My First Time

by | Nov 10, 2015 | Thoughts and Musings

authorphotoThere’s nothing like the first time. Everyone remembers it, don’t they? I remember my first time as if it were yesterday. I had never been to the theater before.  I’d seen local productions of The King and I and Annie Get Your Gun, but I had never seen a play. As it so happened, in the summer of 1988 a pop star was having a first time of her own. That summer Madonna was appearing in her first and, I believe, only play: Speed-the-Plow. I can’t say I was a fan of hers but to be fair, she was a great influence on the decade that saw me leap into adulthood. In short, I went to see the play because she was in it. What happened that afternoon changed the course of my life.

Two other actors were on that stage with her. One was Joe Mantegna and the second was the late Ron Silver. The curtain went up (was there a curtain?) and it was as if suddenly I’d been deaf up to that moment and didn’t know it. In less than two hours I learned to hear. I learned what one could do with words and sentences. These two actors were in a boxing match and they were using words to knock each other around the stage. And the pauses and the beats…silence was just another note for them to play. Madonna was at the center of the play but it was these two men who were really singing that afternoon. And who wrote the music? Who was responsible for this awakening? David Mamet pulled me into the theater — dragged me from my seat back to the typewriter ( a Brother electric typewriter). I’ve been there ever since. 

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Rogelio Martinez

Rogelio Martinez is the winner of the first ever Mid-Career Fellowship at the Lark Theater Company. Ping Pong, his play about Nixon, Mao, and the hippie that brought the two together, will be produced at The Public as part of their Public Studio series. His new play, Born in East Berlin, will be given a workshop at the Arden in January. Some of Rogelio’s plays include Wanamaker’s Pursuit (Arden Theater), When Tang Met Laika (Sloan Grant/ Denver Center/ Perry Mansfield), All Eyes and Ears (INTAR at Theater Row), Fizz (NEA/ TCG Grant/ Besch Solinger Productions at the Ohio Theatre, New Theater Miami), Learning Curve (Smith and Krauss New Playwrights: Best Plays of 2005/ Besch Solinger Productions at Theater Row), I Regret She’s Made of Sugar (winner of the 2001 Princess Grace Award), Arrivals and Departures (Summer Play Festival), Union City… (E.S.T, winner of the James Hammerstein Award), and Displaced (Marin Theater Co.) In addition, Rogelio’s work has been developed and presented at the Public Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Repertory, the Magic Theater, and Ojai Theater Company among others. Rogelio is an alumnus of New Dramatists and his plays are published by Broadway Play Publishing. He has received commissions from the Mark Taper Forum, the Atlantic Theater Company, the Arden Theater Company, Denver Center Theater, and South Coast Repertory. In the past Rogelio has been profiled in a cover story in American Theater Magazine. In addition to writing, Rogelio teaches playwriting at Goddard College, Montclair University, and Primary Stages as well as private workshops. For several years Rogelio was a member of the Dorothy Strelsin New American Writer’s Group at Primary Stages. In television, Rogelio has written for Astroblast, a children’s television show. Rogelio was born in Cuba and arrived in this country in 1980 during the Mariel boatlift. He lives in New York with his family.
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