We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brandon Monokian a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brandon, appreciate you joining us today. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

My hero is and will always be Suzzanne Douglas. Suzzanne was the most engaging, fascinating, wonderful performer I’ve ever witnessed or known. I met her when I was substituting for a friend who was house managing a play Suzzanne was in. Suzzanne was someone I grew up watching on film and television so I was a bit starstruck to meet her, but she was so kind. I soon realized we were both scheduled to do a play together in New York, she as the star, and me as the assistant director. It was during that time in New York that I really got to know her and we would spend time learning lines and chatting about the world and about the kind of art we loved. While waiting for the cross-walk signal to change on the street one day I just blurted out “would you ever want to create an original piece together?” and she instantly said yes. Suzzanne assembled a dream team of collaborators and we ended up devising a piece that we took to a theater in Martha’s Vineyard and to a theater in New Jersey and it was the most artistically fulling and nurturing experience I’ve had in my life. After that Suzzanne did me the absolute honor of agreeing to star in the first movie I wrote. When she showed up to film her first scenes, things had been a little hectic that day, but she took me aside and said a prayer for me and for the production and it set a tone of positive energy for the rest of the shoot. Suzzanne taught me to be first and foremost kind, to be open to new experiences, and to know my worth. She was someone who worked so hard but also had an amazing time living and experiencing things outside of her work, and I think that’s because she was just always present in whatever it was she was doing. She was a mentor to me, but always made sure to make me feel I had something to offer and that I was worthy. All my creative work is dedicated to her.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve worked as a writer, director and actor and I’ve been someone who has frequently produced their own work (often times along side my long standing collaborator Katie Frazer). The majority of my work has been for stage but I have done some film work as well. The focus of my work over the last few years has been as a playwright. My plays exist across the genres of absurdist horror comedy, mythology adaptations and queer stories. Over the years I’ve also worked with different theaters and organizations such as libraries on commissioned work, writing plays that help tell stories that serve their pre-existing missions as an organization.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I think the most important book I’ve read as a creative is “If You Have to Cry, Go Outside” by Kelly Cutrone. She writes it from the perspective of working in the world of Fashion PR, but I certainly have found every chapter of the book to be applicable to my journey as a playwright and I think any creative person would get a lot out of it. One of the biggest challenges we face as creatives, especially those of us going from gig to gig, is that your oftentimes faced with a lot of artifice and cruelty, and this book gives a no-bullshit perspective on how to navigate that, and takes you on a deeply spiritual journey to knowing yourself and living in a state of truth. I pretty much read it once a year. The first year I read it I ended up writing and producing my first feature film. But some years it inspires me to do other things outside of my career. One year I read it and I was moved to start picking up trash on the beach. Another year I read it and it inspired me to look for more ways I could give charitably. New lessons pop up every time I read it.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

As a playwright there are two things that feel incredibly rewarding for me. The first is feeling understood. I think I write because I so often don’t feel understood on my day to day interactions with people, and my plays are an expression of my most raw self, so when it goes well and I can tell the director and the cast really understood what I was trying to say, it’s a really humbling and emotional experience of “hey, this person sees me for who I really am.”

The second most rewarding part of playwriting for me is seeing the people who are performing my work succeed. I just had a play in NYC have a reading called “Let’s Summon a Demon at Debbie’s” and seeing the actors do SO well and get the kind of audible response they got from the audience was so thrilling. Some of these actors I’ve been friends with and have worked with for a decade now, so I get such a thrill out of seeing them be brilliant. I also just got to work with students at Hobart and William Smith Colleges on another play I wrote called “Zombie Cheerleaders, A Teenage Witch & The Demonic Voice on the Other End of the Phone” and the students were so funny, talented, engaging and smart, and to see them do so well with something I wrote, was again, humbling, and just so exciting to see them absolutely shine like the brilliant stars they are.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandonmonokian

Image Credits
My personal photo is by Charlotte Lang. No other credits needed (although I did caption them with descriptions if you need them, not sure if they show up!)