Arts Alive San Antonio

By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor —

How did you develop your interest and love of theater?
It may sound like a fairy tale but I think a lot of playwrights started this way! When I was a little girl we regularly went to libraries and we read a lot of books. So, I suggested to my sister and my cousin, who was with us during the summer time, that we put on a show based on the books we read. I would tell them which book and I would tell them which roles to play. So, we just starting doing that. Also, I had an aunt who was a Broadway actress and my hero. We lived in Philadelphia and our family often went to New York to see shows and to see her. I just always loved theater. (She nurtured that love throughout college and appeared in a number of college productions.)

Then, when my son was very young (while she was living in Oklahoma City), I put him in a daycare center a couple of mornings a week so he would have other kids to play with, and I would volunteer to give tours at the Oklahoma University theater center. I also attended plays there. So, I decided to get a post-graduate degree in theater. I took a class in playwriting, fell in love with it, and ended up getting my master’s degree in playwriting.

What was your first play about?
(Chuckles) My first play was about a phrase I heard when I first moved to Oklahoma. We were having a house build on a prairie field. I talked to one of the workers working on our house and asked if they could do something with the driveway, and the guy said, “Sure, ain’t no hill for a stepper,” meaning he could do it easily. I was just enchanted by it…. I had only a few years earlier gotten my undergraduate degree in English literature and I was really into noticing/admiring characters and their verbal expressions. I wrote a play with that title. It was a comedy about a family in Oklahoma selling its farm to developers so they could build new housing developments like the one I had just moved into.  When I applied for the playwrighting program at OU, I presented that script. They loved it and produced it.

How did you feel seeing your first play on stage?
Fabulous! It felt really, really good. I hear about playwrights who feel very nervous about seeing their work performed, but I like to see what the director and the actors have done with it.

How many plays have you written since then – both short and full-length?
Altogether, I’ve written probably close to 70 plays, of which 15 or 16 are full-lengthplays

What themes interest you as a playwright?
I write about characters who are very human, not heroes, and who learn to deal with life on its own terms. It’s usually a story where they have to make some kind of a choice, and they emerge from it as better people. Also, I am all about not breaking relationships. Relationships are at the core of my life, and I write about people who will seek out ways not to break up relationships.

People love to laugh and good comedies are usually quite popular. You have written both comic and serious plays. Is writing a comedy more of a challenge?
Most of my short plays are comic. Diane Malone (a respected San Antonio stage director) once told me, “Rinear, would you just sit down and write a blank comedy, because that’s your forte.” And that’s when I wrote So When Are You Leaving. I have also written comic historical plays that had terrific readings and workshops all over the country. I think writing comedy is flat-out fun.

Let’s talk about other things. What’s the best surprise you ever got?
The best surprise for me was to find out how much I loved being a mother, and later, a nana to my grandson. I never saw myself as a mom when was young. I saw myself as a career person, but when my son was born and I was taking care of him, I loved being a mom. That was a huge surprise to me. And then, when the grandbaby came along – Oh, my goodness! – that was even more of a surprise. How do you fall in love with someone who can’t even talk to you!?

Have you ever been in real danger in your life?
Yes, in Oklahoma, in a tornado. I was a single mom at the time, and a graduate student at OU, and I was returning home with my son in a heavy, heavy rain. When I got to my little house, the driveway was flooded and it was all rain, thunder, wind. I had to get out and open the garage door. Then I got him but I couldn’t close the garage door afterwards. We ran in and got into the hall closet and spent the entire night there. It was very frightening. I returned to prayer with more fervor than ever.

If you could have just one more opportunity to talk to your late parents, what would you want to tell/ask them?
They were terrific, they were a real team. They were so funny and so in love and so cute, singing and dancing together in the kitchen all the time. And they had six children, including me. I think if I had a chance to talk to them, I would like them to tell me more about themselves.  After my mom passed away, I recorded my conversations with my dad, asking questions about his past. He would tell me about his dad and their Irishrelatives who came over from Ireland, and things like that. But I never had conversations with my mom about any of that. I would really like to know more about how they felt growing up and later raising a family.

What was the hardest thing you ever had to do?
(After a moment of silence) I guess this is the right answer since it is chocking me up already. When my son was 12, my former husband said it was time for our son to come to live with him. And I had to let him go. I felt it was the right thing to do. I had read all the books that said boys that age needed their fathers. But after a month he called to say, “I can’t stand it, Mom! Can I come back to live with you? (laughs). But that separation seriously wretched my heart.

What do you think is the most important arts development in San Antonio in recent years?
I have to get personal about that because for me it’s about the theater. Kelly Roush at the Classic invested so much time and got grants to help develop a huge piece of mine, Bound by Truth, a historical drama. That play was a finalist in the 2019 Screencraft Stage Play Competition. Then the coronavirus pandemic struck. I still hope we’ll be able to raise funds to have it produced at the Classic. Also, what George Green is doing at the Public Theater is such a positive! (supporting new play development and readings of new plays).

I love the visual arts, too, and I think the visual arts have grown beautifully in San Antonio. Theater is starting to catch up. (As a regional ambassador for the Dramatist Guild of America, Rinear was instrumental in assisting the Public Theater of San Antonio in establishing the New Potentials program devoted to new works.)

Today, it’s very difficult to get new plays produced because theaters are always struggling with their budgets and they know that people will always come to see shows they have heard of, well-known favorites, big Broadway musicals…

You were a theater teacher for many years. What life lessons did you strive to impart to your students?
I tried to encourage them to be bold, not to be afraid to make decisions. They can always make another decision if things don’t work out. But you’ve got to try things.