Student Blog: Earning Time

I’ll be frank with you, reader. This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever published. Upon completing my miniseries with the current five MFA playwrights at UC San Diego, I thought it would be super valuable to hear the perspective of an alum whose work is currently up and running. So without further ado, it is my immense honor to introduce you all to nationwide superstar playwright and 2022 UCSD alum Keiko Green!! She’s a daring, genre-bending writer whose boldness and deft are nothing short of inspirational.

Green journeyed through a whole chapter of her life as an actor, with a formative artistic milestone being her time working towards a BFA at New York University’s Experimental Theatre Wing. A huge component of this studio’s training involved writing her own pieces, which she capitalized on as an Asian-American woman feeling dissatisfied with the available roles that already existed. She reflects on how “at first [she] thought [she’d] just be writing for [herself]” but immediately realized that she “enjoyed working with other actors even more, and collaborating and building something together.” Acting then brought her to Seattle’s Act Theater for a few years where she would find herself tinkering with her scripts any chance she got during rehearsals.

Her first year at UCSD began in fall 2019 as the only playwright in her MFA cohort, leading into what was supposed to be her first Wagner New Play Festival in spring 2020. The pandemic hiatus for live theater meant that instead of the usual three productions guaranteed to a Triton MFA playwright, Green only had the opportunity to create one. But even still, she spent those three years writing what became nine full-length plays, and remarkably, all nine of them will have been professionally produced at least once by the end of this year. While the pandemic made optimism about the industry a challenge, it granted her the chance to broaden her writing stylistically. Rather than feeling a pragmatic obligation to “write things that are really produce-able, cheap, two actors on one set” she set out to “just write what makes [her] excited and what made [her] laugh out loud… which made [her] writing a lot stronger.”

And oh, that one Wagner play? It was Hells Canyon. Ariel, a pregnant Chinese-American woman, finds herself on a weekend trip with her friends to a cabin in the Oregon woods, where they discover the reality of the ground they stand on and… well, I don’t think I should say any more than that. Go see this play. Aside from the richly layered character drama and the complex commentary on race and history, one of its biggest standout qualities is its sheer existence as a horror piece. Green finds that “even though it’s one of the most reliable genres of film, horror is something that theater shies away from and is missing out on.” Having the opportunity to break free from the confines of genre while at UCSD paved the way for a mind-boggling play that will continue to burn a pair of green eyes into audiences’ brains for years to come. If you know, you know. 

Working right alongside her to bring Hells Canyon to life for the first time was directing professor Vanessa Stalling, who Green found to be a match made in heaven. Stalling’s presence and leadership redefined how she thought of the collaborative process, especially when it came to staging the more intense moments of violence special effects, where she taught her that “sometimes the simplest version of something is the strongest version.” Having a director as skilled as Stalling become a champion of her work was an ultimate ace in the hole. Green hopes to one day reunite with her and remount the show, so consider this a bit of manifestation. 

The major dramatic question she seeks to explore with her work is “how do we make our lives significant?” Big existential questions loom in the horizon of pieces like Hells Canyon and the magnificent Empty Ride— which made its world premiere at The Old Globe here in San Diego this past February— and while her plays are not exclusively about death, they open conversations about what we do to honor the lives of those we love. They also branch out to what she describes as “identity plays,” since from her perspective, “if characters are going to change, that in and of itself… is asking ‘who am I in this world?’” 

A goal that Green held herself to was to finish each quarter with a completed draft that could potentially turn into something bigger, and the insight on story structure and pacing from professors Deborah Stein and Naomi Iizuka led her to craft a cohesive body of work. The prospect of studying under Iizuka made UCSD her top choice because of the environment she cultivates where “the program is really small, and everyone is really celebrating each other.” Free of competition with other playwrights and getting to write the things she was most excited about, she could not have praised the training more highly.

Helping her reach that point was the framework of the program itself. The accountability of school with the feeling of a residency made for her ideal combination, and it taught her just how much of your growth is intrinsically up to you. She also feels that “teaching is the thing that made [her] the best writer,” and that the feedback she gave to undergraduate students would reveal to her things about her own plays that she never saw previously. 

Lastly, Green’s biggest advice to you all is to “wait until you know what you need” before thinking about applying for graduate school. She found herself on the path towards a degree in playwriting after what she describes as “a whole career as an actor,” so it’s important to discover where your trajectory will take you before going to grad school in order to get the most out of it. Even if you get into a school, it doesn’t mean you should immediately say yes. It’s completely okay to wait another year and strengthen your portfolio so that you can get accepted into the best-fitting school. There’s no rush on something like this. You’ve earned the time.

Thank you so much to Keiko for the gifts of your time and wisdom!! And thank you for reading. Do yourself a favor and stay on the lookout for her works being programmed by a theater near you because, trust me, they’ll be there soon. You will want to be there.