We were lucky to catch up with Kelly McAllister recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kelly , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I wrote Last Call, my first full length play, in NYC shortly after 9/11. I was a starving actor at the time, working two jobs because my fiancée had been diagnosed with cancer and we had no insurance. I had written half of play a few years earlier, and my good friend Jack Halpin suggested to me that I enter it into the New York International Fringe Festival. I figured what the hell, sent off my application to the festival with my half written script and a description of what I thought would happen in act two, and then promptly forgot all about it. That was in the fall. Through the winter, I worked about 60 hours a week, did my best to take care of my fiancée as she endured chemotherapy and radiation, and tried to not lose my mind. Then, one day in the spring, I got a letter that said my script had been accepted, and would be opening at the festival in late summer. So I started writing Act Two. Every day. I poured all of my soul into it, all my fear and sorrow and troubles. I got my brother Jerry to direct it, put a cast together, and into rehearsals we went. I never felt so alive. Something was changing in me. I’d bring in new pages to rehearsal, and the actors would read them and look at me and smile. On opening night, I felt like throwing up the entire time. But the audience seemed to like it. They laughed. Some of them even cried. We got a fantastic review from Martin Denton on nytheatre.com, sold out the run, and won the prize for Excellence in Playwriting. And then I got published for the first time. That play, that whole experience, changed me forever.
Kelly , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’ve written many plays, including Last Call, Burning the Old Man, and Lovers, Lunatics, and Poets, all of which have been published, translated and produced all over the world, from Prague to Sao Paolo. I am a member of the WGA, the screenwriters union, as well as the Dramatists Guild. I am also the Left Foot of Sasquatch Productions, a theatrical group based in Denver that produces musicals and plays. I teach playwriting at the Denver Center Theatre Company, a Tony winning regional theatre. I recently formed a film production company, McSquared Productions, and made a short film based on Burning the Old Man, and we are in pre-production for a full length version of that. As a stage director, last year I took the show “Eigg” to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is the largest theatre festival in the world. It won the Broadway World Award for Best Musical and Best New Musical of 2023. This year, I am directing April Alsup’s “Banned: the Musical”, which is also going to Edinburgh.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The best thing about. being a creative is when you make something that people connect to. When I was in college, I was home visiting my mom. We were sitting in the kitchen, chatting, and I read her a bit of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. It was this chapter about life in California, how the flowers looked in the field, what it felt like to walk that land. And my mom started to cry because it meant something to her. I was astounded. Those words, written by someone long dead, whom she had never met, touched her. Made her cry. I have had to good fortune, now and then, to be able to do that with something I’ve done creatively. And it is the best feeling there is. Ever. On the opening night of my first play, I saw this very tough looking guy in the front row break down and cry like a baby. It was awesome. I like making people laugh a lot. But I love making them cry. Making them feel alive. I can’t really describe it better than that. It’s like our souls connect for a moment. It’s kind of magic or mystical. Maybe it’s an illusion and I’m full of beans. But if so, it’s a grand illusion and I’ll take it. Making money for creating something is great, don’t get me wrong. But making something you know is good, that you feel in your bones is worthwhile, that’s the best. I’d do it for free, and have. And of course, once you stop doing something just to get paid, the work improves, and often you do end up getting paid. Strange but true.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
A few years back, after I had gotten started as a playwright, a friend of mine who had left the theatre for the far more lucrative world of film said to me “just get one movie made and you can do all the theatre you want for the rest of your life”. That sounded like good advice, so I wrote a screenplay, and then another, and then a third. Then I started writing query letters to agents, managers, producers. To anyone who could possibly give me a job. I sent at least ten letters every day. For months. I sent over a thousand of them, each on slightly different than the one before. A huge percent of the people I wrote never replied. But a few did. Like ten. One of them was the Vice President of Development for a very large production/management company in LA. She asked for a script, read it, then said “thanks, but it’s not quite what I’m looking for. Let me know if you have anything else”. Happily, I did, and sent another script to her. She again said “thanks, but no”. Then she asked for one of my plays, which told me she had looked me up online. I sent her one of my plays, another screenplay, and finally, we had a phone call. It was amazing. I started writing more and more. She then asked me if I wanted to write a feature for her company and join the WGA. I said, yes, and so began my screenwriting career.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rkmcallister.blogspot.com/
- Instagram: @rkmcallister
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-kelly-mcallister-29353aa/
- Twitter: @rkmcallister
