05 Aug OOB Final 30 Countdown – Lizzie Vieh

Three more days until the festival! And today’s Final 30 countdown features Lizzie Vieh!

Lizzie Vieh is a playwright and actor. Her full-length plays include The Loneliest Number, Backwater Rising, Barrier Islands, and Wisconsin Death Trip. Her work has been performed at the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival, The Wild Project, Daryl Roth Theater, MTC Studios, The Kraine, and The Brown/Trinity Graduate Program. MFA Brown/Trinity, BA Brown University.

When did you start writing plays? If you had a moment where you realized you wanted to write, what was it?

I started writing plays in college. Though I’ve always been interested in writing, it was in graduate school for acting that I had the opportunity to write a play for my classmates to perform. It was a great experience, and from that point on, I wanted to be a playwright.

How did you come to write your OOB play? Was there a particular inspiration behind its creation? How has it developed?

Monsoon Season was originally written for SHOTZ, a monthly short play produced by Amios. Each month, six writers write short plays based on a theme. I wrote Monsoon Season for “Shotz from the Crypt,” a Halloween-themed show. It was originally about eight minutes long, so I have fleshed it out considerably since then.

What are 5 words that describe who you are as a playwright?

Unsentimental, searching, dark, precise, musical.

What/who are some of the major influences on your writing?

Caryl Churchill, Wallace Shawn, Maria Irene Fornes, Tennessee Williams, Adrienne Kennedy.

What’s one fact someone would never guess about you?

I’m currently binge-watching Murder She Wrote on Netflix.

What are some of your favorite plays?

The Skriker, Aunt Dan and Lemon, Fefu and her Friends, The Night of the Iguana, Crave, A Lie of the Mind, A Movie Star has to Star in Black and White, A Map of Virtue, One Flea Spare, The Danube, Old Times, Fucking A, The Maids

7. Any new projects you’re working on or shameless plugs?

Look our for an upcoming production of The Loneliest Number!

Her play Monsoon Season will be performed on August 11th at 8:30pm. It’s monsoon season in Phoenix, and Danny hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. Between his recent divorce, his mind-numbing job in technical support, and the neon sign from the strip club that glows through his window all night, his grasp of reality is slipping. And things only get weirder when a decapitated body is found near Danny’s job, and Danny develops a fascination with circles.