Playwright alumna Julia Jordan (Playwrights '96) is shattering a troubling stereotype. A recent, highly publicized study by the New York State Council on the Arts showed that only 17 percent of plays produced in America are written by women. But this past year, four of Julia Jordan's plays—Tatjana in Color, St. Scarlet, Summer of the Swans, and Boy—will have premiered Off-Broadway. The most recent, Boy, opens this month at Primary Stages.Julia Jordan's journey to writing was circuitous, to say the least. A native Minnesotan, she moved to New York to pursue painting, then became interested in photography. After majoring in English literature at Barnard, she worked at CNN as a copywriter, then attended acting school at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater.
Julia Jordan (Photo by Katie Cerey)
Jordan's acting experience prompted her own writing career. "I couldn't say some of the lines at the auditions, because they were just so bad. I would walk out because I was so embarrassed. My agent dropped me. Then I realized if that was the kind of stuff getting produced in New York City, I could do something about it."Only two years after she began writing, she was accepted to the Playwrights program at Juilliard. "I had only written a one-act. I was really intimidated at first. I had never been involved in something that mattered so much to me."At Juilliard, Jordan honed her literary and dramatic instincts. "I learned what would work dramatically, what would work on stage. Before, I couldn't do it consciously." She also developed a community of fellow writers. "To this day, I have maintained a group of friends from Juilliard—some who went there years after I left. We hear each other's plays and help each other out, even helping each other try to get jobs."She was in the first class of playwright students in the newly formed program. While some of her classmates—David Auburn (author of Proof) and Stephen Belber (Tape)—went on to achieve more immediate visibility, Jordan spent years writing and working without acknowledgement from the theater community.Gender bias may account for some of it. "A lot of it is habit," says Jordan, who recently participated in a playwrights' panel that included Terrence McNally and A.R. Gurney. "People want what is tried and true. Some people will pass on a play if a woman writes it and the lead character is female, because they think the audience won't buy it. The assumption is that women are not as much fun, that they aren't as dramatic. They also assume the topic will always be something related only to the female experience."Jordan draws inspiration from her own experiences. "Generally speaking, my plays come from something suggested by my past, a parallel or reflection of something in my life that is true to me." Also, she admits to being a sucker for a good, tricky plot. "It's sort of a forgotten art, because it has been done badly so many times. More than just a character study or beautiful writing, a great plot lets the audience do some work." Hollywood has taken over that aspect now, she says, and many plays are missing "that moment of 'Oh my god, what is going to happen.' And I love that…"Jordan's next project is an intimidating one for any writer: writing for only two people on stage. "I always admired 'Night, Mother [by Marsha Norman] so much.""I love working with actors," she says, fresh from rehearsals for Boy. "They embody the other part of the writing—the character—and in the end, they are the definitive voice for that character. I just love seeing how each actor will come in for auditions and do the part completely differently."Success hasn't changed the direction of her work, but she's grateful to "finally be making a bit of a living. You really don't make a living from Off-Broadway shows, but from the shows those jobs get you. Now I can carve out time for my writing. I don't think you can really count on success always being there. Playwrights go up and down, just like actors and artists do. You just have to keep writing."—Lauren McMinn
