COVER STORY .

Bruce Walsh

Playwright / Freelance journalist


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Published: Aug 19, 2009

Neal Santos

Bruce Walsh is in the business of telling stories. As a playwright, of course, he constructs his own. As a journalist, including a freelance gig at City Paper, Walsh prefers going into a situation cold and finding the story within. "I just want to write about people," he says.

Walsh was always a writer, even though he's mildly dyslexic, which led him to having his work performed and acted out. "The physicality of language suited the way I understand language," Walsh says. His plays deal with themes of hierarchal power structures and the subversion of traditional authorities. (An example is his April 17, 2009 première of Whiskey Neat, produced by local company Azuka Theatre. Kevin Glaccum, also profiled in this package, was artistic producing director.)

"My history with day jobs is really horrible," the 32-year-old says. After a stint at Trader Joe's, Walsh met then-Metro editor Dorothy Robinson in 2005, who asked him for leads on people who could write about local theater. Why not Walsh? Beginning in January 2006, Walsh began writing regularly for the commuter paper, starting with theater and then branching out to other topics. These days, Walsh says he'd prefer, say, going into a ballet practice and finding a story within the circle of dancers, or meeting a sumo wrestler and figuring out his back story.

Much like playwriting, journalism isn't a lucrative business. He is paid per piece as a freelancer, and made less than $500 for his most critically acclaimed play. The Metro recently folded Walsh's main source of income, the Arts and Culture section, which covered local arts. But Walsh is staying in the game ("Getting my section canceled is a gift," he says) — it's a chance to learn, cover new things and uncover new stories. "It's talking to people," Walsh says of his profession, "who wouldn't normally have this light shown on them."