Executive Function or a Play About a Dog Named Rudolph

Matt Miller’s path is heading toward a career in the arts — just not the one you would expect.

The 22-year-old son of opera singers is developing a talent for playwriting, not singing.

“I’m not a musical theater fan,” the University of Nebraska-Lincoln theater student admitted over coffee during an interview about to tout his first staged work, “Executive Function or A Play About a Dog Named Rudolph.”

If his parents had their way, he wouldn’t be a part of the arts at all.

“My parents wished I would become an electrical engineer,” he said. “It’s funny because they’re both opera singers.”

“Executive Function” is the latest new work from Rough Magic Productions, the 7-year-old company that focuses on new, original and experimental works.

In October, Rough Magic staged Lincoln playwright Robert Stewart’s script “speed & a red interior.”

Miller, for one, is thankful for the company’s direction. 

“This has encompassed more of my brain than any other project,” he said. “It’s challenged me intellectually and artistically.

“It’s like having a baby. Now, it’s walking and talking. It’s very weird.”

(Ben Tibbels & Clay Stevens)

Directed by Kat Cover, “Executive Function” features Clay Stevens, Rob Burt, Ben Tibbels, Katie Streeter, Larry Mota, Deb Waechter and Will Heafer.

“This is my fifth original script as a director, and it is always exciting to be a part of developing new work,” Cover said. “Matt Miller is a joy to work with and has a maturity in style and work that far surpasses his years.”

 Miller’s play is a story about a man (played by Stevens) who struggles to discern between what is real and what is not.

His world is filled with tinfoil knights, mustachioed narrators and coffee-cup princesses.

The play’s title refers to a term used to describe a set of mental processes that help people connect past experience with present action.

People with executive function problems have difficulty with planning, organizing and managing time and space. They also have trouble with “working memory,” such as recalling how to tie a shoelace.

 “I’ve always been interested in the conflict between man and his conscience,” Miller said.

 The budding playwright majors in theater performance and lighting design at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film.

His father is dean of fine arts at Wichita State after holding the same position at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. His mother is a voice professor at Wichita State.

Miller’s older sister, Rachael, is  a recent UNL theater graduate and former Rough Company member who now is pursuing her craft in New York City.

Miller appeared in the University Theatre’s November production of “Six Degrees of Separation.” He’s spent three years with Rough Magic, primarily on the technical side.

 Writing, he said, always has been one of his interests, but it’s recently moved to the forefront.

“When I was younger, it was therapeutic, but I never published or showed anything to anyone else,” he said.

All that has changed.

“If you would have asked me two years ago what I planned to do, it was lighting design,” he said. “Now, I’m more interested in playwriting.”

Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.