Colleen Bement: Nerd Alert News readers and our own staff would just love to get to know you better. Our staff, like many of our readers, are writers themselves. Some have written short stories, while some have even penned screenplays. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
Kate A. McGrath: I’m sure I could benefit from them too. I recently had one scored, and I can tell you there’s always something to learn. First and foremost: I only write about something that challenges me, but also obsesses me. Something that I love and can feel in my blood and bones. It can take years. I research forever and talk to people ceaselessly. I reach out and go out on a limb to folks I don’t know at the risk of sounding like a “typical writer and actor” for any and all information so as to make the writing as genuine as it can be. Oftentimes, the rewrites happen because there needs to be more “entertainment” – less “documentary.” However, as an artist, the dramaturgy are my roots, and it gives me the confidence to write as best I can. I suppose that would be my advice – long story longer – write what obsesses you and do as much research as possible – whether you use it or not.
CB: I hear that you are writing an Irish war drama and a sitcom. Those subjects couldn’t be any different. Two questions:
1.) Tell us about these cool projects.
KM: HA! Well, they are both works in progress right now. The sitcom I can’t really talk about other than it needs work, and it’s getting there. The hope would be a studio audience comedy, not a mockumentary style or single camera that is common now.
For the war drama, the best thing I ever did as a writer and actor was going to Mother Ireland. I went last March and created a sort of “Troubles Tour” specifically so I could interview, boots on the ground, people in Derry (not Londonderry), Belfast, and Dublin. It ended up being the original week of the Brexit vote – back when Theresa May was the U.K. Prime Minister, so there were so many people willing to talk. I landed days after “Soldier F” was officially charged with two 1972 Bloody Sunday murders, but feelings were raw, considering he was suspected of at least five. That wasn’t the least of things. My friend and I would go back to our hotel room, and there’d be documentaries on about the Troubles – reminding people of the level of violence, the bloodshed ignored around the world for nearly a century and the cost of another hard border. I was writing notes after notes after notes after notes. This was after years of reading Coogan, Toolis, Devlin and discovering Richard English – who I was able to interview while I was there.
I’ve NEVER had a more incredible trip for a project in my life. The dialog and characters were like ghosts all around me – talking at me everywhere.
I said to one of my producing partners, Dave LaRosa, that I’ll never do less for research again.
2.) How do you switch gears from drama to comedy?
KM: I have to gear up certainly before I write for one or the other. I have these two efforts, plus the scored screenplay that needs work, plus a book I’m writing, PLUS, an acting career that I’m in the midst of. As a creative, you are always at the wheel. But I think when you are hooked into it after so many years of study and hard work, when you make sure your instrument is warmed up as much as possible, as often as possible, and you throw in some prayer, you can shift from one project to the next because they are always on your mind. You are always focused; you are always writing notes down or working on them in some way.
CB: I understand that you screen-write dramas but sing Musical Theatre. We would love to know more about this.
KM: I do. I study weekly and audition as much as possible. I am working with a wonderful teacher named Pamela Thomas, who has changed the game for me. My sister Tara McGrath Wallace is an opera singer and has a school in California called The Hummingbird Conservatory. I’ll seek her advice every now and then as well. I have come to love and respect my voice as an instrument that I was too afraid to cultivate. That’s on me. I finally got to an age where I just stopped caring about what other people thought. Who cares?
CB: You had said that you could be reading four books at any given time: especially when you’re writing. AND you will finish them. How does that work into your “process?”
KM: Yes – that circles back to dramaturgy and to your question as well about “switching gears” I suppose. I end up at bookstores or online too often in whatever section the theme is and just buy a used or old book with someone’s journal from West Belfast 1975, or Syd Field’s screenplay notes, or a collection of plays with a lesser-known work by Williams or Wilson. I think it helps me assess whether I’m in writing for the long haul – for the right reasons.
Before I went to Ireland, I had books open by Tim Pat Coogan, Brendan Behan, and Bernadette Devlin. Then right before I left, I was reading two books by Richard English to prepare for my interview. All of these people are amazing – reading is the very LEAST a dodo like me can do before she starts writing.
When I was writing “Clandestine,” the film that my film company (with Dave LaRosa and Janine Laino), Feenix Films, released in 2013, the kind of books I purchased and read had me worried the D.E.A. would come busting through my door. I procured a workbook that I heard law enforcement reads so that they know what to look for in meth labs, and I was shocked by the things it walked the reader through. I was surprised it was allowed to be published. I will say: it was an invaluable source in writing and my prep for my role. And if it helps in some way by putting meth cooks and dealers behind bars, away from addicts and families, then let it exist.
