June Carryl’s other plays include Blue (Edinburgh Fringe Festival; Rogue Machine, developed at Echo Theatre’s Playwrights Lab); Colossus (Residency, 2023 Ojai Playwrights Conference; semi-finalist, O’Neill Playwrights Conference), N*gga B*tch (Residency, Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre, developed at Vagrancy Theater’s Blossoming Project); Girl Blue (CTG L.A. Writers Workshop), Florence and Normandie (Golden Tongues – Diversifying the Classics Initiative - UCLA and Playwrights Arena); The Good Minister Harare (Playwrights Arena Summer Series, ADAA Saroyan/Paul Award), and The Life and Death Of (Vagrancy Theatre). Part One of her collaboration with composer Jason Barabba about Aunt Jemima premiered as part of Overtone Industries inaugural ORIGINAL VISION Opera Development Series. Favorite theater roles include Fraulein Schneider, Cabaret (Celebration Theatre) and Gerty Fail, Failure: A Love Story (Coeurage Theatre). TV and film include Mindhunter, Helstrom and Y: The Last Man, and Kemba.

How did you begin writing, and when did you realize it was your path? What pulls you towards writing, as a creative person?

I kind of started writing to save my sanity. I remember writing a couple of short stories as a kid: one when I was really young about a ship trying to get to shore (oy!), and another in high school about a guy who wakes up from cryosleep to find out the world's been blown up in a nuclear holocaust (totally derivative, I know. I was quiet, shy, miserable, bullied a lot. I liked putting words together better than I liked reading them for essays and school assignments (I have zero attention span and even less patience). I didn't actually pursue writing, though, until grad school at Brown: poems first, then short fiction. And then I stumbled into playwriting when I wrote a play for my midterm in a drama survey course taught by Paula Vogel. It was in response to UBU ROI. She asked me if I wanted to join her playwriting class and that was that!

When did you first start writing The Wronged Party? Where did the idea come from? What do you aim for the audience to feel, think about or reflect on after seeing the play?

I was lucky. I was gifted IAMA's Unsung Voices Commission. At the time I was interviewing, IAMA'S literary manager, Celia Mandela Rivera, asked me what I would write if I could and this play was what was brewing for me. I was so tired. Watching the world eat itself alive, the Right falling in line behind Trump who had just tried to destroy democracy and so tired of feeling helpless about it. I really wondered if we were seeing the End of Days and I just thought, "What would it be like? What are we like?" And that was the play. It's dark, I know, but I guess I just want audiences to think about how to do better, how to be better humans, better to each other: what would you do differently if you could?

How did you meet your director H. Adam Harris, and how has your collaboration felt? Did he bring a perspective to your work that revealed anything new about the play you hadn't previously realized?

H. was one of three incredible artists IAMA suggested and he just felt right and I think it bore itself out. He starts each rehearsal just reminding us of gratitude, generosity, sharing space, showing up for each other, being present, and leaning forward, and it just sets the whole endeavor off on the best foot. His way with actors is so gentle and at the same time empowering. And he's found stuff I didn't know was there or that I could mine to make better or more pronounced. It's been really joyful.

You've performed and written for film & tv, including Mindhunter, Helstrom and Y: The Last Man, and Kemba. How has your experience working in theater informed your work for the screen? Do you feel that having a playwriting background differentiates your voice, in a writer's room?

I think the difference is profound. Both mediums are equally magical for me, but theater allows for, if not actually demands size, breadth in terms of ideas and the language with which they are presented; whereas film and tv require gentleness and a much narrower scope. Both require a precision, but it's like a laser vs. a scalpel, if that makes sense?

Are there any upcoming performances, events, plays or shows that you are looking forward to seeing? Anything you and your peers or colleagues are currently working on, that we should check out?

I want to see everything in the festival for starters. I also want to see SHE at Antaeus, MEASURE STILL FOR MEASURE at Boston Court, and LINES IN THE DUST which is being produced by Collective Artists Bloc and Support Black Theater at Rogue Machine. And FREUD ON COCAINE at the Whitefire Theatre.