©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Chestnut Hiller has written 75 plays (and not for money)
by MATT SWITLISKI

Chestnut Hill’s own Alex Dremann.

What do you call that activity that takes up a huge chunk of your time but makes you little to no money? That is the question for Alex Dremann, 40, who has just seen his 75th play brought to life on the stage. He could hardly call playwriting a job, yet he admits it’s far more than just a hobby. Perhaps the only word to pinpoint it is “calling.”

The middle son of three, Alex grew up in Phoenixville and lived there for most of his life. In 1994, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his master’s degree in playwriting at the University of Southern California, living in the city until 2000. From there he moved back closer to home, to Chestnut Hill; he’s been here ever since.

Alex is the product of two very different, very distinct personalities. His dad, a metallurgic engineer, is the rational, logical type, whereas his mom is undoubtedly more artistic, creative. Older brother Jeff took more after Dad, younger brother Andy more after Mom. This left Alex with “two halves to [my] brain”—logic versus creativity—“that both need to be stimulated.”

To sate his creative impulses, Alex began writing fiction—“as far away from reality as possible”—in seventh grade. “I tried drawing, painting, sculpture, etc., and basically wasn’t any good. Writing somehow seems more elastic.” Knowing he wanted to try his hand at screenwriting, Alex later took a continuing education course at the University of Pennsylvania with one Mark Lapadula. Mark saw Alex’s scenes as better suited to the stage and assured him that there, not the screen, was where he belonged. Alex took him at his word and got involved with the Philadelphia Playwrights Workshop, which would later become the Brick Playhouse. He’s been writing plays ever since.

His decision to seriously pursue this new creative outlet didn’t come right away. For undergrad, Alex attended the University of Delaware for, of all things, accounting. It was, he says, to keep the logical side of his brain active.

Afterward he went to Drexel for publications management, hoping to strike a balance between the mechanistic business side and the organic, creative side. “After two years, I had had enough.” He found himself at UPenn again, this time for computer graphics, another attempt at balance. More frustration compelled him to finally go for what he loved—playwriting. So he headed out to L.A. and USC, where he got through his master’s.

The stage suits him better than the screen or page because of the limits it imposes. In fiction, or with a project for the screen, there is so much freedom—too much, Alex believes—that you can do, more or less, anything at all. “You can do anything or go anywhere.” Onstage, there are the bounds of space and physics and even budget to consider, among a host of other concerns. It’s thinking inside the box, so to speak, but that gives Alex a sense of boundary, and how far to push it.

Though he has handled the business aspect before as a producer, Alex doesn’t find it interesting; for him, the creative realm had always been the draw. In that vein, he hopes to one day direct, though he doesn’t know “how good [I’ll] be at it.” It’s been a few times where he’s seen good plays suffer under bad direction, but by the same token, bad plays can be made even better by a talented director.

Alex’s latest play, Split Pea Pod, is a milestone for the writer—his 75th. He submitted it as part of the Brick Playhouse’s annual contest to showcase new theatrical talent. For the play he won the Roger Cornish Award, which goes to an original full-length from a local playwright; the show was recently produced at the theater. It opened May 8 and ran to May 26. More info can be found at www.thebrickplayhouse,org.

Directed by Brenna Maria Geffers, the play centers around Dan, a regular guy who’s both in love with his girlfriend and at the same time not. Dan splits into two distinct personas to clash and decide what he’s going to do about his relationship.

Split Pea Pod keeps with Alex’s track record of light comedy mixed with magical realism. “I like it when unusual stuff happens to ordinary people.” It also seems to tap into the two-sided personality he has. Whereas his earlier work was written to be as unlike himself and his world as possible, he admits that it’s become increasingly more personal. Of course, there’s a healthy dose of fiction in there too, so no one should believe all, or even half, of what he sees.

Right now Alex is working on his fifth full-length play and two shorter pieces slated to feature in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. “I’ll always do it,” Alex says of playwriting, “though how productive or prolific is up for grabs.” Regardless of whether or not it brings him fame and fortune, he’ll continue to do what he’s good at, what he loves. I guess that’s what makes it his calling.