John Patrick Shanley, one of the nation’s best-known playwrights, sits in a rehearsal room at Chain Theatre in Midtown Manhattan. Born in the Bronx and long a Brooklyn resident, he is at work on his latest play, “The Pushover.”
Although his work has been presented on Broadway, Shanley is rehearsing “The Pushover” at the Chain, where he suggests stage business, makes adjustments, cuts and even adds an occasional line. Rebecca De Mornay stars, bringing the lead character to life in a production directed by Kirk Gostkowski.
A kind of bard of the Bronx and Brooklyn, Shanley has become a presence on Broadway and in regional theater, now debuting this play in a 99-seat venue.
His “Doubt: A Parable,” set in the Bronx, won a Pulitzer Prize. “Moonstruck,” set in Brooklyn, earned an Academy Award and starred Nicolas Cage and Cher. About two years ago, Shanley may have come close to a Broadway record.
Liev Schreiber starred in “Doubt,” and Aubrey Plaza appeared in “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea.” Nearby, at around the same time, “Brooklyn Laundry” was also running. You couldn’t throw a stone on or near Broadway without hitting a Shanley show.
“I don’t know another modern playwright that is being produced like that,” Gostkowski said. “His writing is incredible. The characters are real. There’s so much for actors to dig into. To be able to write that way and to connect with people, you’re operating on a higher plane.”
“The Pushover,” starring De Mornay as Evelyn, along with Di Zhu as Pearl, Christina Toth as Soochie and Christopher Sutton as the therapist, is set to debut at the Chain Theatre, 312 W. 36th St., on Friday, April 3. Opening night is Monday, April 6, at 7 p.m., with performances running through Sunday, April 26. Tickets are $45–$89 and available at chaintheatre.org.
Even before “The Pushover” closes, Shanley’s “Savage in Limbo,” set in the Bronx, will be presented by BrooklynONE Productions at the Tom Kane Theatre in Brooklyn from April 23 to May 3. Tickets are $20 for students and $30 for general admission.
Set in a dive bar, “Savage in Limbo” follows Bronx residents in the 1980s searching for meaning, identity and a way forward. “The Pushover” follows three women at a New Mexico spa and an Asian restaurant in Queens, as a con develops and characters clash amid unfolding conversations and conflicts.
“It’s an artistic enterprise for me,” Shanley said of debuting work at the Chain. “The Chain Theater, in the ever-changing matrix of New York theater, has become the place where young people interested in theater go.”
Gostkowski, who had worked with Shanley before on a one-act festival, approached him about presenting a full-length play.
“I reached out. I was planning a season and asked if he had anything. This is what he gave me,” Gostkowski said. “And I immediately fell in love with it.”
Although Shanley’s work is frequently produced, he has been writing since childhood in the Bronx.
“I’ve been a writer since I was about 10,” Shanley said. “Poems, snippets of stories. I liked to do it. I was a reader and writer from an early age. Maybe because I’m Irish.”
With white hair and a somewhat cherubic smile, Shanley reflects on his early exposure to theater, recalling the first play he saw, “The Miracle Worker,” at about age 11. His brother Tom helped build the set.
“No one in my family or my neighborhood had ever been in the arts,” Shanley said. “My brother Tom was on stage crew, because he liked the people. He invited us, because we’re his family. And it was a good show.”
While some playwrights begin as actors, Shanley joined the stage crew the next year at Cardinal Spellman High School, working on Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” and developing an appreciation for the script.
“I was a born poet. I love language. I loved writing my poems,” he said. “Theater is an incredible way to connect poetry to the living world.”
Shanley grew up immersed in his Bronx neighborhood — what he calls “a street corner society” — spending more than a decade gathering on street corners.
“Almost all of us went to the same schools, public grammar school and one Catholic grammar school,” he said. “You saw the same people every day for many, many years.”
Shanley said he had “no sense of future” and didn’t think much about how he would make a living or what would be a career.
“When people asked me, I said I would be an atomic physicist,” he said. “I noticed they would never ask me any more questions.”
He struggled in school and said he was “thrown out for a misunderstanding,” describing himself as a compulsive liar — or at least someone fascinated by fiction as well as reality — who “lived in a fantasy world.” That experience became the basis for his play “The Prodigal Son.”
Although often seen as a bard of the Bronx and Brooklyn, Shanley sets “The Pushover” in Queens and New Mexico, focusing on working people and hustlers.
“I’ve worked in restaurants,” he said. “I know my share of criminals and hustlers. I’m writing about a hustler, a criminal and a hard-working restaurateur.”
Shanley grew up in the Bronx, joined the Marine Corps and later returned to New York, living in Park Slope in the 1970s, where he paid $280 a month in rent. He later moved to Brooklyn Heights and, about a decade ago, to Williamsburg, where he lives now.
He wrote his first film, “Five Corners,” which changed his life financially, followed by “Moonstruck,” which won him an Academy Award and brought national and international recognition. “Doubt: A Parable” has since become an American classic, frequently performed.
He has written numerous plays about life in Brooklyn, including “Brooklyn Laundry,” inspired by a personal experience.
“‘Brooklyn Laundry’ is the result of an incident I had with my local drop-off laundry place where they lost my laundry. They never returned it,” Shanley said. “I started to look around, as I was walking around, seeing if I could spot my clothes on somebody.”
Shanley said he enjoys living in New York City, where he has spent most of his life, balancing between Brooklyn, the Bronx and Broadway.
Still, he noted that he has “mostly worked smaller theaters.”
“I love doing plays for people who love the theater,” Shanley said. “And who want to do theater.”
De Mornay previously worked with Shanley on a benefit alongside Alec Baldwin for the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, which led to her role in “The Pushover.”
“I thought she was kind of great. I came to her with this play. She jumped right in,” Shanley said. “Rebecca does a play in a 99-seat house. It’s a way of supporting that theater. It’s probably a better way of doing it than just writing a check.”
Shanley said he does not have additional plans for “The Pushover,” much as he never had a fixed plan for himself — a path that, he acknowledges, has worked out well.
“Now I’m doing this play. I do things to do them,” he said. “I don’t have master plans about how they should be commercially.”
