Jim Kleinmann, Artistic Director and co-founder of the playwright incubator PlayGround, recalls driving the Staten Island Ferry as a ten year old.

JIM KLEINMANN, he/him, co-founded PlayGround in 1994, along with playwright Brighde Mullins and director Denise Shama, and has served as Artistic Director since 1996. For PlayGround, he has provided artistic and administrative leadership for the past twenty-four seasons, developing PlayGround’s unique array of new playwright and new play incubator programs, including Monday Night PlayGround, the PlayGround Festival of New Works, the full-length play Commissioning Initiative, the New Play Production Fund, Potrero Stage: PlayGround Center for New Plays, and most recently the Innovator Incubator. For PlayGround, he has directed more than one hundred short and full-length plays, including works by Garret Jon Groenveld, Aaron Loeb, Geetha Reddy, Lauren Yee, Katie May, and many others. Recent directing and dramaturgy credits include David Steele’s Vignettes on Love and Ruben Grijalva’s Value Over Replacement. He is a veteran arts administrator with more than thirty years of experience, including stints leading Traveling Jewish Theatre, Smuin Ballet and Berkeley Symphony, and received his MFA from the Yale School of Drama.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened, a podcast that features folks from all over

(00:29):
walks of life telling us one true childhood experience and how that event, that moment
in time, has impacted who they are today.
I'm your host, Jay Rehack, and like all of you out there, I've had my share of childhood
traumas, dramas, and happy moments.
But I like to think that everything that's ever happened to me has made me a better person.

(00:52):
Of course, that's not really true, but that is the illusion that I give myself that somehow
I'm better for everything that's ever happened to me.
All right, well today I have as my guest a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Jim
Kleinman.
Jim is the artistic director and co-founder of the Playwright Incubator Playground.

(01:13):
I'm just going to add that I just joined that group last year and that's how I got a chance
to meet Jim.
So welcome to the show, Jim Kleinman.
Thanks, Jay.
Jim, it's great to have you.
I really appreciate everything you do on the theater side, but I'm going to not talk about
that right now.
I'm just going to ask you if you're ready to tell your story.

(01:34):
I am.
All right, I'm going to mute myself, Jim, and at the end I'm going to ask you one or
two, maybe three questions about how you think that whatever you're going to tell us today
has impacted who you are as an adult.
But take it away, Jim Kleinman.
All right, here we go.
So when I was young, I lived just north of New York City in a little suburb, and my mother

(01:58):
loved New York and she used to take me on the train into the city.
And we would go on adventures.
We would go see shows in New York and we would go to museums.
And I remember one time, I don't really know how young I was, but I do remember one time
she took me into the city and we went to the southernmost point and I didn't really know

(02:21):
where we were going or why.
And she bought some tickets to get on the Staten Island ferry and we got on the ferry
and we went on our way.
And I was kind of a little bored.
I was wondering what was going on and where we were going and why.
And we got to the other side and I started to get ready to get off and she said, no,
no, no, we're not getting off.
And it turned out that by not getting off the ferry, we only needed a one-way ticket.

(02:45):
We could just stay and get back and go across.
And after everyone had deported, there was a mother with a young child, a bit younger
than me, probably like four or five.
And he was like knocking on the door to the bridge and the captain opened the door and
he invited this woman and the little child onto the bridge.

(03:06):
Of course, this was a very different time than where we are today.
It wouldn't have happened now.
And suddenly saw me and my mother sitting there and invited us on the bridge as well.
And everyone had started coming back on to the ferry to go back across from Staten Island
back to Manhattan.
And as we pull away, the little kid, of course, is really wanting to hold the wheel and the

(03:31):
captain sort of lets him come over, but he's just too small.
And he says, would you like to?
And he calls me over and I steered the Staten Island ferry back across New York Harbor.
I didn't park it or land it, but I did get to bring it across.
So that's my story.
Love it, Jim.
What a great story.
How old were you when it happened?

(03:52):
My guess is I was probably 10 or 11.
All right.
Well, I know that you're very much into theater, so it turns out you did not become a Staten
Island ferry driver.
So how do you think that what happened to you at that time, that experience, how do
you think that impacted you as an adult?
Well, I definitely remember that I was bored, if not even a little petulant, sort of like,

(04:19):
where am I being dragged to and why am I doing, you know, why are we doing these things?
And what distinctly came to me was that had I not been with my mother going on this adventure,
had we not stayed on the ferry, had the captain not opened the bridge at that moment and seen
me with my mother, I might not have then been invited on and had this unique experience,

(04:44):
which was really transformative.
So what really stuck with me was the idea that there are so many things that I try to
control or plan in my life.
And there are a lot of things that I can't plan or control.
And some of the greatest moments, perhaps some of the happiest moments, some of the most
spectacular things that will happen in my life are going to be the incredible accidents,

(05:07):
the unusual moments that you just have to be open to and just let it happen and embrace
it.
And so I've tried, even though like many, I like to have my level of control in my life
and think that I can sort of predict what's going to happen and plan every day.
But I also like to leave a little bit of room for the unpredictable and embrace that adventure.

(05:31):
That is really, really exactly what this podcast is about in the sense that that little moment
in time was transformative because of what you just said, which is that you assumed it
was going to be boring or whatever.
And then it turned into something very exciting, something unique, something that you carry
with you now.

(05:52):
And not necessarily because, but as a consequence, you've been more open to the idea that if
you're not always in control, it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be not good.
Absolutely.
Oh, that's great, man.
Well, I appreciate that.
So before I let you go, I do have to ask you, how did you become so involved in theater?

(06:15):
I just, I know that's sort of a side issue, but it just feels like somehow it is related
to that control issue or somehow to your storylines, even though it's an indirect line.
Absolutely.
Well, my mother certainly introduced me to theater.
It was a regular ritual going into York and seeing Broadway shows.

(06:36):
And I started to see more local theater in my community as I was growing up.
And I wanted to be involved, but I was also really shy.
And so in some ways, there was this conflict that I was so drawn to theater and the idea
of creating community around theater, but I also couldn't sort of imagine myself as
an actor or a director.

(06:59):
I wasn't really a creative writer at that point.
And so I didn't see myself as a playwright.
I'm not even sure I knew all the opportunities that theater offered, design and all of that.
I was a visual artist.
And so maybe there was something there.
But I was a musician also, and I think my first experience working with theater was actually

(07:19):
playing as a musician in the pit for a musical and wanting to get more involved.
And then when I did go to college, I ended up helping to start the first improv theater
at Brown University.
And that was kind of my closest connection to theater.
And it did allow me to meet some other theater folk.

(07:40):
And then after I graduated, I started to realize that a lot of the things that I was drawn
to were in the arts.
My first job out of school was working for the New York Philharmonic, and I thought it
was just a job, but it turned out to be a pathway that ultimately helped in strengthening
my application to the Yale School of Drama.

(08:00):
And it was really when I got to Yale that I suddenly saw it all come together.
And I was like, I could do this.
I could actually be a producer.
I also have an artistic voice.
I want to direct.
I have helped to write some of the works that have come out of Playground Writers.
Mostly, I work as a dramaturg these days.

(08:21):
And I also still get to be involved on the visual side.
I work often on the graphic design side for Playground.
So in many ways, theater was a chance for me to embrace all of the artistic interests
that I had, the visual, the music, the text, and the actual collaboration with other people.

(08:41):
And I've just been so happy.
It took me a while in some ways to get to that point.
But I feel like once I saw the Yale School of Drama and a real pathway to the professional
theater, I never looked back.
Well, man, I really appreciate the story.
I think that running the Staten Island ferry for that distance or whatever, I think somehow

(09:04):
it still links to me to the idea of you as director or master of the ship as a 10-year-old
with the help of the captain, I guess.
But it's still.
I hope he was close by.
Now we think of the idea of letting a kid on the bridge, first of all, and driving the
Staten Island ferry.

(09:24):
It would never happen.
But yeah, it was the kind of things that could happen in those days.
Well, thank you for the story, Jim.
I appreciate you coming on the show, taking the time.
Thanks so much, Jay.
All right, well, that's our show.
So until next time, this is Jay Reheck asking you all to please stay safe out there and
try not to hurt anybody.