A Conversation with MJ Kaufman
- What year(s) were you at the New Harmony Project?
2013
- Can you talk about a favorite memory or two? If you were asked to describe NHP to someone, how would you do it?
Finding my way through the stone labyrinth by moonlight, choreographing a puppet-dance in a barn, meeting with collaborators in the ruins of a utopia. I describe it as a former utopian land project turned new play development festival! A place of retreat and focus, a place that values hope and positivity without losing rigor or craft, a place where building community is a priority.
- Where do you find inspiration for your writing? What other writers (in any genre) do you find inspiring?
I’m inspired by poets a lot though I won’t give away the ones who always deliver for me because I’m superstitious! In theater, it’s writers who are constantly pushing the form forward who give me the most inspiration- Jackie Sibblies Drury, Chris Chen, Mia Chung, Kate Tarker and Phillip Howze to name a few. Always Bertolt Brecht. I’m inspired by history, by music, by visual art, by birdwatching & hiking, by gardening, by sitting on the subway and observing the people and texture of life around me.
- What's your creative process/ritual?
I don’t have just one, and honestly now that I’m a parent with a full-time job it’s just write as much as I can whenever I can. When I’m working on a project I need to touch it in some way every day, whether that’s writing, recording myself a voice memo about it while I’m out walking my dog, listening to a playlist associated with it, drawing or mapping or writing notes. I try to enforce a 30 minute minimum engagement with whatever project I’m working on daily. I used to write every morning religiously, but now it’s whenever I find the time. I believe in cultivating projects like cultivating a garden: planting, watering, pruning, shaping, etc.
- What advice would you give to aspiring creatives?
Make what only you can make, not what you think might sell or be successful. Be rigorous about your practice and guard your time like a wolf. Look deep inside yourself, be honest about your unique superpowers and cultivate them.
- Do you have a dream project that you're dying to work on?
Yes but I can’t share it until it’s done. I’m superstitious. When a cake is baking you can’t open the oven to see what it looks like or else it will never bake.
- Can you tell us a little bit about what's next for you?
In just a few weeks I’m headed to New Harmony! I’m going to be rewriting a screenplay there that I wrote in 2022 about two trans youth who run away from home and travel across the country in search of gender affirming healthcare. The landscape of where that care is available to youth (and adults), has changed considerably and continues to shift as I write this, so I’m going to have to adjust to meet that in this next draft.