Lifestyle Editor Rachel Bellamy sat down and talked via cyberspace to playwright Jeremy Gable to discuss his new play, “The 15th Line.” The play is exclusively on Twitter. This is his second Twitter-based play; his first was “140: A Twitter Performance.”

- What is your play, “The 15th line,” about?

“The 15th Line” is a three-act play that follows four characters, all avid Twitter users, who find themselves connected to each other by a subway accident (it’s worth noting that this takes place in The City. Not any city in particular, just… The City). There are two students; one who survived the subway accident (Angela) and one who witnessed it and ran away (Seth). There is a therapist (Dustin) whose wife died in the accident. And finally we have a reporter for the city newspaper (Patrick) who continually updates on the accident and keeps in touch with Angela. At the beginning of the play, they were all strangers, but now (I just started Act Two last Sunday) they are all getting to know each other. As the play progresses, they’re dealing with death, depression, cowardice, and obsession.

- How long is the play? While writing the play, did you have to do any research, interview people, etc.?

The play started on January 25th, and will run until March 25th, for a total of 60 days. I didn’t do much in the way of active research (other than looking up a number of articles about subway accidents, stages of bereavement and cognitive behavioral therapy), but having been an avid member of Twitter for a couple years now has taught me the ways that people communicate publicly, as well as how news organizations use the forum to pass along information. If anything, the city of Philadelphia has inspired me the most, through its public transit system and the people that I’ve come across while walking around Center City.

- Is it running on the internet alone or can it be found in other mediums as well? If not, will it be in other mediums in the future?

Right now, it’s only on the Internet. With this, I’ve been more interested in exploring the use of social networking as a stage for a real-time performance. I probably wouldn’t say no to someone who wanted to explore the idea further on stage, but at this moment I just don’t know how to make that happen, since the piece takes place every day for two months throughout all of The City.

- How does it compare to other plays you’ve written?

Well, one obvious difference is that my other plays are written for the stage. I tend to write best when I’m given limitations, so playwriting has worked best for me. No matter what, my vision has to fit within this certain box. With this story however, I’m able to travel all around the city to various locations. I’ve never been good with that much freedom (I write terrible screenplays), so this presents its own challenges and limitations with Twitter’s character limit and with the knowledge that whatever these people say has to be something they’re comfortable expressing in public.

- What was your inspiration for writing the 15th line?

Oops, I think I answered this one earlier. To elaborate, I’m new to Philadelphia, and I instantly fell hard for the subway system. I love riding the trains, walking around the stations, navigating the maps. I especially love just sharing this small space with a group of random strangers for five minutes. I became very aware that if anything were to happen, I would suddenly be connected to these people in ways I’d never before imagined. That fascinated the hell out of me, since that’s a lot of what social networking is about – “You know someone I know, and we both like Gnarls Barkley, so now we know each other!” So I started exploring the idea of combining the connection great tragedy creates with the connection that comes out of social networking sites.

- I read in the Philadelphia Weekly article that you’re not the first playwright to write a play that’s on the internet, but are you the only playwright to write a play that is exclusively on the internet?

Well, this is my second Twitter play (I wrote my first one last summer), and as far as I know, that first one was the first full-length, fully original play to premiere on Twitter – what a title, huh? I have to give some credit where credit is due. The fantastic New York theatre troupe The New York Neo-Futurists has an awesome one-tweet playwriting festival every Tuesday, and the Broadway musical “Next To Normal” wrote out their entire show through the updates of its characters (that gave me a lot of inspiration on how one should format a Twitter play). I don’t know if I’m the only playwright to write a play exclusively on the Internet, but I know that I’m the minority.

- I’m just curious, do you think your play could ever be acted out?

Whoops, I kinda sorta answered this one, too. I need to just stick to one point with each question, huh? Anyway, like I said, if there was someone who could figure out a way to stage it, I’d love to make it happen. I think part of what makes this story so interesting to me is the conciseness of the characters’ statements, whereas I love live theatre with long, flowery language (“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is my bread and butter). It would be a great challenge for the actors and director, but I think part of what excites me about this project is telling a prolonged real-time story, whereas reading the script out loud would only take about an hour. I guess it would all depend on how it was done.

- What has the feedback been so far?

Interesting. I’ve heard from several people who love it, are following it every day and are discussing it with other followers. It seems like most people in the theatre community are more fascinated by it than thrilled by it (which is completely understandable, since one could argue that it’s not actually theatre). And there have been the naysayers; my favorite being someone who called it “crap, at least in concept,” and criticized it for being “a pseudo-realistic, electro-techno performance art piece,” “just the familiar tripe that has become hip” and “the kind of liver and lights that Broadway and Hollywood will embrace an exalt.” For the record, neither Broadway nor Hollywood seems to care, as I received neither embraces nor exaltations from either.

- Is there anything that you would like to add?

Well, I’d mainly be curious to see what you think about it. For the most part, people seem fascinated by what it is, and I’d love to hear more about if people are actually able to look past its gimmickry and enjoy the story. But then that’s me telling you how to do your job, which is exceedingly not cool, so I’ll stop doing that. I’ll just say that whatever you want to add is fine by me. If you have any other questions, you know how to get a hold of me.

- Is there anyone else I can interview for further information?

I don’t really know. This is pretty much the only thing I’ve done in which I’ve been the sole creator, producer and performer, so there’s not really other people that I can think of who can provide their insight into it all, other than the creator of Twitter, my wife or my mom.

- Do you plan on bringing in other characters? Why are all your characters directly related to the accident instead of bringing in people from around the world, this play being based on the internet, which connects people from all over?

I decided not to bring in other characters so that it’s not too confusing for the audience. I’d fear that bringing in more characters to Twitter, which is already confusing for some people, would just make the piece harder to follow. But maybe I’m not giving enough credit to our generation, who is amazing with multi-tasking when it comes to the Internet.

- In the beginning, Dustin begs his wife over Twitter to answer him if she’s reading this. Do you think this is a realistic reflection on society?

I think in some extreme cases, it is. I haven’t done it through Twitter, but I’ve found that some people are easier to contact someone through Facebook than they are over the phone. A few of my friends have rebelled against this by only talking on the phone and forsaking Twitter and Facebook. So I figured that if Erica was a Twitter user, he might use it as a last resort, not having heard from her for several hours. It might seem absurd, but then again, so does Twitter.

- I’m assuming you write all the character’s tweets, correct? Do you have a consistency for tweeting through the characters or is it just whenever you want something to happen in the play?
Yes, I’m writing all of the characters’ updates (I hate using the word “tweet,” simply because I hate how it sounds). I try to keep each character’s voice consistent, and before premiering the play, I made sure to read through each character’s updates to make sure that they stay consistent and each have a compelling story arc on their own.

- Do you plan the character’s reactions, the plot, etc., ahead of time or is this a stream of consciousness work?
I made sure to write it all out beforehand so that I could tell the best story I could, with foreshadowing, symbolism and a compelling story arc. With my previous Twitter play, I didn’t have it all planned out before I started, and the story suffered because of it. So this time, I made sure to have it all ready to go before it premiered. Sometimes, the updates change if I think something can be better worded at the last minute, or to add significant events that have happened. But otherwise, the script is already written.

- Has anyone ever thought that the character’s accounts were real people and what was being spoken about true?

If they have, I haven’t heard about it. The twit_play account makes it pretty obvious that it’s a work of fiction, and the people following the individual characters haven’t reached out to them. There are people who respond back to the characters, but it seems to be more of wanting to be part of the play than believing that it’s real. I was certainly hoping not to create a “War of the Worlds” style panic with this.