For thousands of years, the legendary tale of Troy has been told and retold again, as poets, writers, historians and the like attempt to find meaning and truth in one of mythology's longest and bloodiest conflicts.

U.Va. fourth-year playwright Matthew Minnicino joins this rank of storytellers, offering a unique spin in his sharply satiric and thoroughly entertaining play, Troy is Burning.

We had an opportunity to sit down with Matthew and ask him a few questions about his love for the theatre and what he learned bringing Troy from the page to the stage. Here's what he had to say:

Did you have an early love of theatre as a child? Does anything stand out in your memory that you can pinpoint that made you want to be a part of the creative process in producing plays? I was lucky enough to be raised on theatre. My parents had us going to see theatre all the time, but typically classics (Shakespeare). When I worked with the American Shakespeare Center's Young Company, I realized I couldn't get away from theatre. I've been an addicted actor for years, but when I realized that I could actively shape the words being spoken on a stage, the spell was cast.

What kind of theatre excites you today? Why? I like to be overwhelmed by theatre. I like to go to a play and come out short of breath, not just saying "Oh, that was good." A lot of kinds of theatre can do this, from avant-garde to muicals to Shakespeare, as long as it's honest, tactile, tangible, and unafraid to gut-punch the issues and themes it wants to fight for.

Tell us a little bit about the process of writing Troy is Burning. How long did it take you to write? Who was involved in that process? What was the initial impulse that pushed you to write about this ancient Greek myth? I'm a pretty slow writer. I tend to get the glint of a concept, and then wait months before dipping the quill in the ink. Troy emerged from years of interest in myth--I'd drafted a [very poor] script in high school. I began to revisit the idea for Doug Grissom's Playwriting Class here at UVA, and he gave me close personal guidance to hone it, including two staged readings with local actors.

In the process of writing Troy is Burning, you obviously drew a lot from the well-known Greek myth surrounding Helen of Troy, but tell us how your approach, the themes, or the characters of this unique take on the story were informed by your own life experiences, if at all? I hesitate to say there's anything autobiographical in here. After all, we're talking about gods, generals, kings and queens, whose decisions affect thousands. But the themes of Troy are certainly pertinent to me. A lot of the characters in Troy are caught in varying degrees of crisis--they don't know who they are, what they're doing, what effect they could possibly have on the world around them. I'd call that an epically elevated version of what most college students deal with on a day-to-day basis.

Has the original script changed or evolved from what you initially envisioned, now that it's in production? What, if anything, are you learning about that process, "from page to stage"? The beautiful thing about watching your show "be done" is seeing the fluid, focused way the text ebbs and flows in the hands of actors and directors. The process is the height of collaboration. If Richard comes to me and says "Matt, we've found in rehearsal this line isn't working," I say, "Cut it." A year ago, if someone had said, "This is a bad line," I would've clung to it like a barnacle. Production has made me realize that there's a lot more to a play than a script.

What do you hope audiences take away from Troy is Burning? Ideally, they leave breathless. If they wake up the next morning thinking about what they saw, that'll be enough for me.

Are you writing anything new right now? And do you think this piece will influence your next work? I try to write a little something-something every day, but I've been slacking off this semester. Troy has definitely been a big influence. the specific style of the play is one I'm comfortable with more than any other, and I look forward to exploring and undermining it in whatever I can create in the future.

What are your plans post-graduation? With the help of some our faculty here, I'm gearing up to apply for graduate school, hoping for an MFA in Playwriting. Since the pool is pretty tiny, though, and the selections uber-competitive, I have some backup plans. The ultimate goal is grad school, so that I can write comfortably and teach, following in the footsteps of the people who've helped me this far.