Playwright Duncan Pflaster On Kickstarter Campaigns and the Taint (but not the one you think)

Duncan Pflaster has won awards for his plays The Empress of Sex, Prince Trevor Amongst the Elephants, The Thyme of the Season, The Starship Astrov, Sweeter Dreams, Eternity: Time Without End, and The Tragedy of Dandelion. Other plays include The Wastes of Time, Suckers, Admit Impediments, Sleeping in Tomorrow, and Ore, or Or, as well as a panoply of one-acts. Prince Trevor Amongst the Elephants, The Thyme of the Season, The Starship Astrov are published online at Indie Theater Now. He also writes sketch comedy with the video troupe Laughing Swingset, whose work can be seen on YouTube and Funny or Die. He is also an award-winning actor (2009 MITF Award, Outstanding Supporting Actor, I Hate Love) and theatre reviewer (2nd Place in Stage and Cinema's 2010 Theater Review Contest). Website


We sat down with Duncan to discuss his latest project, "The Taint of Equality."

Tell me about "The Taint of Equality."  And is it okay that I giggle a little when I say taint?

By all means, I encourage the giggling.  In the play, Adrian and Javier are a gay couple who don't believe in marriage - but everyone keeps assuming they are or should be married. When they realize it might be because they've never actually opened up their "open relationship," they decide to each go out and get laid, with hilariously erotic results.

What inspired "Taint"?

It's loosely inspired by a turn-of-the-previous-century ten-minute play called "Another Way Out", by Lawrence Langner.  It's about a terribly modern heterosexual couple living together without being married. It's amusing, though wildly outdated. I took the basic idea, changed it to a same-sex couple to reflect current marriage politics, then added more characters (13!) and some more farcical complications to wind it out to a full-length play. Most plays take me a year or so to write; once I had the idea for it, this one took me two months.

You're currently running a Kickstarter campaign to get it funded.  When and where will the production be?

The show will be in the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, an annual June event that I've participated in the last 3 years (winning a few awards for some of my previous shows).  This year my play will be in the downstairs theater at the newly renovated 45 Bleeker space.

I know that producing a play can be expensive.  You have to pay for rehearsal space, costumes, actors, techies, fluffers, PR people... the list goes on and on.  How much are you trying to raise?

$5,000. It helps so much to have a budget.  We're going to have 13 actors, and I want them all to get a little something. It's nice to do your art for just the love of it, but even nicer to get paid for it.

I noticed that one of the rewards for backing "The Taint of Equality" at $100 or more is a picture of the all-male cast.  Any chance it's a picture of the cast wearing their costumes from the sex club scene?

Well, since those costumes are nothing but naked with flashlights on lanyards around their necks, I think the photo might come out a little dark.  But I do plan to have something that's worth the while of those who pledge.

You're one of those playwrights who always seems to have several projects going at once.  What else is coming up for you in 2012?

Also in Planet Connections in June, G-Money Productions will be producing the premiere of my epic The Empress of Sex, which is an erotic romantic comedy set in Ancient Greece.  That's going to be another big cast- 25 people (also with lots of nudity), and though there are gay characters, the main story is about a heterosexual love affair where the woman, after catching her boyfriend cheating, goes to an island and devotes herself purely to sex without love, gathering a group of other folks who all have constant orgies till her ex-lover comes to the island in disguise to try to win her back.

Before that, my lesbian superhero one-act Dark Night of the Russet Rascal will be part of All Out Arts' One-Act Competition:  Sunday April 15th, 2012, 7:00PM,  $10, Nuyorican Poets Cafe.


To find out more about Duncan's play, "The Taint of Equality," and to become a backer, click here.