Sun. March 16

What was life like at the Rat, and other Kenmore Square rock clubs of the late 1970s? (Not anything like what Kenmore Square is like today, we guarantee you, what with its hotels and posh shops) Then, it was pretty gritty, grimy and, if your were a reckless youth in your 20s, a whole of fun with a whiff of danger lurking about. The Police, Dead Boys, Cars, Lyres, Neighborhoods and Mission of Burma played there. There was sex and drugs and anger and celebration and fights and life lived on the edge. Melinda Lopez, (in photo) a student at Boston University in those days, was there and she experienced the scene herself. But when the playwright - her "Sonia Flew" won the Elliot Norton Award for “Best New Play” and the IRNE (Independent Reviewers of New England) - wrote about the scene she tranposed it to Gary, Indiana and called it "Gary." It's about three brothers who have an absent dad and are trying to move out of a depressed town. They take refuge in a punk rock band they form, where they express their fear and anger. "Hard rock feelings and rock-bottom despair," is how the neatly worded release from the Boston Playwrights Theatre puts it. It's an adult-themed play - the language is salty, there is a rape - and we certainly won't promise you it ends on a happy note. The three actors who are in the band play the songs in the play. It's  directed by M. Bevin O'Gara, with music by Rick Sims. (The play workshopped at Steppenwolf Theatre last year.) It's closes today, Sunday March 16 with a matinee at 2. Its cast includes Adrianne Krstansky, Nael Nacer, Molly Schreiber, Elise Manning, and Karl Baker Olson. Tickets: $25, $10 for students with ID. For Lopez's take on things, click the "read more" button ...

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Lopez's other plays include "Alexandros" (Laguna Playhouse, June ’08), "God Smells Like a Roast Pig" (Women on Top Festival, Elliot Norton Award-- Outstanding Solo Performance), "Midnight Sandwich/Medianoche" (Coconut Grove Playhouse), "The Order of Things" (CentaStage, Kennedy Center Fund for New Plays), and "Scenes from a Bordello" (Boston Playwrights' Theatre). She was the first recipient of the Charlotte Woolard Award, given by the Kennedy Center to a “promising new voice in American Theatre."  She is a Huntington Playwright Fellow and a winner of a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant. Lopez is also an actress, having appeared at regional theatres across the country, on the stages of Boston Playwrights Theatre in A Girl's War and The Housewives of Mannheim, and, most recently, as Demeter in the Huntington Theatre production of Persephone.  She makes her home in Boston.

Here's what Lopez posted as a blog in July 2007: "I studied piano for twelve years, but I can’t play. I mean, I can read music. If you put music in front of me, I can read it — I know how to get it to sound like music, but I can’t create music. I can’t play. I can’t cook. I am great with a recipe, even adventurous if I have one to follow. I’m great at following directions. But I can’t cook. I always follow maps. I check off the signposts, and always get to where I am supposed to — the waterfall, the landmark, the city. But I don’t explore, and I don’t make my way. I love adventurers. I married one. My husband has been known to pull the map out of my hand and shout — “Look around! See where you are! Read the landscape.” Once he told a forest ranger in Yosemite, “I don’t need a guide book. I’ll write the guidebook.” He isn’t afraid of making his way. He isn’t afraid of anything. Not being lost, not cooking a bad meal. He listens to the land; he smells the spices. He creates something new.I write plays though. When I start a play, I don’t know where it’s going. I may know a character, or I may hear language, or I may get really interested in a historical period and then I wonder, “what would happen if?” And I plunge ahead without a map or recipe. I read the landscape. I add spices that seem like they would be interesting. I trust that at the top of this mountain, I’ll see where I need to go next. I don’t mind not knowing when I’m writing.

It’s the only time I feel brave. We’re rehearsing 'Gary.' There’s a lot I don’t know. “Why do people keep secrets? What does he say that makes her trust him? Why do we love the people who hurt us?” There is no recipe. This is a play with music. I said I can’t write music, and it’s true. But I wrote some lyrics. And a wonderful composer Rick Sims is adding soul. The actors are throwing themselves into it—they aren’t musicians, but they aren’t afraid. My director, Jon, is walking off the edge of the map. We’re just going to try and read the landscape, look for the signs — read human nature. We’re making something brand new. Something that hasn’t ever been done before.I’ll never go to Yosemite without a map, but I’m really lucky to know someone who will, and I’ll follow him anywhere. Here at Steppenwolf, I’m the one who’s writing the map. Let’s see where this trail goes."