playwright. But it took a while for the Cincinnati native to have the courage to follow her dream.
Rebeck, whose play Talk is making its world premiere at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, chatted about her journey from All Saints Elementary School in Kenwood to the stages of Broadway on this week’s episode of the That’s So Cincinnati podcast.
Rebeck said that while attending Brandeis University in Massachusetts in pursuit of a Ph.D. in English, she found herself gravitating to theater classes and questioning her path toward a career in academia.
“I kept sneaking over to the theater department to audit classes, and then finally I just said, oh, the hell with it, this is what I clearly should
be doing. I've got to stop being kind of cowardly about it,” Rebeck said. “I felt like a bit of a coward because I was writing plays by then. And when I audited the playwriting workshop, I realized that the only thing, the only difference between me and the very few students who were really studying it … is that they had the courage to say, this is what I want to do.”
During the podcast, Rebeck talked about the challenges of being a female playwright, how she landed her first play on Broadway, and her experience working with Stephen Spielberg, who was an executive producer for Smash, the TV show Rebeck created that ran for two seasons on NBC.
She credits Playhouse in the Park for ingniting her passion for theater.
“Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park was instrumental to the whole notion that appeared in my brain about being a playwright,” Rebeck said. “Every year I was at All Saints … we got to go to student matinees, three a year, and you had to (get) the permission slip, get it signed and have five bucks. And you got to go see a play. … That was really where I became an enamored with theater.
“I thought that playwrights were gods.”
Talk, directed by Mêlisa Annis, runs through Oct. 25 at Playhouse in the Park. For tickets, go online to cincyplay.com.
"That’s So Cincinnati," The Enquirer’s weekly podcast on what's making news in our community, features a who’s who of special guests. Find it at Audioboom, Apple or your favorite podcast platform.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Playwright Rebeck takes on talking heads in 'Talk' | That's So Cincinnati
