Ken Urban is not only the Plangere Writing Center Coordinator, a graduate student in English, and a teacher. He is also a playwright and director. Those who recognize him from his roles at Rutgers might not even realize that he is an active member of and a familiar face in the off-off-Broadway theater world. Like many creative artists, he has his art and his "day job," but in this case, the two work hand in hand. The only problem is finding enough time, but Mr. Urban has a solution to that: "I don't sleep. I just work all the time," he chuckles.
As
a scholar, Mr. Urban is almost done with his Ph.D. dissertation on
1990s British drama, and he currently teaches a variety of courses,
including Research Writing, Creative Writing, and Contemporary Drama.
Although his recent work is a cycle of history plays, he draws
inspiration from many places: the news, different genres of literature,
even personal experience. Some of his productions include I (Heart) Kant, Halo, Bodies Are Floors, and Burners, all works demonstrating different approaches. His most recent production is The Female Terrorist Project,
which follows a woman researching female terrorists who later becomes
one herself. The project was inspired both by current events and by Shoot the Women First, a nonfiction book that Mr. Urban found fascinating. The Female Terrorist Project was produced this fall in New York by The Committee Theatre Company.
Mr. Urban's love of theater goes back to a drama course he took, on a whim, while pursuing a chemical engineering degree. The course changed the direction of his life; he eventually studied in London and immersed himself in contemporary British theater. When he returned to school, he arranged to produce the play he had written while abroad. Mr. Urban remembers getting sick twice and not eating or sleeping much for four weeks during its production. "It was the craziest time of my life," he says, "but it was the happiest I've ever been."
The difficulties of staging a play are part of the artistic challenge for Mr. Urban, and he says he enjoys dealing with the economic and physical obstacles that make it tricky to write for live theater. Everything a playwright imagines must be directly translatable to the stage, he says, and "all of these limitations force you to be specific and inventive. You end up being much more experimental and adventurous to get your ideas across." This principle of ingenuity applies especially to the off-off-Broadway theater scene, where the playwright, director, and actors do not have expensive sets or effects to rely on. "When resources are scarce," he says, "there is an incentive for people to be really creative."
Every English major should take a Creative Writing course, Mr. Urban argues, because these courses help us think about narrative structure and how to write efficient, powerful sentences. "It forces you to think about form, and most literature courses are about content, but you cannot have one without the other," he says. As a practicing playwright, he advises his creative writing students "to do lots of different activities, and to read everything - be eternally curious. If you're just sending out scripts from home, hoping someone will discover you, it'll never happen. Find people who like what you like and get involved."
