I was born and raised in New Hampshire, that little chunk of a state shoved between Maine and Vermont. For the uninitiated, it’s where aspiring presidential candidates come to campaign every four years. I grew up as a mediocre athlete sitting on the football team’s bench in the autumn and pole-vaulting poorly on the track team in the spring. After coming to terms with my lack-of-athletic-prowess and graduating from high school, I went to college at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia because 1) they accepted me and 2) I needed to get away from New Hampshire. I majored in Philosophy because I thought it sounded cool at parties. When I graduated I learned how impractical that choice was. An early life existential crisis caused me to take an acting class, which triggered a series of events that would send me to Boston, enroll in improv comedy classes, and eventually become part of Improv Asylum’s fledgling Touring Company. A couple years later I helped start a theater company with some friends. I spent a few years acting in plays and improv shows only to learn I was a pretty terrible actor. This was an important realization for me because it triggered my writing plays. When I started writing, it was like the clouds parted and I could see my place in the world. I eventually moved to Los Angeles and earned my MFA from USC School of Dramatic Arts.

I’m a late bloomer, as they say. I’m constantly interviewing playwrights as part of my work for The Subtext Podcast. In the vast majority (if not all) of the the interviews the playwright I’m talking to discusses how somebody when they were young introduced them to the theatre. Somebody nudged them into being an actor or a writer. They talk about how they were inspired by plays. When I am listening to these stories I think about how when I was young all I knew was sports. I thought life was supposed to be day jobs and sports. I didn’t have those teachers or mentors early on pushing me towards the arts. I was left to my own devices. And left to my own devices it took me a very long time. And what a great lesson that was for me to learn: I am not different because I lacked an early teacher nudging me; I am the same in that all playwrights walk individual paths to get to the places we find ourselves.

My plays include WELCOME TO KEENE, NH, THE PATIENT (The Kennedy Center’s Jean Kennedy Smith Award), LAST TO DIE FOR A LOST CAUSE (The Kennedy Center’s John Cauble Award), HERE RESTS THE HEART, THE GRAVEDIGGERS UNION, and others. His work has been published by Smith & Kraus, Talon Review, Commonplace Books, NoPassport Press, Next Stage Press, and Canyon Voices. Currently writing: NASHUA, a play about a family that never was, HOTEL HOLLYWOOD about the collision between capitalism and homelessness in downtown Los Angeles, and THE MEETING about what artists might do in a fascist society where the arts have been banned.

You can find a selection of my plays listed on New Play Exchange. And if you want to buy me a coffee, go here: buymeacoffee.com/bejaypea.

The Subtext Podcast ran for two years as a program of LA Stage Alliance from 2015-2017. American Theatre Magazine added The Subtext to their stable of podcasts in 2018, where it has been running monthly ever since. You can now find The Subtext at American Theatre Magazine's website or on iTunes at this link.