Jared Michael Delaney is a stage/screen writer and actor based in Philadelphia. His full-lengths plays received productions at Perseverance Theatre, New Jersey Repertory Company, Inis Nua Theatre Co, Edinburgh Festival, Pier One Theatre and Theatre Conspiracy. His short plays have been produced by Athena Theatre, NJ Rep, MadLab Theatre, Aberrant Theatre, Pegasus Theatre, Raze the Space and the Philadelphia LiveArts Festival, among others. His work’s been developed at Valdez Theatre Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and in readings across the country. His play, Voyager One, was named a “Top Ten Production of the Year in New Jersey” for 2019. His screenplays have placed in competitions including the Austin Film Festival Big Break, Screencraft, Launch Pad and Filmmatic, among others. As an actor, he’s been seen on stages across the U.S. and on HBO, AMC, Apple TV and various feature films. His first two books, Billy the Kid vs Dracula and Plan 9 from Outer Space were published by Cult Pulp Press. Jared is the co-host of When Doves Podcast, a weekly podcast about the musician Prince and he’s also a screenwriting pitch coach.
Your Custom Text Here
I’ve been working in the arts for a good while, as an actor (AEA & SAG-AFTRA), playwright, teacher, director (film & stage), producer, author and screenwriter. After all this time, with such varied experience, I find that I respond to two things in the end: ambition and vision.
Ambition can mean a lot of things, of course, but in this instance—for me—it is the reaching for something large, something with scale. Big ideas with complexity and intent, that grapple with both form and feeling, stretching out a thought to its furthest breaking point.
That’s the work I respond to, whether it’s film or theatre, novels or podcasts. I like seeing people taking a swing, I guess is the simpler way to say it. Better that, than to strike out looking.
So when I write, I take a swing. Wrestle with ideas and see if I can stand up with them. Sometimes they knock me flat to the ground, but there are moments when I hold them to a draw. Those are good days. That’s ambition.
Vision is the trickier part of this duo.
If I’m sticking with my baseball metaphor, it’s the reviewing of the tape, to see how others do it and how to do it yourself…and better. So, vision is the means by which ideas are brought into focus and being. It’s all well and good to imagine your thirteen-part epic about the vagaries of the American banking system, or whatever, but it’s another thing to execute it.
I admire the craft of doing so much. So, when I see something done well, I always ask “How’d they do that?” with genuine wonder and curiosity. It makes me hopeful that I’ll be able to execute it myself.
That’s a pursuit that never ends (speaking of ambition).
I keep looking for opportunities to review the tape, see how it’s done, discover something I hadn’t considered, a perspective that’s new.
David Bowie—a hero & model for me and many others—said : “Always go a little further into the water than you feel you are capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. When you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.”
That’s pretty much it, I think.