Bryan Goebel

Adam BockPlaywright Adam Bock grew up with a family of environmental activists in Canada.

"My mom, I think, believes a little stronger that you can work in the system. My aunt didn't. So my aunt would take us and we'd do sort of these terrible things, which were for a good cause."

They sound a lot like the leading characters in Bock's new play, "The Shaker Chair," running through January 27th at the Ashby Stage in Berkeley.

Bock is a talented playwright who brilliantly fuses activism, politics and LGBT issues into his numerous plays while inviting audiences to think for themselves. He's been described as a "neo-realist" and his style of dialogue is reflective of the way people really speak.

"I try to listen to the dance of language and where feeling corrupts it," he says.

In this interview, he talks about "The Shaker Chair," his process as a writer, language, his identity as a gay playwright, growing up in Canada and many other issues in a wide-ranging conversation recorded on December 14th in San Francisco.

(Airing in two parts on This Way Out beginning the week of January 14th. Airs in San Francisco at 8 p.m. on KALW 91.7 Thursday, Jan. 17th and Part II Thursday Jan. 24th).