Stephen Adly Guirgis's plays have been called raw, streetwise, and intense. Our Lady of 121st Street is no exception. It is the story of a group of acquaintances who are reunited by the death of their old teacher, a nun by the name of Sister Rose. It has all of the edginess of Guirgis's earlier works, yet it is also surprisingly funny, spiritual, and touching.Backstage wanted to know more about this rising star in American playwrighting, so we sent Artistic Assistant Kerri White out on Guirgis's trail to find out more about him.
Many of the people who have interviewed writer Stephen Adly Guirgis have drawn attention to the parallels between the author's life and the lives of the characters in his plays. In an interview with The New York Times in 2002, Guirgis was described as "being unformed, all potential, as if he's waiting for experience and maturity to dawn on him." Perhaps it is this very quality of unselfconsciousness that gives his writing its much lauded edge. Actor/director Philip Seymour Hoffman describes Guirgis's writing as "...almost naïve, like he's saying that nobody told him that it's wrong to write like this."
The son of an Egyptian father and an Irish American mother, Guirgis grew up on New York's Upper West Side. He attended a parochial school in Harlem on 121st Street. He remembers one of the nuns who was his teacher there quoting St. Paul to him. She said, "In order to become a man, you have to put away childish things." Guirgis later commented, "Unfortunately," "she never told me where to put them." He became interested in acting in high school and serious about it in college at Albany State in New York. He only took one playwriting course in college, but he says, "I didn't work hard, and I wasn't well–read."
Guirgis got his start at the LAByrinth Theatre in New York City, which was founded by a group of actors in 1992. The company was originally focused on producing Latino theater, but the group soon expanded to represent the experiences of other minority groups. The original ensemble has grown from 13 to over 60 members. The LAByrinth Theatre is an artistic collective based on ensemble principles, in which each member is encouraged to try their creative hand at every aspect of theater, from acting to directing, from working behind the scenes as a carpenter to designing. Or in Guirgis's case, playwriting.
While working as an actor in New York in the early '90s, Guirgis was invited to audition for the LAByrinth by his college friend, John Ortiz (who is the theater's co–founder and co–artistic director). Guirgis was accepted into the company and originally worked exclusively as an actor. In 1995, Ortiz urged his friend to write a one–act play for his fellow company members. That one–act, called Francisco and Benny, was an enormous critical success, and Guirgis had stumbled into a career as a playwright.
Guirgis' first full–length play, In Arabia We Would All Be Kings, premiered at the LAByrinth Theatre in 1999, under the direction of Philip Seymour Hoffman, a fellow company member. Described as a "grim slice of life in and around a divey Times Square bar" by The New York Times Magazine, it was listed as one of the Ten Best Plays of that year by Time Out New York. His second play, Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train, also began at LAByrinth with Hoffman at the helm. It centers on Angel, a young Latino man who has been thrown in jail for shooting a religious cult leader "in the ass." While in prison, Angel meets a famous serial killer who has been "saved" by his faith in Jesus, and the rest of the play focuses on the conflict between belief and practice. The production was an enormous critical and financial success for the LAByrinth and went on to be performed around the country (including here at Steppenwolf) and in the United Kingdom. There it gained widespread critical acclaim, including the Edinburgh Festival's Fringe First Award and a nomination for the coveted Olivier Award for best new play.
In spite of his success as a writer, Guirgis remains true to his LAByrinth roots. While he has received a commission from South Coast Repertory and has written scripts for television, he is in the process of developing two new shows for LAByrinth and continues to work as an actor on stage, as well as in film and on television. Guirgis says that he will always consider the LAByrinth Theatre his artistic home. "I've been really fortunate, I think all of us [in the company] have, because we all are a strong support system for each other. It's good to have a home, you know."