Broadway playwright Sharr White tackles love, loss in Paonia

 

Take two characters who love each other fiercely (and who hate each almost as much), put them in a small, dilapidated trailer together after 20 years apart and watch the unrelenting intensity unfold. That describes Sharr White’s latest play “Annapurna.”

 

The play is a piece of theater evocative of Tennessee Williams now playing at the Boulder Ensemble Theater Company in a regional premiere before heading to off-Broadway this spring. Megan Mulally and her husband, Nick Offerman, star in the production and are best known from TV’s “Will & Grace” and “Parks & Rec.”

 

Sharr White had two plays on Broadway in rapid succession — “The Snow Geese” and “The Other Place.”  It took White 13 years of writing before having any success as a playwright. His perseverance is, perhaps, the most important trait he brings to his writing.

 

You can also see this notion reflected in his Twitter profile, which, rather than proclaiming his Broadway turn or his numerous awards, simply says: “I write things. Then rewrite them.”

 

“[Writing] is labor,” White says. “It’s simple math. Things usually aren’t good enough.” 

 

White spends some time in the studio with Colorado Matters host Ryan Warner, talking about the writing process; about love and loss, the themes of Annapurna and his other plays; about growing up in Boulder; and about how he found his way after years of turmoil.