You would be hard pressed to find a theatergoer who doesn’t know the name David Mamet. Regardless of your feelings toward the Pulitzer Prize Winner he has spawned a generation of playwrights who attempt to master the three uses of the knife. His plays GLENGARY GLEN ROSS and AMERICAN BUFFALO won accolades and were produced as feature films. Mamet wrote numerous popular films including THE SPANISH PRISONER, THE WINSLOW BOY, STATE AND MAIN, and, most recently, SPARTAN. Back in the early 80’s the playwright founded New York City’s The Atlantic Theater Company with his friend from NYU, actor, William H. Macy. Until March 1 none of Mamet’s plays premiered at the Atlantic.

Neil Pepe is currently the Artistic Director of the Atlantic Theater Company. Pepe recently directed works by Eric Begosian, Edwin Sanchez, Joe Penhall, and most recently the premiere of Howard Korder’s SEA OF TRANQUILLITY. Pepe has been the artistic director of the Atlantic Theater since 1992, started in theater as an actor, and has become a desired theatrical director in recent years.

PEPE: Yeah, I do some acting once and a while. I haven’t actually acted on the stage in five or six years. But I have been lucky enough to have some film roles in the past three or four years. I knew Woody from doing a couple of his plays at the Atlantic Theater. We first did WRITER’S BLOCK and we just did A SECONDHAND MEMORY. [Woody] called me just about a year ago because they had a part for me in his new film MELINDA AND MELINDA. I have a scene with Wally Shawn, Stephanie Roth, and Mary Pine. We play these four people who are sitting in a restaurant discussing the nature of comedy and tragedy. And I have not seen the film yet but I think it cuts back and forth from the movie to our conversation. It’s fun to be able to do a little acting here and there.

HYLTON: The Atlantic has been working with some exciting writers recently. I understand Steve Belber (of TAPE, MATCH, and now McREELE fame) has also been involved. Tell me how you first became involved with the Atlantic.

PEPE: I had a couple of friends who studied with Mamet and Macy at NYU. I went to high school with Felicity Huffman [William H. Macy’s Wife] and so I sort of stayed in touch with her. But Clark Gregg, they are both founding members, and I knew each other from parking cars with each other at a restaurant called the Water Club on the east river. And he told me that he’d been studying with David Mamet and William H. Macy. I had just gotten out of Kenyon College in Ohio and moved to New York. And I was mainly an actor at that point. I had always been interested in Mamet. And so I said “Can I tag along.” So I assisted on a project called THE BLUE HOUR, which was a series of sketches that Mamet had written and the company was doing back in the winter of 1986. So initially I got involved through mutual friends who were founding members and students of Mamet. Then I went off to the Actor’s Theater of Louisville to study as an apprentice. And Clarke called me up to study in Vermont. So I went up to study with them in the summer of 1987 and also was their technical director. That was the summer that they did eight plays in nine weeks. I had an incredible experience with them. And Mamet and Macy were up there with them with lots of amazing guest artists. Craig Lucas was there and we did his play RECKLESS. We also did Howard Korder’s play, BOY’S LIFE. And that was my first really intense experience with [The Atlantic Theater Company] and then in the fall they took me into the company. So that’s how I initially got involved with The Atlantic.

HYLTON: And so you’re opening up David Mamet’s new play ROMANCE?

PEPE: Yes, David and William Macy are both members of the company still and like most of the company members they are involved when they can be. Either in the case of Macy as either an actor or director and in the case of Mamet either as a director or writer. They are both obviously very busy guys. We had done a lot of revivals of Mamet’s work. Most of the American premieres of his work started commercially either off Broadway or on Broadway outside of when he was doing his stuff at Lincoln Center. So we succeeded in doing a bunch of great revivals over the years of many of his plays and we were trying to do a world premiere but the timing was not right in the past. And this time it just seemed to be a very good fit for the company.

HYLTON: I know Mamet does a lot of directing as well. Can you tell me a little bit about working with him on this project?

PEPE: He was involved in a very healthy way. He sent me the first draft of the play just over a year ago. Then he sent me another draft of the play in August. We did an initial reading in Los Angeles with a group of actors and got a feel for it then. And then he spent the next two or three months doing rewrites. And we got the final pre-rehearsal draft in November. Then he was here for the first week of rehearsal. And we did a lot of script changes then. Then he was gone for about three weeks and he came back for the last few days of tech rehearsal and the first few previews he was here. And so it was perfect. He did a lot of script changes. He’s a great person to collaborate with. He’s that sort of rare combination of a playwright who also really understands directors and actors. So his involvement tends to be a very healthy part of the process. The great thing with Mamet, and I would say this about most great playwrights, is that once you have their trust and respect then it becomes pretty easy. It’s not about one person’s opinion over another. It’s about what makes the play work best. Mamet is a great collaborator and more than almost any other person I know he really understands the process of theater and what to concentrate on and what not to concentrate on. But I’ve also known him for quite a long time. And so, because of that trust and because the actors were so great who we have it was easy and we had a really great time doing it.

HYLTON: It’s a very different piece from what Mamet is typically known for. ROMANCE is fundamentally a modern farce. I wonder if you’ve directed anything like it previously.

PEPE: You know, that is a good question. I’ve directed a lot of plays that are sort of darker plays with humor. In some ways it’s a rather scathing farce. It goes after a lot of different subjects that are certainly very near and dear to many of our hearts. So in that way it’s not completely light fare. But what I love about the play is that it tells the truth and laughs at the truth in many ways. So, have I directed other similar plays? Well, there were plays like AMERICAN BUFFALO and a few others that had some pretty dark humor. But I think this is the first time I’ve directed anything that is pretty much straight-out farce. I think there were a few one acts that I directed that were straight comedies. Mamet calls it a farce himself.

HYLTON: Yeah, but here Mamet made the butler into the bailiff.

PEPE: (Laughs) Right. We’re having a lot of fun doing it and the audiences seem to be really enjoying it. And I think what I love about it is that it is sort of unabashedly what it is. And that’s what I think is wonderful about Mamet. I don’t think he’s scared of having fun and telling the truth. The writing is so smart that it’s very exciting to work on both as a director and, I think, for the actors as well. For me what is particularly exciting about the piece is that I think Mamet is underrated as a pure comic writer. But if you look at a lot of his writings, not only is there wonderful comedy in many of his plays, but if you look at some of his screenplays like STATE AND MAIN or WAG THE DOG or THINGS CHANGE, they are very funny pieces.

HYLTON: So, I already gave away the fact that there is a bailiff in this play. I don’t want to give too much away. What would you like to tell the readers about the play?

PEPE: It’s a courtroom farce that deals with issues ranging from infidelity to our current judicial system to Middle East peace.

Catch ROMANCE before the spring comes. Tickets can be purchased through Telecharge (at 212-239-6200) or the theater itself. For more information on tickets visit www.atlantictheater.org. ROMANCE opened on March 1st and is scheduled to close on May 1.

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