Jennifer Lynne Roberts is the only one who has two plays in Paper Wing's Summer Reading Series.

Paper Wing Theatre's second annual Summer Reading Series gives stage readings to fresh, new work from local and regional playwrights. Jennifer Lynne Roberts, a Bay Area playwright, had two of her works accepted.

In The Killing Jar she explores her grandfather's journey as a ex-patriat in the Philippines. and The Pennsylvanian follows her own personal journey on the East Coast. They'll both be read by actors at Paper Wing Theatre this Sunday at 3pm and 6pm, respectively.

Roberts spoke to the Weekly about her evolution as a writer, ultimately ending up as a playwright, a producer and a director at one point.  

Why theatre? Why not an online web series or film like a lot of young artists use as a form of expression?

I am exploring that venue as well. But what I like about theatre is that it is live and you have people that are there that react, and the environment of the audience, and it is intimate but elaborate. You are experiencing something together and in theatre. I find value in web series as well because it is accessible for more people. I am working on a podcast.

How are you connected to Monterey County?

I used to be board President of the Playwrights' Center of San Francisco and one of the programs we offered was a 24-hour fest. You get a bunch of playwrights and actors and writers stay up all night writing, and the actors get off book and perform the next evening. One of the people was Koly McBride and she drove all the way from Monterey and got involved. She reached out to me and a lot of other playwrights and asked me to reach out to the Playwright Center [because] Paper Wing Theatre would love to [do] an event.

What is the overall theme of your material?

I think that without recognizing it was happening until after, I have a tendency to write about women and rediscovering women, trying to raise women's voices. I like to explore the themes of trying to save and rescue and I am asking the question: Is it selfish to try to save yourself?

How did you first become interested in theatre?

It sounds cliché but my first interaction was when I was very young and in middle school. I had a teacher who was extremely interested in fostering the creative side that she thought I had and she had us write plays and put them on in front of our class. They were always about cats or fairies. Thank goodness she encouraged that because the drama club was closed down in high school. After that I pushed it aside for years and I wanted to be a writer, but I was working. When I went back to school, and by chance I took a playwriting class to fulfill my credit, it reinvigorated my love of theatre.

What playwrights do you admire or are inspired by? And why?

Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. I am really drawn to Sam Shepard and I feel like he influences my work the strongest. I love his magical realism and I always think, when I am witnessing his plays, I am in some place I know and he turns it—this magical realism—and you just go with it because of the way that he draws you into it.

What would you say has been your most accomplished moment in your artistic career?

Getting to a place where I feel confident enough to start my own theatre company and say that 'I want to produce my own work and everybody who writes a play needs to be seen.' It has been quite a journey to produce and put my work up whenever and wherever. For me it is doing this new company and taking this new view. In terms of plays, The Killing Jar was a finalist for the Dayton Playhouse Futurefest. 

Why are you putting your plays on in Monterey?

I feel like my work will fit there. My plays are not experimental but goes dark and may not play in standard [venues]. That excited me that there is a theatre that is interested in unorthodox. They take risks, which is really important, and they have shows that are controversial.

What do you hope to achieve with presenting your work in Monterey?

I am hoping that more people see the work. I get to hear reactions and get to hear the questions and it helps me look at the play in a different way. My other goal is picking it up for production. If Paper Wing is interested, great. If someone in the audience is, great. Just getting it seen in the production and also get it seen outside the Bay Area.

What would your ideal production be like? Audience reaction? Type of actors? Setting?

I don’t know if I have one because what I think of when...my work is done with the script [is] I want to see [how] directors and designers interpret that. I would be more excited to see how [other] people interpret that. As for audience reaction, I always want people to leave having a discussion or a debate. I don’t want my material to be black and white.

What else besides the writing aspect are you involved with?

I am doing a lot of producing. I have directed once and it was fine.

Is writing the play the most difficult experience? Or directing and producing?

No, revising the play is the most difficult. Writing is exciting and I love to do a ton of research. Multiple drafts could take a couple of years, depending.

Will you be back in Monterey after the two performances?

Yeah I am hoping to get to Susan Jackson's reading because I have missed so many readings! I am hoping to get down there to see at least one other play.

What are you currently working on?

I have got a couple things bubbling up. I am in the research end of a full-length play. It has a sci-fi feel and it is centered on women, obviously, and women of 1918 who went into agriculture while the men went off to war and the war ends and they have to get home.

What was your inspiration behind The Killing Jar and The Pennsylvanian?

For The Killing Jar it stems from my grandfather, who was an expatriate painter from the Philippines. The Pennsylvanian is personal for me. I think that is all I want to say on that one.

You are the only playwright to have two readings, how do you feel about that?

I was surprised and deeply honored. I am nervous because I will be hearing them again and what am I going to hear? I'll think, oh I need to revise that! And having two back-to-back and switching those gears is intimidating. It is a bounty, am I going to be able to take in that information?

Both seem like they are pretty different from each other. Is that on purpose? 

They just came out that way.