Student Blog: Conversations with Friends: Gena Treyvus

A benefit of attending DePaul University is the opportunity to cross paths with theatremakers from all walks of life. One such person is my good friend, Gena. Here, she talks about playwriting, theatre, and life at DePaul!

1. “Who” is Gena? Tell me about yourself! Hi! My name is Gena and I’ve attached my bio here which I think has a good chunk of information about me. But in short, I’m a playwright and theatre artist, I’m Jewish, I’m a student, and I try my best to keep my plants alive. 
2. What initially got you into theatre? Like many theatre artists, I started out in theatre by doing acting in middle school and high school. I think the first play I was in that I enjoyed enough to make me pursue theatre was when I was Helaina in a middle school production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (we somehow did a completely unabridged version with a cast of like 7 ish people and some 12-year-olds very dedicated to memorizing multiple roles) and I continued from there. In my sophomore year of high school, I joined the Performance Lab at the MCC Theater Youth Company, and this was a performance program where we spend a year devising a 90-minute show and strengthening our skills as performers. Devising and performing monologues and short scenes I had written got me really interested in writing and I realized it was something I’m good at. The following year when I was a junior I joined MCC Theater’s Playwriting Lab and started writing plays, writing my first full-length play Strawberries at the Datcha that year. And I just kept writing plays from there because I’d found my passion.
3. What moment in any show you’ve seen stands out to you? The Theatre School at DePaul University did a production of Carol Churchhill’s Vinegar Tom. There’s a monologue near the end where a character wishes she was a witch so she could melt men like wax. Hearing that out loud made it really resonate with me and I think about that moment a lot. And the final music number in that show also rocked and seeing characters who were just about to be executed for witchcraft sing and dance and play instruments was very fun (as well as thought-provoking as it brought the story into conversation with our current world).
4. How did you end up at DePaul? I ended up at DePaul because I was specifically interested in a school that had a playwriting program. Playwriting is kind of an uncommon major for schools to have, and The Theatre School offered a program that had everything I was looking for. I’m very happy with my choice and have had a great time writing plays here and also getting a lot of cool experience in a variety of theatre roles. I’ve gotten to work on devising and performing a play and assistant directing and being a dramaturg for a new script. All these experiences inform my theatre practice.
5. Talk about Wrights of Spring (ie. What is it, what was your process, how has it helped you) Wrights of Spring is a playwriting festival at the Theatre School that showcases plays written by theatre school students. Most recently I had a reading of a play I wrote that I called “Untitled Psych Ward Play” which was about teens who are in a (sort of) long-term psychiatric hospitalization in New York City and the community they make there. This is a play that I’ve been writing for most of the academic school year as a part of my playwriting course taught by Carlos Murillo. It’s been super helpful to have a playwriting cohort and be able to get weekly feedback on the script from the playwrights in my grade as well as my professor. Wrights of Spring was the first time that I got to hear the play read in front of an audience and hear feedback from people who aren’t familiar with the script, as well as hear thoughts from my actors and director who worked on bringing the reading to life. I still have a lot of work to do on the play and it’s very much a work in progress, and Wrights of Spring was an immeasurably helpful and exciting experience and part of developing my play. By the way, a fun update is that I do have a new title now, which is 21 North, we’ll see if the title changes as I keep working on it :) 
6. Talk about your experience with the Jewish Plays Project! When I first did a workshop and reading of my play Strawberries at the Datcha at MCC Theater’s FreshPlay Festival, my director suggested that I submit it for a playwriting contest run by the Jewish Plays Project. Eventually I did. My first time submitting it, my play was a semi-finalist for the contest, making it to the top 20 of over 200 plays. I got an email from the Jewish Plays Project suggesting that I continue working on and editing the script and then resubmit it for consideration for the following year’s contest. I did just that and ended up as a finalist for the 2022 contest, making it to the top 7 plays this time. I got to have a lot of interesting conversations about my play with the people at the Jewish Plays Project, and work with actors and a director on getting a short excerpt of my play produced as a part of the Jewish Play Project’s first-ever podcast series. This process was super helpful because as a part of rehearsing this excerpt, we had a workshop day where we read and discussed the entire script. At this point, I hadn’t had my play workshopped in over 3 years so hearing new feedback about my play and getting some hindsight on a script that I wrote the bulk of three years ago was very helpful for the development of this play.
7. How have you been supported as a theatre student at DePaul? I’m very lucky and grateful to have a cohort and community of playwrights around me. The people in my program are awesome. My advice is to try to find a community of writers and playwrights if you don’t have one already because writing plays can be lonely and having people to go to for support and feedback is great. Carlos Murillo gives this advice to all playwrights in TTS so I want to pass it on. If you already have a community of playwrights then my advice is to utilize them. Hang out with each other, look over each other’s scripts, grab some lunch and talk about some interesting article you read the other day.

More about Gena: Gena Treyvus is an emerging writer from Brooklyn and a rising senior earning her BFA in Playwriting from The Theatre School at DePaul University. Her full-length plays include Strawberries at the Datcha and Operation #23: Steal the Mona Lisa, which received workshops and readings at the 2019 and 2021 FreshPlay Festivals at MCC Theater. Strawberries at the Datcha was also a finalist for the Jewish Plays Project’s 11th Annual Contest, and she is featured in their first-ever podcast series. Gena is also a proud alum of the MCC Theater Youth Company, where she was a part of the Performance Lab, Playwriting Lab, and the Ambassadors program. Her recent playwriting work at The Theatre School includes her one-act Pieces of You and her full-length play 21 North, both of which premiered at DePaul University’s Wrights of Spring Festival. In Gena’s free time, she likes to read and crochet.

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