It’s a big month for Batavia’s Denise Stoner-Barone. Her full-length play “Mourning View,” tragedy and comedy about sisters arguing in a funeral home, will be read Tuesday as part of Cincinnati Playwright Initiative’s New Voices series at the Aronoff. And on Oct. 1 her first published novel, “Fantasy Daze,” was released, erotica set in downtown Cincinnati. (Pause and contemplate.)

We had an e-mail Q&A, and here it is:

Why did you decide to start writing plays?
Stoner-Barone: I was intrigued by the story about the cow that jumped over a slaughterhouse fence and was trying to fashion a story about her. 

I wrote it first as a dark novella in the vein of John Gardner's “Grendel,” the Beowulf legend told from the monster's point of view.  Then I wrote it as a children's picture book with my own primitive drawings. 

At the time, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park was looking for submissions of children's plays, so I entered the application process.  To learn how to draft a manuscript in playwriting format, I attended a workshop given by Kevin Barry at the Know Theatre Tribe when it was located at Gabriel's Corner.  I turned my novella into a one-act children's play, and that's when I also found out about Cincinnati Playwright Initiative's developmental workshop competition. 

I entered the competition and won a developmental workshop of my play, “A Moomoir.”  It was staged at the Contemporary Arts Center on May 17, 2005.  Tom Fox, who is directing my present play, “Mourning View,” directed “A Moomoir.”
 
What inspired this play?
STONER-BARONE: I was on top of the world when “A Moomoir” was presented at the CAC; I was starting to feel as if, finally, I was finally getting somewhere with my so-called writing career. 

That was on Tuesday, May 17, 2005.  On Saturday, May 21, I got a frantic call from my brother, calling to let me know that he and my parents had been in a terrible car accident and that I needed to come home right away. 

That was the beginning of the end for my father; the car accident isn't what killed him, but he'd been declining for months -- without my knowledge -- and all during that awful summer he went steadily downhill. He passed away on Tuesday, August 30.  Ironically enough -- and that was one of daddy's favorite phrases, “ironically enough” -- he would have been 81 years old if he'd lived to see August 31. 
 
So, my short answer is I'd been brooding a great deal about death when I started writing “Mourning View.”
 
How did “Mourning View,” which started as a one-act in 2006, become a full-length play?
STONER-BARONE: My ultimate goal is to see a play of mine make it to a full-blown production.  I may as well say it, I'd like to win a Tony!  And I felt that a one-act play wasn't going to make it to that level.  It has to be a two-act play if it's going to be taken seriously as the kind of play that a theatre company would want to mount as a production.  I also felt that a second act was necessary.
 
Is the play tragedy, comedy or something in between?
The play is set in a funeral home and there are sisters fighting.  It's a comedy.  It's a tragedy.  It's a little of both.  I was amazed at the audience reaction to the first staging. Audience members laughed and cried.  It was simply amazing.
 
Anything happening with your other plays?
No, not yet, but I've been thinking about “A Moomoir,” and I think it needs something more.  I was contemplating turning it into a musical.  One thing that I've learned about playwriting, is that it can take years to develop a play to the point that it's ready to be fully staged; in that respect, playwriting is very different from novel writing.
 
And what about this erotic novel? It’s the first book you've had published?
STONER-BARONE: I've been writing, off and on, for the past 19 years. Yes, 19 years. I jotted up a list while working on my answers to these questions, and “Fantasy Daze” is my 20th manuscript.  It's an erotica novel, set in downtown Cincinnati!  It was released by Liquid Silver Books on Oct. 1. You can visit my web site at www.GwenWilliams.net; my publisher's web site is www.liquidsilverbooks.com.
 
What are you working on now?
STONER-BARONE: I just sent off a full manuscript to an e-publisher who markets young adult novels.  I haven't heard from that editor yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  I'm also in the middle of edits for my next erotica, “Snow White and Rose Red,” based on the Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tale, but with an erotic twist!

Jackie Demaline

posted by CinStages Buzz  # PermaLink 12:13 PM