BWW Interviews: Playwright ROBERT CAISLEY Premieres LUCKY ME at NJ Rep

New Jersey Repertory Company (NJ Rep) will present Robert Caisley's Lucky Me from July 31st through August 31st. The show is a National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. Directed by NJ Rep's Artistic Director, SuzAnne Barabas, Lucky Me is a whimsical, romantic comedy about love, aging, cracked windows, broken bones airport security and twenty-two years of bad luck.

Caisley is a Professor of Theatre and Film and Head of the Dramatic Writing Program at the University of Idaho. His last play, Happy was presented at the 2011 National New Play Network Annual Showcase of New Plays and was a 2012 Finalist for the prestigious Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center's New Play Conference. Happy had a very successful run at NJ Rep in 2013. In addition to being an award-winning playwright, Caisley's career includes credits as a director, creative consultant and a much sought after speaker. Broadwayworld.com had an opportunity to interview him before the opening of Lucky Me at NJ Rep.

We asked Caisley about his inspiration for Lucky Me. "With Lucky Me I just sat down one day and started writing this play that took place in an apartment. I didn't know it was going to be an apartment until I wrote "a two-bedroom apartment." The lights came up on the stage and these two characters entered - one was on crutches, the other was helping them back from the E.R. That's all I knew about them at that point, but I was interested to learn how the one on crutches had sustained the injury - which turned out to be a 'Dancer's Fracture,' a fracture of the 5th metatarsal. Who knew? And I kept discovering little bits and pieces about the people that lived in that space. I find that if I can sustain this inquisitiveness over 15 or 20 pages, I'm usually invested enough to keep going."

Caisley also spoke about how Lucky Me is distinctive from his other plays. "Lucky Me essentially asks if there is such as thing as Good Fortune and Bad Fortune controlling our lives, and how does it seem to operate so disproportionately in some people's lives and not in others?" He also spoke about how his work has evolved and said that his early plays were about "the complexity of plot" and his latest work is about "the simplification of plot."

Caisley has high praise for NJ Rep, SuzAnne and Gabor Barabas, and the Long Branch audiences. He stated, "The producers of professional theatre around the country are, by and large, a timid breed. Their timidity stems from assuming their audiences do not want to assume the challenge and risk of a new untested play. Gabor Barabas and SuzAnne Barabas at NJ Rep have discovered the exact opposite to be true. Their audiences really celebrate the arrival of a new play to the stage, because they've recognized what a rich experience it can be to see something unfold before your eyes for the very first time, to be part of the very first group of people witness to the birth of a new American play. I remember attending a script-in-hand reading of a new play in NJ Rep's ongoing reading series when I was first in town for rehearsals for Happy. I was amazed by how engaged the audience was, attending with their notebooks in which many of them had scrawled down extremely enlightened observations about the play read that day. I experienced the culture of a theatre that has inculcated in its audience, not only a real passion for new work, but a keen sensitivity to what an audience can do to encourage, edify and contribute to the healthy continued life of any new work for the stage."

Caisley also said, "In fact, Lucky Me is premiering in Long Branch, specifically because Gabor and SuzAnne committed to it early on -- immediately after hearing a very informal reading they'd organized while I was in town for the opening last year of Happy. They don't just support individual plays, they support writers, and that's an important and critical distinction in an industry that is generally looking for the next hit."

Lucky Me will be on stage at New Jersey Repertory Company from July 31st through August 31st. The play is a perfect selection for the theatre's summer season. For tickets call 732-229-3166 or visit www.njrep.org.

Photo: Courtesy of Robert Caisley