Alumni Spotlight: Clarence Coo '10

The Alumni Spotlight is a place to hear from the School of the Arts alumni community about their journeys as artists and creators.

Clarence Coo '10 was born in the Philippines and grew up in a crowded, multilingual household in Virginia. He writes about language, class, and sexuality. His plays include On That Day in Amsterdam, The God of Wine, The Birds of Empathy, Beautiful Province (Belle Province), and People Sitting in Darkness. His work has been produced or developed at Primary Stages, the Atlantic Theater Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, New York Theatre Workshop, and the Bay Area Playwrights Festival. He has received fellowships from the Dramatists Guild of America, the Rita Goldberg Playwrights’ Workshop at the Lark, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Playwrights Realm, and he has been the recipient of a Whiting Award and the Yale Drama Series Prize. He is a member of the Ma-Yi Writers Lab and an alumnus of New Dramatists. In 2023, he was the winner of the Weissberger New Play Award, and his play Chapters of a Floating Life will be part of South Coast Rep's Pacific Playwrights Festival.

Was there a specific faculty member or peer who especially inspired you while at the School of the Arts? If so, who and how?

Kelly Stuart was such an incredible workshop teacher. Even when you only had a few pages, she had the ability to recognize the beating heart of your play, the part that was the most truthful, human and delicate. Sometimes I'd feel unsure about a scene that I had brought into class, but Kelly's insightful questions and encouragement always inspired me to go back and keep working on the play until the draft was complete. I've always been grateful for that.

How did attending the School of the Arts impact your work and career as an artist?

Being at SOA helped me find my voice. When I entered the program, I was unsure what kind of writer I was. But during my time at Columbia, I wrote so much that I realized I kept writing about the same few things over and over again, even if the characters and situations were all a little different. I couldn't find the answers to the questions I kept asking myself, but the big realization was that it was the questioning that makes you a playwright, not the conclusions you end up with. More than twelve years later, I'm still writing about the same things.

What was your favorite or most memorable class while at the School of the Arts?

One memorable class I had was Maria Mileaf's course on Directing. My classmates were all playwrights, stage managers and dramaturgs. And we all had to direct each other. And act. There was such a sense of freedom, knowing that we didn't have to be good at directing or acting—since those weren't our concentrations. The important thing was that we were exploring what theatre meant and challenging our perceptions of what theatre could be. I learned so much about letting go and taking risks and that ultimately we are in theater because we believe that working together is fun.

What were the first steps you took after graduating?

After getting my MFA, I stayed in New York and applied to every playwriting fellowship and organization in the city. I received a lot of rejection letters. However I was lucky to get a handful of non-rejections a few years after graduating. I received fellowships and residencies with the Dramatists Guild, the Ma-Yi Writers Lab and New Dramatists. From grad school, I knew that being part of a community of writers was essential to my productivity.

What advice would you give to recent graduates? 

There is no one correct or typical path for a career in the arts.That uncertainty might cause a lot of dread for a recent grad, but it is actually a gift. You'll have so many experiences after graduation, not all of them seemingly artistic, but they all end up feeding your art and contributing to your singular voice. In short, don't stress out comparing your own artistic career to your peers'. We didn't choose to be artists so we could be like everyone else.