Marine-Turned-Blood From a Stone Scribe Tommy Nohilly on His Unlikely Path to Playwriting

About the author:
Tommy Nohilly, an actor and former Marine who counts waiter, bouncer, bartender and security guard among his previous jobs, is adding another notch to his vocational belt. The fledgling playwright is making his professional debut with the blue collar drama Blood From a Stone, a raw and violent portrait of a working-class Connecticut family and the son who returns home only to be sucked back into the conflicts that mark the characters' daily lives. The semi-autobiographical piece attracted the attention of New Group artistic director Scott Elliott and a blue-chip cast that includes Oscar nominee Ethan Hawke, Tony nominee Daphne Rubin-Vega and film vet Natasha Lyonne. In an essay for Broadway.com, a grateful Nohilly describes his unconventional career path, from life in the armed forces down the winding road that drew Blood to the off-Broadway stage.

I have been a big fan of The New Group ever since I saw Mike Leigh’s Goose-Pimples there in 1997. I remember leaving the theater that night stunned and inspired. I was later blessed to see the company's productions of plays by Wallace Shawn. The work of artistic director Scott Elliott was raw and took chances––it felt like the work could not be clearly categorized or defined, like life itself. The actors who worked there were all top-shelf. I felt, perhaps a bit naively, that my play Blood From A Stone might have a chance at a place like The New Group.

After completing the graduate playwriting program at Columbia University in 2006, I dropped my thesis Blood From A Stone off at The New Group. I had had the pleasure of working with Associate Artistic Director Ian Morgan a few years earlier, acting in a reading he directed. We learned that we had grown up close to one another in Connecticut (Ian in Middletown and me in New Britain) and since my play dealt with that particular region, I figured it might have a shot. Having no agent or theater connections, what else could I do?

To my complete surprise, about a year and a half later, I received a call from Ian to come in and talk about the play.

All of this was quite unexpected, of course. I had begun writing while in Marine Corps boot camp in 1986. Before e-mail and texting and whatever tweeting is, there was old-fashioned snail mail. Letters were our lifeline to the outside world. I was forced for the first time to write clearly about my experiences and surroundings.

I then attended NYU, where I began to study political science, but soon fell hard for the writing classes. I made attempts at poetry and short stories and read the works of Samuel Beckett. I was hooked. I read whatever I could get my hands on. I attended as many productions as I could afford. I even made several false starts writing a couple of plays of my own. I never read a political science book again.

It wasn’t until I saw Simon McBurney’s production of Brecht’s play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in 2002 that I decided to get serious about playwriting. I applied to the Columbia graduate program, where I could focus on theater. I’m thankful for the education I got there—I have the Greeks and Shakespeare for myself now.

And then to hear from The New Group!

We organized a reading, and Scott Elliott soon became involved. He saw potential in the play and pushed me to dig even further. Every time I left his office I could barely wait to get home and get to work expanding and delving into this dysfunctional family’s origins and psychosis.

We finally set a date for the play to be produced. I could hardly believe it: a play I started at my desk in 2004 would finally see the light of day. It’s a deeply personal play, but not completely autobiographical. It starts somewhere I know and then goes into the imagination. I discovered the play’s ending only by starting it.

To enter the rehearsal room in November with the actors Gordon Clapp, Ann Dowd, Thomas Guiry, Ethan Hawke, Natasha Lyonne and Daphne Rubin-Vega on board made me feel like all the hard work had been worth it. I felt like lady luck herself had called my name.

We moved into the Acorn Theater on Theater Row for tech in the beginning of December, and seeing the work of set designer Derek McLane was overwhelming. He’s created a seventh character to the play. To sit in last row during previews has been a privilege and a humbling experience.

The entire process has been grueling, but it’s the best "tired" I’ve ever been. No university could have prepared me for everything I've learned: My "diploma" is a deep insight to the hard work that actors, directors, management and crew put into creating something new. They’ve been there since day one with a single thing in mind: to bring Blood From A Stone to life. I couldn’t be more grateful.