The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the most well-known and largest arts festival not only in the United States, but in the world. The festival takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland every August, with hundreds of thousands of eager visitors present. NYU student, Vinay Umapathy was chosen to have his own original play performed at this grand festival.
The Basics:
Name: Vinay Umapathy
School: Tisch School of the Arts ‘19
Hometown: Pittsburgh, PA
Major(s): Dramatic Writing
HC: Where and when did the journey of playwriting begin for you? Was it as a writer, or as an actor?
“As much as I love it, I actually don’t consider playwriting as my forte. I spend more time performing stand up comedy. I’ve wanted to pursue comedy ever since I became interested in politics. I was drawn to politics one day when I just turned the TV to Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report” and started watching it. It was then that I realized how much more I enjoyed making people laugh. As for playwriting, I was in a class for it in high school, and for the final project my teacher really liked one of my ideas and wanted it to be performed. It ended being the headline play at the Gargoyle Society – a young playwright’s festival in Pittsburgh. I later found out that my teacher submitted it, and now the play is going to be performed at Edinburgh this summer.”
HC: So, this play from high school is scheduled to be performed at THE Edinburgh Fringe festival- in other words, the world’s largest arts festival. Can you tell me more about what this play is about?
“It’s a reverse take on sexuality and a critique on society today. The play takes place in a world where being homosexual is considered normal. The main character ‘comes out’ as straight, and his parents flip out. Unfortunately, if I said anymore it would be me giving too much away. I’m still adding a lot to the plot itself in preparation for the festival, but that’s the premise of it. There’s a lot of work that still needs to be done though.”
HC: That’s so interesting. What was the first hook that inspired the ideas in this play? Was there any correlation with your personal life or situation?
“The play itself took about one solid semester – so four months – to write up, but the idea just formed spontaneously. I have gay friends and they’re just like me and seriously the funniest guys ever. I always catch myself thinking, “Why in the world do we hate on these people?”. I remember cracking a joke to them one day saying, “I’m the ‘odd’ one here right now” because I was the only straight guy present. And then I took that spontaneous idea into action. I like being political and satirical, so it was an idea I really wanted to take to the next level. It wasn’t some light joke, but rather an idea I thought could be used to inspire change.”
HC: Considering your play discusses race, gender, sexuality, and politics, you’re taking on pretty heated topics with great confidence. Do you ever get negative responses to your work? And if so, how do you take the time to respond?
“I mean I haven’t been in the business long enough to get a lot of major negative comments. When I perform stand up, I make jokes that may get taken the wrong way, and people will come up and say, ‘You can’t say this’ or ‘You can’t act this way,’ and I have to explain my intention to them. When that happens, that obviously means there is a lot of work to do on the joke if they don’t get it, but I believe a comedian’s goal should be to bring light to a situation instead of just attacking something. Take my play for instance. There’s a lot of sex and swearing in the play but the thing is – it wasn’t a play about sex. It’s about sexuality. My dean was at the play and she just didn’t like it and actually complained because there was so much swearing. But isn’t that how life is? It isn’t always about cupcakes or sunshine all the time. It’s so much more complex. And sometimes you really have to hear or see what may be hard to fully understand what is going on in the world. It can be very radical or harsh to process, but it’ll be a learning experience for you in the long run. If I attack my critics or get upset, they’ll never want to understand the message trying to be delivered, and they would feel threatened instead. That would just be counterproductive. For me, I take a lot of risks, and sometimes they can be scary or stupid, but other times risks can be really exciting and enriching. I hope that when people see my plays, they’ll not only love it, but will also see it in the light I’m trying to portray it in.”
HC: Aside from your remarkable achievements as a playwright, you have also headlined at the Oaks Theatre as a comedian. How do your ideas in your stand up performances differ from those in your plays?
“Well, for ideas I might have for stand up, I would probably make jokes about. But there’s a fine line. There are certain topics like sexuality that I can’t effectively perform for stand up because everything is so quick, and ideas last for maybe a few seconds. Usually if I have a really good idea, I try writing a play about it instead because, from where I see it, a play can take on heavier, more serious topics. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t take stand up seriously, because deep subjects like politics, philosophy, human beings, or the questioning of morality are constantly being discussed too.”
HC: Have you gotten involved in any of NYU’s theatre opportunities?
“Yeah definitely. It’s only been a month and a half, but I’ve been to a few movie screenings here, and actually met my all-time favorite director and writer Charlie Kaufman. He’s a Tisch graduate, and we actually ended up having a thirty minute private discussion. It was amazing because he’s my idol. Also, Jonah Hill was the moderator and we also talked to him too. As for campus organizations, I auditioned for Hammerkatz, NYU’s biggest sketch comedy group, and advanced to the semi-finals, but then I didn’t make it. But that was good enough for me, so hopefully next year I can work harder and be a part of it.”
HC: What is your all-time favorite play, and why?
“Lysistrata by Aristophanes. It was written in B.C. and it’s a very political and satirical play about the Greeks and Spartans fighting. The women in the play are just so done, and end up going on a sex strike. It’s just so outrageously funny, and there’s so much modern humor present despite the fact that it was written such a long time ago. I just think it’s so brilliant that they even had those kinds of ideas that you could only see today.”
HC: Lastly, if you could have dinner with one eminent figure, who would you choose and why?
“Stephen Colbert. He’s brilliant and is one of my idols. His charisma, generosity, humor, and just general outlook on life is something I can only hope to emulate. And plus, it would be a funny dinner too. He seems like he genuinely cares about his fans, and doesn’t seem like the type to shun his fans like a lot of other celebrities do. I feel as if he wouldn’t treat me as just a fan, but rather as an equal. These are all assumptions, but he’s just someone I aspire to be like.”
Follow Vinay on social media: Twitter and Instagram: @Vinayhilism