A Horrifically Funny Interview With Playwright Riley Elton McCarthy

EDGE: Tell me about the splash zone.

Riley: You're just gonna have to come find out. Wear a raincoat. In the last production, some blood splattered on an audience member. So this time, because there is blood, guts, and gore, we have deemed the front row a splash zone. If you would like to potentially be splashed with blood for the fun of it, you can sit in the front row for $10. It's washable blood, I promise you. I've never done a show where the blood didn't wash out.

EDGE: Is it hard to watch your audience watching your play?

Riley: I will never forget being at Edinburgh Fringe with my play "IVORIES." We had a press day for critics, and there were only seven old white men sitting in the front row. Not a single one of those old men laughed throughout the whole show. My plays are circumstantially hilarious, and it all comes from very human humor. I remember us working so hard for the laughs, and we didn't get any. After the show, we went right to the bar across the street and threw back whiskey shots. The next day, we woke up to glowing reviews. One of the critics from The Scotsman, which is Scotland's big newspaper, reached out to me on Twitter and said my writing was his favorite of the fringe. He also said a show that's 100 minutes long at the Fringe is a risk, but every minute was justified; he was riveted.

EDGE: You're a prolific playwright with productions going up in London and New York at the same time. And now you're in an MFA program in musical theater at NYU. How did you make the jump to musical theater?

Riley: I don't think it was a jump at all. I went to Marymount to get my BFA musical theater, and I eventually realized that wasn't for me. I didn't want the life of a triple threat on Broadway. I got my equity card at 16 doing regional theater in North Carolina. My first big gig was understudying Jeremy Jordan's cousin in "Carousel." I love musical theater, quite frankly, but I also hate it. I'm so multidisciplinary. As a writer, I write screenplays. I've sold a picture deal.

EDGE: Can I mention that?

Riley: You can mention that I have a picture deal, but I can't say more. I write screenplays, I write film, and I write television. I don't want to be limited to one thing. All the great dramatists are doing more than one thing. I'm a performer, I'm a director, I'm a playwright. That is my passion. I love telling stories on the stage, but when I was doing a year of my master's in playwriting at another school where I felt very lonely, I found out through my other transgender friends that the NYU musical theater program needed some extra people. I kind of slid my way into this program because I wanted to be in a collaborative environment where I would learn more from other people with different experiences. I'm a military child. It's in my nature. I have to admit I tear up every single time I pass by the NYU flag because it was my dream school as a kid, and I had given up the dream. Going to NYU feels like healing a little part of little Riley. I know that's cheesy, but I'm very grateful.

"I'm Going to Eat You Alive!" runs through October 27 at the Culture Lab LIC, 5-25 46th Avenue, Long Island City, NY.