Perched above the Homewood campus in the Gilman bell tower, aspiring playwrights and screenwriters spend their Friday afternoons with Marc Lapadula. Lapadula sat down with the News-Letter to discuss his experiences as a student and a writer.
"In my childhood, Northern Virginia was far different from the place it is today. Now it's all McMansions on small plots of land. Back in the 1960s there were huge farms and dense forests, and the possibility of adventure existed in these areas that became limitless extensions of our backyards. In those days our parents didn't have tight leashes on us ... My early years definitely made me become more independent. I've been a wanderer for as long as I can remember. I've always enjoyed going on long walks and hikes. I love visiting new places. I get restless when I'm just sitting around planted somewhere for too long. I have to keep moving. I need the stimulation of meeting new people.
"My parents divorced when I was five or six. My father wasn't really around much once he moved out. We'd see him on Sundays for brunch. He was a trauma surgeon at Georgetown, and my brother and I would accompany him to the hospital after we ate as he performed his rounds with patients. We'd see all these tragically sad accident victims. One after another. Our brunch never got a chance to settle all that well in our stomachs. Some of his patients had gone through windshields or been stabbed in a domestic dispute. Still others had been badly burned in a fire or fell several feet after being electrocuted on long ladders during the construction of I-66 near our house. It was a lot to take in, but we stood dutifully in the background as he visited each one of these people. It was all quite moving. I saw physical and emotional suffering firsthand, and I was amazed at how calm my dad was throughout it all. Even if one of his patients suddenly went into a seizure (which happened one time), he was always cool and collected in medical emergencies. Non-medical emergencies were another story, however.
"I became an English major at the University of Pennsylvania and got the chance to study 20th century Irish and English Drama at Exeter College, Oxford University on the graduate level my junior year. It was a total blast. I loved the lecturers in their black robes with their intimidating command of the English language. They were all terrific showmen. It led me to pursue my MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia under Malcolm Bradbury. After that I did my MFA at the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop. I certainly owe all these schools an incredible debt. I met some really inspiring teachers who were really passionate about the great works of literature and theater. They gave me much that I can share today with my students.
"I took a graduate playwriting course my sophomore year in college. It was taught by Robert Hedley, who would later run the Iowa Playwrights Workshop where I got my MFA. He was beyond inspirational. On the first day of class we were asked to name the most recent plays we'd read. I could only name Death of a Salesman and The Glass Menagerie. And they weren't exactly 'fresh' in my mind. He said that if that was all I could name, I was virtually illiterate in the theater.He instilled in me that day a desire to read as many plays as I could get my hands on. He made me want to write my own plays - plays where I wasn't afraid to take risks with my material. I'm still in touch with him all these years later. It's a great thing to still be in contact with someone who has meant so much to me over so long a period of time. His trenchant insights are forever invaluable to me. He goes down as my greatest teacher, and I've had some outstanding ones.
"I came to Hopkins in 1991. I teach in the Gilman tower. Room 500. I've been in this space for several yeas now ... This room will be gone once the new renovations commence next year when they shut down Gilman Hall. Each minute I'm here in this room with my students, going over their work, each moment, to be perfectly honest, has always been special. It's now more so, knowing that soon this room will be a memory.... Writing is renovation. What makes it hard is that, like the renovations to a home, you want it to be done, fully completed the moment you get the idea for the construction. And you want it to be perfect. But it hardly ever is. Not initially anyway. You have to see the renovations through - you have to go with the project across several drafts. That's where writers get discouraged. Things are uncertain in their first incarnation but get more assured in their successive ones.
"I don't want to ever feel old. Never try to surrender to age. I never get tired of dreaming. I've been listening to the Beatles lately. I've loved their music since they invaded America back in the early '60s. It's hard to believe all they accomplished while still in their early twenties. It was never going to be that way for them again ... They truly seized the moment. And made history. If they hadn't, look at what we all would have missed out on. You need to immerse yourself in the opportunities you have before you today because they will go away. My students are in their late teens and early twenties. I remind them to revel in their time and to see this period in their lives as a truly precious time. It will never be back. And that's OK if they live it to its fullest and harbor no regrets.
"I would say ... it's true that we're not here on this planet for very long. Even if we live to be a hundred, it's hardly enough time to fully experience the world, the people we love or our own thoughts and feelings. What I want is to learn from my mistakes. Keep striving to do that. It's about doing the best one can and trying to become the best person one can be, always treating each other with respect and making sure we instill a sense of dignity in all the people we come in contact with. Not because we merely want them to feel good, but because as people, we deserve this."
Lapadula is a visiting professor in the Writing Seminars Dept. He teaches Playwriting and Screenwriting seminars. He is also a full-time lecturer at Yale University in the Film Studies program there.
