Open Doors: An Interview with Lori Fischer

“Writing is the one thing that if I haven’t done it for days, I’m starting to feel cranky.”

Lori Fischer has earned several accolades for her achievements in acting, screenwriting, and playwriting. She was a 2014 Independent Vision Award Nominee for Outstanding Achievement in Screenwriting for her feature film Chasing Taste, which was also recognized by the Manhattan Film Festival and the Burbank International Film Festival. Her works in film include I Only Miss You When I’m Breathing (2020) and Dottie’s Thanksgiving Pickle (2010), starring Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis. Fischer received her MFA from New York University and is an NYU Harry Kondoleon Graduate Award in Playwriting recipient and a Dramatists Guild Fellow. Her plays include The Sparkley Clean Funeral Singers (produced at Capital Repertory Theatre) and Barbara’s Blue Kitchen (produced at Adirondack Theatre Festival, Cincinnati Playhouse, and Off-Broadway at the Lamb’s Theatre). She directed and performed in her play Petie at the Darkhorse Theatre last May. She currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee, and teaches at NYU and Lipscomb University.

What connections do you have with MTSU? How did you discover the In Process Series?

Claudia [Barnett] is my connection. I am a huge admirer of her talent and her writing and just who she is as a human. And before that, I knew people that had attended MTSU. Christopher Allen, he’s a pretty famous flash fiction writer. I’ve known him for a long, long time.

What are values you look for in those you choose to cast and work with? What led you to connect with the actors of Dottie’s Thanksgiving Pickle? How did their craft combine with your own?

I love doers. A lot of people talk about wanting to do something, wanting to do a project, wanting to get their art into the world. But there’s another breed of artists that actually look for those open doors, or they create open doors. And with Dottie’s Thanksgiving Pickle, Sean Gannet, the director, and I both had been in the Rip Film Festival together. We admired each other’s films in that festival. So, we met for coffee. And we both were like, “Let’s work together.” I had this script — it actually was the script that got me into that festival — that I wanted to shoot. The Ripfest Festival where we met is a really cool festival where you’re given a prompt, and then you had, I think, four days to write it, if I remember right. And then the actors got it. And then they just shot these films. In the span of two weeks, these films were shot, scored, and edited. It was a really cool opportunity for writers. But anyway, he and I both ended up there, and we’d said we wanted to work together.

I then pitched him Dottie’s Thanksgiving Pickle, and he was like, “I love this script.” And I said, well, maybe you might want to contact this other great guy named Chris Tine. He was one of the producers of the Ripfest Film Festival. I told Sean that Chris had told me when we were shooting my film that he wanted to produce Dottie’s Thanksgiving Pickle. And Sean said, “My next meeting is with Chris.” I was like, “Well, pitch it to him.” And literally by that week, we were on board to make that film. And then I knew this actress, a really talented actress named Nancy Opel. She’s pretty famous in New York and really hilarious. She and I had done a musical years before and a workshop of a musical, so we just stayed friendly. So I got her a copy of the script. She said she was interested. And that’s how we got her. Joey Collins was a longtime friend. And so I pitched him to the director as the husband. Just a really fabulous actor and person, he is just a big-hearted, talented guy. That’s how we got Joey.

And then I met Olympia Dukakis. I had been the interviewer for this event, and she was the guest. I just reached out to her assistant and said, “I have this script. Do you think maybe you could get it to Olympia?” She asked, “Why don’t you mail it?” I said that we were shooting fairly soon, [so] could just drop it by instead. She agreed. And then the way I found out that Olympia wanted to do it is her assistant called and said, “Olympia wants to know if you’ll have a make-up artist for her and if a car service will pick her up.” I said yes and yes. That’s how Olympia — this Academy Award winner — got into the film, which was just an amazing thing to me.

Actors want to act, and they’re looking for something fun to do. They just want to keep their chops up. And obviously, you know, this is a short film. She’s got a huge career already. Short films are not going to make her career when it’s already made. But she said yes because she wanted to support me as a filmmaker. She is an actress who is my favorite kind of actress, somebody who is always willing to work on projects they believe in. Some actors, the first thing they lead with is, “How much will you pay me?” We all want to get paid. And we all should get paid. But for someone to do a short film to support an artist who’s trying to start out as a filmmaker — it’s such a gracious act. But I don’t think she would’ve done it if she didn’t like the script. So, it cuts both ways. I like actors who have big hearts and are kind. If I’m casting a play, I look for people that can nail the role, but also people that are good humans. When you have a choice between two actors and one is kinder, I’m always going to go with the one that’s kinder because it just creates this environment where people can take chances and do better work because they feel safe to do that.

Being a multi-faceted creator — having backgrounds in acting, screenwriting, and playwriting — how did you find your love for each? Or, perhaps, did you find them through an interconnectivity?

I started out as a singer-songwriter. My dad’s a country songwriter. So, it always felt natural to pick up a guitar and try to write or play a song. I also started getting into acting class. I thought, oh, I like this. And then I was like, I think I’m talented. I got into some plays, auditioned around Nashville, and then I just moved to New York. It was a bold idea because I wasn’t so experienced that anyone would see New York coming, but I just moved. I started getting into work there. And as I was watching shows, I saw some one-person shows. And I thought, well, I’m going to try to write something for myself because I feel like I’m always waiting for someone else to tell me whether or not I can do a role. I want to work; an artist needs that. So, I just started writing monologues at first. Then that became a collection of monologues. Then I started adding in songs, and it became this musical, Barbara’s Blue Kitchen, which I’ve since performed in many places, and then it ended up going off-Broadway, at long last. It was published by Samuel French. I still do that show sometimes because it’s an easy one. It’s really a two-person show.

Anyway, here’s how I started writing: What had happened was I had this collection of monologues, Barbara’s Blue Kitchen, and I had been involved in this musical called The Life. At one point, the theater had the money, and it was about to go on when the director got sick, and he passed away. And so, it didn’t go. But I had done the original; I did a great showcase for them. And then they did a lot of readings. This one reading was a big deal because of who was going to be there. My agent at the time asked for what’s called a right of first refusal and what that would mean is if The Life got picked, like if it was getting produced, I would get the right to either accept the role or refuse it. I didn’t even know she was asking for that, but I do think it’s a fair thing to ask for. She did it close to the reading, so she had the producers over a barrel by doing at that time. Afterwards, this producer inappropriately called me. I mean, he just reamed me out. I didn’t know anything at that time. He’s yelling at me, “I can’t believe you’re doing this!” I told him, I didn’t even know what a right of first refusal was. I told him I’d tell my agent to back off. I wanted to do the reading. He said when the show goes to Broadway that I wouldn’t be in it. He was level-10 angry. I was like, “Please don’t hold this against me.” I didn’t know she was going to ask. I didn’t even know what it was. I called my agent, told her to back off. And then I did that reading, and I did other readings. But when that show was going to Broadway, I was about to close Off-Broadway with a great show, called Cowgirls, written by some really talented writers. The composer, Cy Coleman, met with me for a drink after the show. He complimented my performance. And I was like, “Who’s this woman who’s going to play my role?” And he told me, “We don’t know that. We don’t know that.” So I could tell he was still fighting for me. But when that show went to Broadway, The Life didn’t even give me an audition. I knew it was the producer, who shall remain nameless. It was so unfair. I wondered why they were penalizing me. I mean, penalize my agent if you want, but it was really hard because I had done a lot of readings for them along the way as they did different scripts and tweaks. After all this, my show was closing, and I was like, “Please, God. Give me anything. I don’t care if I’m the second spear carrier from the left. Just let me have something to do, so I won’t be aware that I’m not in this show that I was so invested in.” I got a one-word answer back: “Write.”

I just felt that I should write. I made my schedule so that I was writing whenever they were in rehearsal. So, Tuesdays through Sundays, I was taking this collection of monologues called Barbara’s Blue Kitchen and turning them into a musical. I would go to this writer’s space, and I would make myself stay there until six, and I would just write. And when they flipped it, and they were starting performances on Broadway, I flipped my schedule. Then I wrote at night. So, I knew if it was me, I’d probably get to the theater around 6:00 or 6:30. And it’s a musical, so it’s longer. I would write from 6:30 to around 11 at that same writer’s space I was going to before. And so by the end of that time, it ended up, someone offered me a comp ticket because I was like, I cannot pay for that show. But I did want to see it because my friends were in it. And so this person who had no idea I had anything to do with the show said, “Do you want a comp to this musical called The Life?” During intermission, I said congratulations to Cy Coleman, and he took me to the director, Michael Blakemore and said, “This is Lori, and she was great in the role.” That’s what he said. Anyway, I saw the play, and I was glad to see my friends, but it was still complicated to not be in it. But if I had to do it again, even though it was painful, I would choose writing.

I had my first draft by the end of that period. That fully put me towards being a writer. And then I started pitching; I would put up readings. And then I would do rewrites. And then I was talking about it to a friend. And he was like, “Well, I am the co-founder of this theater company, and we’re looking for a small cast show.” So, we did a read, and then they did it. That was the Adirondack Theater Festival. That’s how I met the director, the woman that went on to really direct it, Martha Banta, and then it went to the Cincinnati Playhouse. After that, it went off-Broadway and other people have done it since then. I’ve done it here in Nashville a few times. And that’s really how I became a writer. And then my preference from there was to perform in my work. So, I would write pieces with myself in mind for the role. I just like to do one or two performances of it, and some people really fight you on that. When you’re a writer-actor, they push you out. So, to someone that will read this: Do your work, perform your work. Don’t let somebody pull you out of it. If it’s your dream to express your art, and you’ve created a role that’s perfect for you, then do it. For some reason, it’s okay for a songwriter to sing their own songs but not okay for an actor to perform their own plays. I find that to be a double standard when people have that view, and they’re entitled to their views. I just think each artist is unique like fingerprints and snowflakes. Everybody has their own journey that they’re on, and let them have that journey.

After that, I was performing other work, and then I really wanted more training. I had written this short story called “Petie,” and I didn’t know how to turn it into a play. So, I applied to NYU grad school and got in. So, I went there with the express purpose of writing that play. Thankfully, it got written there. And it’s gotten performed as well. Going to NYU made me more of a writer-actor instead of an actor-writer. Writing is the one thing that if I haven’t done it for days, I’m starting to feel cranky because I can go long stretches without acting — I love and miss it — but I learned something recently, too. Recently, I auditioned for some shows here in Nashville. I had this new feeling of if I’m going to perform in a show, I want to make sure I’m okay not writing during that time. Is it worth taking my writing away from me? I’m not opposed to small parts. I think small parts are really important, but I know many actors can do this. It’s going to take two months, three maybe, depending on how long the rehearsal period is. I could write a whole play during that time, so it was insightful for me to think through. I auditioned for the musical 9 to 5. As I’m auditioning, I’m like, I love this show. But number one, I’m not a dancer. The dance call for me was like, why am I torturing myself? I’ve done many dance calls from my time in New York, and I realized I don’t want to be a dancer. There are other people who are great dancers, and they should be dancing. So, I’m in the dance column, and [I had] this thought, it’s really pivotal: Would I rather be writing?

Regarding writing, what does a daily schedule look like for you? What does your creative space look like?

I teach at Lipscomb University, and I also teach at New York University. I teach a Writing Great Characters class, going on 13 years now. And then at Lipscomb, I teach mainly screenwriting classes. It’s a lot of preparing and grading. The reason I moved from New York, though, was to help my elderly parents. So, I’m a full-on caretaker. Thankfully, they’re mobile, and quite frisky and awesome and hilarious. I’ve found that while I was in New York, if I wanted to write, I would just get up, make some coffee, sit in my chair, and write for ten hours. I have to really protect my writing time now. So, I write on Fridays. I get up and feed the birds — love the birds. I feed the cats — love the cats. I float around; sometimes I need to be in a different space altogether to not be interrupted. And during that time, I disallow myself from looking at my phone. I try to bar myself from any interaction there. I try to do Sundays in the afternoon into early evening; that’s not as much time as I would prefer. When I’m really on a deadline, then I try to fit things in. Okay, I’ll write from 10 to 2, and I’m going to sequester myself in my office. I have an office that has some good sunlight coming in. With that and coffee, I’m good to go. If I wasn’t pulled in so many different directions, I’d probably get up and start writing at about 10. I’d try to do that four or five days out of the week. But the way my schedule is here, there’s just too much to get done. So if I get two days in, I’m pretty lucky.

What would you say is a writing “quirk” or yours? Do you find that you carry a trademark throughout multiple projects?

I studied with playwright Marsha Norman when I was in grad school, a phenomenal person. And she said, “I think that writers keep writing the same story over and over; they just hopefully keep writing it better.” (Her first play was ’night Mother, which she won a Pulitzer for.) There are threads of themes that I can find in my own writing, you know, like some type of restoration. I would say if you look at Dottie’s Thanksgiving Pickle, it’s obvious that underneath this woman who wants to win at Thanksgiving, basically, there’s a wound between her and the mother-in-law. And so she’s trying to outcook her mother-in-law, basically. But what she really is looking for is the moment when her husband chooses her over his mother, and then the mother gives grace in that moment. So, that’s why she’s doing it, you know; she needs him to choose her.

In I Only Miss You When I’m Breathing, they’re in this place where they’ll never be the same. And she’s looking for some type of restoration. When you’re in that club, the worst club in the world, you know, your son or daughter has been killed. You’re never going to be without that wound. And part of that is that movie is really about how the world demands that people get back in step and move on, and the impossibility of being able to do that. And so in it, she’s trying to put things in storage containers to kind of contain it to restore herself to a place or a time when she wasn’t in that kind of pain. And then at the end, she’s not able to do it. She sees the soccer ball, and then she loses it. That movie was based on some friends of mine who lost their son. The situation of how they lost him wasn’t exactly the same, but, they’ve just never … they’ve been frozen in time. They never imagined their life without him. And nor would you as a parent. They’re just the most dear wonderful people. To this day, the wound is just so raw and fresh, and I wanted to have a cinematic monument to their son, Brandon. I want there to be a film that marks that pain, that journey, the experience. Freddie Weller, he’s the one singing that song at the end of the movie. That song, he wrote to his son. He wrote hundreds of songs with my dad, and so he’s a family friend.

There’s a big importance that lies with first times, like the first day of school, etc. In I Only Miss You When I’m Breathing, we have the first time entering Brandon’s room when he passed. How did you, as an actor, connect with this feeling?

My acting style involves me playing movies in my head. When we created the bedroom, we made sure we had stuff that really belonged to Brandon — Freddie and Pippy’s son. I said that I was going to come in the room right when we’re going to rehearse it and shoot it; I didn’t want to see the location before then. I wanted it to be like I was just then walking in.

I create scenarios, when it comes to my style. Let’s take the moment when she breaks down and cries: The way that I would create that moment at the end of the film is by seeing my son playing soccer; it’s that movie in my head, right? And then I envisioned the first time she drives by the soccer field and sees kids playing with the knowledge that he’s dead. And then I created a movie where she would just pull up and watch the kids play soccer with her son not there. Having these three things to pull from, the weeping thing with the soccer ball, all I have to do is visualize any of those things I’ve created, and I would just start crying, like sobbing, because you have to keep the tank filled. So if one memory you’ve created isn’t triggering you any more, you’ll have to create a new one. So say this is the fifth take, we’re going to do this crying moment again. At first, I did the visual where I’m watching him play, then one where he won the game, then one where other kids are playing but not him, and now, I’m just sitting in a parked car, looking at an empty soccer field. So, you just have to build on it. When you see that soccer ball, if you’re an actor that can cry on cue, you’ll cry because you’ve built it up; you’ve created the whole mini movie. In his room, there were things there to see and to touch. I knew some of the things that would be in there because we had picked them out from his actual parent’s house. So, there were attachments. The part where I go and smell things in the closet, those things were actually Brandon’s. I wasn’t just touching a t-shirt; I was pausing on the ones that had been his. I created memories of him coming down, wearing one of those t-shirts. That memory then is a knife when I see the shirt. So, I teach screen acting at Lipscomb, too. Not everyone can create those movies in their head, but it can be a really powerful tool for an actor to have because it is visual. You can see it in your head.

Mak Johnnson, a Video and Film Production major, is president of MTSU’s chapter of Women and Film. She directed the staged reading of Margaret Hoffman’s TV script, the pilot of The Land of Extinction, for In Process in November 2022. Her play Hollers in the Holler, which she wrote as a URECA Scholar, was included in the In Process Staged Reading Marathon in April 2023.