From Toronto stages to the ‘Interview With the Vampire’ writers’ room, playwright Hannah Moscovitch is having a moment

You’re going to be seeing playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s name a lot over the next few months.

Tarragon Theatre hosts the world premiere of her “Succession”-style corporate drama, “Post-Democracy,” starting Nov. 8. Her acclaimed play-with-music “Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story,” created with husband Christian Barry and musician Ben Caplan, plays with the Harold Green Jewish Theatre Company later in the month; early next year comes the world premiere of “Fall on Your Knees” at Canadian Stage, an adaptation of Ann-Marie MacDonald’s bestselling novel of the same name.

Oh, and if you’re part of the reason the television show “Interview With the Vampire” debuted to immense success on AMC this month, you might be interested to know she’s a member of its writers’ room. And so these days, Moscovitch is calling the hills of Los Angeles home, at least for a while. Earlier this year, she and her family moved to the U.S. from their home in Halifax in order for her to work on the show.

“The move to Los Angeles was pretty extreme,” said Moscovitch in an interview.

“Halifax feels like I’m on a writing retreat. It’s beautiful and small. It’s where my son has grown up. Los Angeles feels like a circus,” she continued.

The invitation to write for the show came out of the blue, said Moscovitch. One of the producers of “Interview With the Vampire,” Adam O’Byrne, had seen her work at the Stratford Festival.

“He put a couple of my plays in front of Rolin Jones, the showrunner … and so I interviewed with him. And I thought, ‘This is ridiculous! Do they not have writers in L.A.?’ I was very much uncertain about what my value would be in this world. But they hired me,” she said, laughing. AMC has kept her on as a writer for the show’s second season, too, she said.

Moscovitch has been a heavy hitter in Canadian theatre for well over a decade, a Dora- and Governor General’s Award-winning playwright who was shortlisted for the prestigious Siminovitch Prize in 2014 and 2017. Her work often confronts subversive relationships through a feminist lens — see “Bunny,” “Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes” and “Infinity” — and occasionally knits together biting humour with stories of reproductive health, as in the cases of “Secret Life of a Mother” and “What a Young Wife Ought to Know.”

Her voice as a writer is fiercely unique, easily distinguishable on both the page and the stage through its humour and poeticism, and Moscovitch doesn’t shy away from the grime of sexual politics.

Back in Canada, Moscovitch is thrilled her work is finally back in the theatre where it belongs, rather than online.

“The pleasure of doing theatre is its liveness, which obviously has been apocalyptic during the pandemic,” said Moscovitch.

“The wild thing is that I pivoted — or whatever it is we’re supposed to say — and I’m working actively. When all the productions of my plays that were meant to go up got cancelled, I was like, all right, I’m gonna go work in TV!”

For the most part Moscovitch stayed away from digital theatre, save for an online production of “Post-Democracy” at Prairie Theatre Exchange in Winnipeg. While Moscovitch hugely appreciated the work done on the play in its virtual capacity, she’s relieved to see it migrate back to the stage for which it was conceived.

“For me, digital theatre is what kills that bird. It kills what’s beautiful about it. So obviously I’m happy about the work going up at Tarragon, my home theatre … I’m thrilled it’s going forward.”

“Post-Democracy” is a milestone premiere for Moscovitch, a drama investigating the complexities of the top one per cent. Moscovitch, whose father is an economist, grew up around discussions of the inescapability of poverty and its effect on human health.

“Then in my 20s, when I was hoping to be a writer, I served at a high-end restaurant on College Street. I got to know the one per cent really well over the course of five years. I saw their lives up close, was often invited to their parties, dated them. And so I kind of know their world.”

Moscovitch considers herself a fan of “Succession,” HBO’s Emmy darling and frantically witty corporate drama — and admits it bears some striking resemblance to her play.

“When the show came out, I thought, ‘It’s the same f–king story!’” she said with a chuckle. “But obviously I adore ‘Succession.’ So many of my contemporaries are writing for it. Of course it’s amazing.” (Those contemporaries include Pulitzer-shortlisted American Will Arbery and British playwright Lucy Prebble: two dramatists who, like Moscovitch, have made the leap to writing for television.)

“The pay is extraordinary. The collaborators available to you are virtuosic. The work itself is pristine and extremely good. And you get an incredible mass audience for your work,” said Moscovitch. “In the move from theatre to TV, I’ve gotten something like a 4,000 per cent raise. It’s hard to beat that. But the beautiful thing about theatre is that it’s live. When the liveness comes back, that’ll help.”

All going well, that liveness is back in Toronto theatre for the rest of this season and beyond. All the better for the slew of slated Moscovitch premieres. But for now, she’s enjoying her time writing for the screen.

“For someone like me, who worked in Canadian theatre, I never knew if my set of abilities had value outside of a theatre. And it’s odd and great to be like, s–t, yeah. Apparently, it has a lot of value.”

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