Erik Abbott Discusses National Literary Prize Success, Inspiration Behind Play

Earlier this month, Luxembourg's Ministry of Culture announced the winners of the 2024 National Literary Competition.

Among them was Erik Abbott, who secured third prize in the category for adult authors aged 20+ with his English-language play Second Zechariah.

Chonicle.lu spoke with Erik to learn more about this play and what the prize means to him.

Chonicle.lu: Please tell us where you are originally from and how long you have been based in Luxembourg. What brought you here?

Erik Abbott: I am originally from the US. I've lived in Luxembourg since 2009, moving here from Cologne, Germany, where I lived for a few years. Whilst living in Cologne, I met my wife, who has lived in Luxembourg since the mid-nineties. I joined her here when we got married.

Chonicle.lu: How long have you been writing?

Erik Abbott: I've been writing most of my life. The first creative piece I remember writing was a short story when I was nine. I never finished it. I took a creative writing class when I was twelve and wrote for my high school newspaper my final year at school. I also wrote my first play when I was fifteen as an assignment for a Drama class. I recall writing a couple of stories in those years as well.

When I was at university training to be an actor, I wrote my second play, which received a student-directed production and won a very small regional playwriting contest. I wrote a bit for the university student newspaper and a couple of short stories, including one for a fiction writing class I took. By the time I graduated, I was usually working on writing a play even as I was also working fairly steadily as an actor.

I became active in The Playwrights' Center in Minnesota where I lived for many years. It is a fantastic organisation that provides huge amounts of resources and opportunities for playwrights of all levels. Eventually I became an Associate Member, then a Core Member. I was also on the Artistic Staff for three years in the late nineties.

I did a couple of rounds of Graduate School and wrote a fair number of academic things, a few of which were published and several more plays, some short stories, etc. For a time, I was the theatre critic for The Luxembourg Wort online English-language edition.

I had a piece included in an anthology of playwriting exercises called The Playwright’s Toolbox, edited by Justin Maxwell, and published by Applause Books earlier this year.

Chonicle.lu: We understand you are involved in many creative areas including acting, directing and writing. Is there a particular area you like best?

Erik Abbott: It depends on the day, but most of the time now I'd probably say writing. I do miss being on stage and directing, but accessing sufficient resources to do either is very difficult and producing / doing theatre on a shoe string holds less appeal than it once did. When working on a writing project, I can burrow in happily for quite a while.

Chonicle.lu: Your play Second Zecheriah recently won third prize in Luxembourg’s 2024 National Literary Competition (adult category). What does this win signify for you?

Erik Abbott: It is a tremendous honour. I was both shocked and thrilled and am very grateful. It's the first significant award I've received for any of my writing and for it to happen here in the country that has become my home is really special. It is validating in a very powerful way.

Chonicle.lu: Was this your first competition? What motivated you to enter?

Erik Abbott: No. I've entered several competitions through the years - mostly for plays, but also, especially in recent years, for fiction (including a not very good novel I entered a few years ago for the Lux Lit Prize). I've been long-listed a few times, and as mentioned above, was an Associate and then a Core Member of The Playwrights' Center, which are both opportunities awarded through competition.

I planned to enter this play when the playwriting round came up again for the Lux Lit Prize - provided it hadn't yet been produced, which it hasn't. I've written enough plays (about two dozen, I think) that I have a decent sense of when one works - at least on the page. I certainly didn't expect to be amongst the winners, but I believed the play was a credible entry to a major contest.

Chonicle.lu: Please tell us about the inspiration behind this play.

Erik Abbott: The core dramatic theme explores the price we as humans are willing to pay in order to associate with "genius" - whether that genius is self-proclaimed by an individual or is widely recognised or both. I initially thought of the thematic idea from a scandal I'd heard about ages ago in an artistic institution where quite bad behaviour was tolerated because the perpetrator was so highly regarded as an artist. Not a new story, but that and the long string of apparently dreadful people throughout history who were great artists led me to think there was dramatic potential. It was a couple of decades later before I figured out an approach and started writing it.

Chonicle.lu: What about the writing process - how long did it take to write?

Erik Abbott: The first drafts took maybe a year. We had an informal trans-Atlantic table read of an early draft, with actors in both places. [...] A later draft had a public online reading with the Clamour Theatre Company in Florida. From that, a significant re-structuring and tightening of the arc of the play came about. I had already changed it from being set in an artistic institution to a corporate business environment - which works much better.  Last year, at the Mierscher Kulturhaus, I read a section from it as part of an event co-sponsored by the Kulturhaus and the Association of Luxembourgish Literature. If I'd re-drafted over and over consecutively with no breaks, I'd guess it would have taken probably eighteen months to a couple of years to write.

Chonicle.lu: Please give an outline of the play’s storyline and main theme(s).

Erik Abbott: What price are we willing to pay to associate with "genius"? In Second Zechariah, CHLOË, a junior employee, confronts a senior manager, ESTHER, about allegations that the company's head and guiding force, referred to as THE GENIUS, has sexually harassed an employee. CHLOË demands to know what will be done and finds ESTHER's world-weary response lacking. In an earlier timeline, THE GENIUS responds to questions about his vision and philosophy from an unseen interviewer, and, in a later timeline, furiously addresses the company’s annual stakeholder's meeting.

Chonicle.lu: Has the play already been performed in public (in or beyond Luxembourg)?

Erik Abbott: No. There was a small reading of an early draft, the online public reading of a different early draft, and the reading of an excerpt of the current draft in 2023. 

Chonicle.lu: Please tell us about any other projects on which you are currently working (and/or any future projects).

Erik Abbott: At present I have two short stories and a short play long-listed for an anthology that Luxembourg Writers Who Talk asbl are planning to publish featuring work of its members. I also have four short stories long-listed for Moords-Geschichten, an upcoming multilingual (French, German and English) anthology of stories about or related to the subject of murder. The various authors are based in the Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg. And I'm working on a novel, currently out to beta readers. I've been invited to query it with a couple of agencies (and am researching more) and hope to be able to start that process around the first of the year.