At the PWC this week: Basil Kreimendahl

McKnight Advancement Fellow Basil Kreimendahl is at the Playwrights’ Center this week and next, working on Paper Animals. Jeremy Cohen is directing the workshop, and the cast includes Carolyn Pool, Cristina Castro, Sarah Agnew, Mark Benninghofen, Bill McCallum, and Christian Boomgaarden. We asked Basil a few questions:

What are you working on?

I've been working on In 1987: We Were Kids, a drama linking the story of Budd Dwyer and Baby Jessica's rescuers. It's a play about believing in a system, masculinity, and justice. I've also been working on Paper Animals, a dark comedy about national fear set during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Who or what inspires you?

Naked honesty, other playwrights and their willingness to be courageously vulnerable in their writing, earnestness in opposition to irreverence.

What is your writing process like?

Total hell and self-torture all mixed in with the exhilaration of creation.

What kind of theater or art excites you?

The hard honest kind.