Playwright Brandon McCoy’s world premiere West by God, which he admits is semi-autobiographical, is onstage now at Keegan Theatre through October 20th. We caught up with him to chat about the play, and his first career in stand-up comedy.
Care to tell us about yourself?

I grew up in Lavalette, West Virginia, just outside of Huntington, and I grew up as a country boy. In the summertime I would go fishing all day. I would play baseball. I would do all the things West Virginians do. Sports were my thing for a while. I didnât discover the arts until late in my high school years. I did three plays, I think. I asked my parents if I could go to school for it and they obliged. The deal with them was, that if I went to Marshall University, I could save some money and then I could make a move and go to graduate school. It was a great theatre school.
What brought you to DC?
Iâd done a little bit of teaching and knew graduate school was a good idea. One of the schools that liked me was Catholic University. I was blown away by how many theaters there were [in DC]. I graduated in 2006 with a Masterâs in Acting.
Home is a central theme for West by God. Where do you call home nowadays?
West Virginia. People have come up and talked to me about whatâs true and what isnât [in West by God].. And when you work on a play for a long time it becomes different versions of the truth. I can point to things in that play where I go, âI had that conversation.â I guess I was just stockpiling it all in case I ever wrote a play about it. I always say Iâm from West Virginia.
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What is it like being a West Virginian living in DC?
Youâll hear people [talking about] taking a weekend trip to the mountains or the eastern panhandle, and they acknowledge its beauty. But it always come with this extra statement about the people, and how you kinda have to put up with them to experience this place.
Or sometimes itâs spoken about like it’s a foreign country. Itâs an hour away! In an hour and ten minutes you can be in Harperâs Ferry. What is it about DC as a bubble that has created an elitism? Once you cross those hills, youâre in a different place altogether.

Iâd say it goes as far as the river for some of us.Â
I donât get it. Itâs always bothered me.
One of the first plays I did, I was still in grad school. We had a student matinee one morning and they were bussing in kids from the panhandle. One of the actors, was talking about âWhy do we have to get up so early, and especially because these kids are coming in from West Virginia. I didnât say anything. I was the new guy. The entire half-hour before the show became a joke session. Everybody in the dressing room was firing off these quips; they were trying to make each other laugh, and they maybe meant no harm from it, but it didnât stop.
We do the show, and the kids are great. Theyâre well-behaved. They laugh when theyâre supposed to, they gasp when theyâre supposed to. And when weâre going back to the dressing room, not a word, not any sense of what they had said about these people. No reflection after the fact that these people were actually pretty great.
Iâd been holding onto that for a very long time.
[In the play], Dr. Matheson says: âThe hypocrisy of the age of inclusivity is as clear as day. The marginalization of all people is off-limits, except the rednecks. Theyâre fair game.â I find that to that to be universally true, in television, in books, in plays. I find that if youâre someone from rural America, two dimensions is just enough dimensions. Â
Do you think people from other places will relate to the sense of home youâre describing?
Whether you define home as where you live or whether itâs the house you grew up in, or if itâs your family. Itâs like trying to define âlove.â Itâs impossible. You canât do it. âHomeâ is incredibly complex. It means something slightly different to each of us. And I think that anyone who sees this play is going to latch on to whether or not itâs a place.
How hard is it to get a new play produced?
Doing West by God is a risk. New plays in and of themselves are risks. The first show of Keegan’s 23rd season, right after Legally Blonde? I see that and I appreciate that. And theyâre the kind of place that will take that kind of risk on an artist that theyâre invested inâŠ. The long game is that they created a home where I can write about whatever I want to write about, and I give it over to them and they nurture it, and they give it the time and thought that you wouldnât get at a lot of other companies.Â
[Brandon McCoy is Keegan Theatre’s Playwright in Residence. A Free reading of his musical A Band In Search of a Name will be held on Oct 19, 3pm.]
On Sunday, Oct 13, youâre performing stand-up comedy to raise money to bring West by God to West Virginia. I canât think of another playwright who could do that gig.Â
I was the third, the baby of my siblings. So I learned pretty early on that if I was gonna get attention, it was cracking jokes.
I got to travel a little bit, to some really cool places. I loved it while I was doing it. It was really hard. The travel is grueling. Sounds great: âWeâre in Pittsburgh, letâs hang out!â When really all you see the inside of a comedy club. After I did that for a year, I liked it, but I really only liked the performing part. I think I really wanted someone else to write the words that I was saying.
(Snorting laughter)Â
I know. That was then, and so thatâs when I started thinking hard about graduate school. Since then Iâve done like half a dozen gigs a year. Usually for a friend who needs an opener.
West Virginia is one of my soap box issues. Comedy is too. I feel it gets so undervalued in the arts, but also in our culture. When was the last time an out and out comedy won an Academy Award for Best Picture?
That time in stand-up taught me that youâre conducting a symphony, that youâre pausing for laughs, and then you pick it back up. Thatâs definitely in my writing.
[Tickets to see Brandon McCoy and fellow comic Kelly Terranova in a night of comedy are here.]
Is West by God attracting a lot of West Virginians?
There are a lot of people coming who have never seen a play at Keegan. I think itâs the title and the stage are up there on a poster. Thereâs a lot of people who want to talk to me afterwards. They want to talk about the hot dogs, or about how they [met someone] who didnât know West Virginia was a state, or about their families. Thatâs incredibly rewarding.
West by God closes October 20, 2019. Details and tickets
This question comes from my friend, Zachary Morris: âWhat other perspectives do you think you could have added to the production?â
The answer to that is none. The story I wanted to tell was my familyâs as a microcosm. All of these characters are based on somebody that I know very well. But what Iâm well aware of are the things that make up rural America more generally, and West Virginia more specifically. Itâs not that there wasnât room, itâs that it wasnât the point.
Itâs a love letter to West Virginia, but this complacency that the play brings up, I think, is the hardest hitting argument that I make. Iâm not letting them off the hook. The broadness of âItâll be fine. Everything has a way of working itself outâ is indicative of so all kinds of issues.Â

Anywhere in DC you can find good West Virginia food?
There was a place in Bethesda. You used to be able to get a West Virginia slaw dog. They discontinued it and they went out of business. [Laughing] Correlation? I donât know. I went there a lot.
Soul food is essentially the same thing: a lot of collard greens, bean based dishes with a lot of pork, fried potatoes, corn bread. Thatâs very West Virginia. You canât get a pepperoni roll in town. Thatâs a big West Virginia thing. They are really good.
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