Q&A With Sean Pomposello

Want to learn a little bit about the man behind the plays we will be producing this upcoming 
fall? We're very excited to launch our first Q&A session with a brief interview Christian Amato had with Universal Monsters and Bitch playwright, Sean Pomposello! See what Sean had to say:


Explain yourself in 10 words or less...

People have been attempting to do that without a word count for years, without success. I’m assuming you’re referring to me as a person and not me as a writer. I did have a professor and a girlfriend, independent of one another, in the same week, refer to me as a “walking contradiction”. So, I now have a surplus of 8 words to dedicate to some other 

question. Shoot.    

Can you describe your writing style?

Well, I can—but I don’t believe anyone else would share my perspective. I often sit at my computer writing things that I’m certain will be perceived as hysterically funny only to learn, when the piece is staged, that no one else is laughing. It’s like when you see a person take a very awkward fall on the sidewalk and you suppress the urge to laugh fearing that they’ve been injured. I suppose, in my writing, I expend very little effort fighting that urge. So, darkly funny, I think, to answer the question. Also, actors don’t care for this, but I like to write a lot of lengthy monologues. 

What is Universal Monsters?

Universal Monsters is a collection of pieces I’ve written over the last few years. Thematically, they each shed light on certain unsavory aspects of our nature that we’d 

often prefer to shroud in darkness, I suppose. The shorter pieces, almost without exception, all have a confessional thread running through them; the longer ones tend to be crime dramas.

Who are your influences?

Not one writer in particular, but postwar English playwrights; writers like John Osborne and Harold Pinter. Also, Mamet, of course. Howard Korder. But, to be honest, I think my writing is more a byproduct of novels by Hubert Selby, Jr., Nelson Algren and the criminally neglected Jon Fante. At a young age, I had an uncle who was important to me who introduced me to these and a lot of the other authors who still continue to inform my writing. Beyond any particular writer, relative to form, my true playbook is Greek theater. You will often find Greek theater relies a lot on storytelling to move along the plot, with a lot of action and violence central to the story occurring off stage. You can see a great deal of this technique employed in some of my longer monologues.

Your writing is pretty aggressive. Where do you think that comes from?

I really try not to over-analyze why I write certain things, fearing that it might slow my progress as a writer. But, I think I have confronted my share of anger and violence in my life, so it is only natural that it would rear its head in my work. I grew up in the projects in the Bronx and I often joke that my first memory was having a bottle hurled at me out of a fourth floor window that struck me square in the face, resulting in quite a lot of stitches across my chin. That being my earliest memory, it should come as no surprise that violence would shape my worldview. 

What were your favorite TV shows and Movies growing up?

I was a huge All in The Family fan. To me, each episode was a little play. All other television shows paled in comparison. I grew up during the 70s—arguably the best decade in the history of movies. Certainly for someone interested in writing the kind of stories I write. I also watched a lot of movies from the 40s. My dad was a film buff and introduced me to everything from John Huston to Howard Hawks, Michael Curtiz to Anthony Mann, Nicholas Ray to Sam Fuller, and everyone in between. Film Noir, in particular, matched my sensibilities and captured my imagination. 

How do YOU begin to write a play? (Take us through your thought cycle.)

If it’s like everything else I do, not the proper way. It all begins very vaguely for me, with a subject I want to explore. For instance, a recent job working alongside some pretty fucking hideous colleagues compelled me to write it, my play that staged at The Strawberry Festival and is included in Universal Monsters. Then, I begin building characters. My action or plotting comes out of the characters. I don’t really write treatments, but I do need to know a few important details before I begin. I need to know the opening, what happens at the end of the first act, an important midway point incident, and an epiphany that occurs at the three-quarters point—an incident that reconciles the event at the end of my first act. Then, I need to have a title. If I know those, I can begin to let the story tug me along until I hit those points. If I know too much before I write the revelations don’t seem to occur very organically. That’s my process. I’m sure a professor of drama would take me to task for this approach, but for me, this works. Until it doesn’t, of course.

What should no playwright be without?

For one, a day job. It’s lunacy to put pen to paper thinking you will make a dime at it. If you’re fortunate you will get a comped ticket for your troubles, and that’s about it. Secondly, a passion for storytelling is essential. That passion will get you up before work to write. Without it you will become one with the snooze button, trust me. The last, and most important thing you should have is at least one person that believes in you. For me, it’s my wife. If you could choose, it would be good for it to be a producer with deep pockets, but failing that, a wife, a parent, a close friend—any supporter is a good supporter. Also, it never hurts to have a heavy-handed bartender that fancies you.

What's your biggest problem with today's theater?

What do I know? I’m not even sure why I write plays—there are so few that I like. Nothing I see feels real or authentic or honest. Maybe that’s the problem, all of it seems too artificial to me.

Tell us about Bitch...

Back in 2007, I opened the newspaper to read about Michael Vick, the Philadelphia Eagles   

quarterback, who was implicated in an interstate dog fighting ring that he had reportedly   operated for over 5 years. After the immediate outrage, I began to talk to anyone who would listen about this awful story. Now, I love dogs as much as the next guy, but I wasn’t sure why this story struck such a nerve. Then, after months of following the story in the papers a friend brought to my attention the fact that dogs always seem to figure prominently in my stories. A light bulb went off. Sure, there was outrage and disgust, reading these articles, but perhaps I was really just doing research for a future story. But, what kind of fool would choose to be entertained by a story about dog fighting? What kind of fool would choose to write one. I immediately put the story on ice. Months later, Michael Vick was back in the headlines. He had served 21 months in jail and was being trotted around by his agent and publicist, trying not only to repair his image, but resume his football career. These articles painted a far more sympathetic portrait of Vick. Born in Newport News, Virginia, Vick’s family lived in the Ridley Circle Homes, a public housing project in a depressed and crime-ridden neighborhood located in the East section of the port city. Apparently drive-by shootings and drugs deals were a common occurrence. In one interview Vick said he used to “go fishing even if the fish weren’t biting, just to get away” from the violence and stress of the projects. If it was the journalist’s goal to make me feel for the guy, he succeeded. I thought to myself, maybe that’s the goal of my play as well. A story about equally icky people painted in a sympathetic light. Failing that, I can always fall back making them a little darkly funny. Four weeks later, the first draft of Bitch was complete.

Any upcoming projects?

I’ve been working on another in this cycle of Bronx tales, titled Jamie Towers. It is to the Castle Hill projects of the 60s what Bitch is to dog fighting. The story concerns some dirty business that needs to be attended to before a low income housing facility gets constructed. The play will have its first reading in the Universal Monsters reading series. It's hysterically funny in the I- just-took-a-hard-fall-on-my-ass–in-front-of-a-lot-of-people sort of way.