Artistic Statement
While taking an astrophysics final in undergrad, the stranger sitting next to me slipped his headphone into my ear and started playing Bon Iver’s “29 #Strafford APTS.” It was 2016, right in the middle of My Great Existential Crisis (one I’ve never fully recovered from). Little did that stranger know, the music he shared would not only worsen my existential spiral but also transform me into a playwright.
As the guitar strummed its tender acoustic melody and Bon Iver called out, “sharing smoke,” a melancholic nostalgia began to creep in. The song slowly unfolded with experimental textures and layered dissonance. If you listen closely, it becomes a story about two people—complicated and filled with longing.
The song played on repeat in my headphones: outside a movie theater, crying down Christopher Street, on a train in Barcelona. The cryptic lyrics—“A womb / An empty robe / Enough / You’re rolling up / You’re holding it / You’re fabric now”—felt like fragments of a memory begging to be deciphered. They lingered and rearranged themselves in my mind until, somewhere outside Barcelona, they unraveled into a scene in my notes app. That scene became my first play, The Glass Between Stars, a non-linear story of grief and love, mirroring the song itself.
My fascination with the universe began as a child. My head was always tilted toward the stars, captivated by the mysteries of the cosmos and the universes within human relationships. In college, my curiosity led me—a drama student without a background in science or math—to petition for astrophysics and metaphysics courses, determined to explore these questions further. I began to draw parallels between the stars—fragmented light blinking at us from the past—and the constellations of our emotional lives. This relationship between cosmic questions and intimate connections is where my writing lives.
If a stranger slipping a song into my ear taught me anything, it’s that even the smallest, strangest moments can change us—and it’s those transformations I aim to capture in my work as a playwright.
As the guitar strummed its tender acoustic melody and Bon Iver called out, “sharing smoke,” a melancholic nostalgia began to creep in. The song slowly unfolded with experimental textures and layered dissonance. If you listen closely, it becomes a story about two people—complicated and filled with longing.
The song played on repeat in my headphones: outside a movie theater, crying down Christopher Street, on a train in Barcelona. The cryptic lyrics—“A womb / An empty robe / Enough / You’re rolling up / You’re holding it / You’re fabric now”—felt like fragments of a memory begging to be deciphered. They lingered and rearranged themselves in my mind until, somewhere outside Barcelona, they unraveled into a scene in my notes app. That scene became my first play, The Glass Between Stars, a non-linear story of grief and love, mirroring the song itself.
My fascination with the universe began as a child. My head was always tilted toward the stars, captivated by the mysteries of the cosmos and the universes within human relationships. In college, my curiosity led me—a drama student without a background in science or math—to petition for astrophysics and metaphysics courses, determined to explore these questions further. I began to draw parallels between the stars—fragmented light blinking at us from the past—and the constellations of our emotional lives. This relationship between cosmic questions and intimate connections is where my writing lives.
If a stranger slipping a song into my ear taught me anything, it’s that even the smallest, strangest moments can change us—and it’s those transformations I aim to capture in my work as a playwright.
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Evan Brodsky
Artistic Statement
While taking an astrophysics final in undergrad, the stranger sitting next to me slipped his headphone into my ear and started playing Bon Iver’s “29 #Strafford APTS.” It was 2016, right in the middle of My Great Existential Crisis (one I’ve never fully recovered from). Little did that stranger know, the music he shared would not only worsen my existential spiral but also transform me into a playwright.
As the guitar strummed its tender acoustic melody and Bon Iver called out, “sharing smoke,” a melancholic nostalgia began to creep in. The song slowly unfolded with experimental textures and layered dissonance. If you listen closely, it becomes a story about two people—complicated and filled with longing.
The song played on repeat in my headphones: outside a movie theater, crying down Christopher Street, on a train in Barcelona. The cryptic lyrics—“A womb / An empty robe / Enough / You’re rolling up / You’re holding it / You’re fabric now”—felt like fragments of a memory begging to be deciphered. They lingered and rearranged themselves in my mind until, somewhere outside Barcelona, they unraveled into a scene in my notes app. That scene became my first play, The Glass Between Stars, a non-linear story of grief and love, mirroring the song itself.
My fascination with the universe began as a child. My head was always tilted toward the stars, captivated by the mysteries of the cosmos and the universes within human relationships. In college, my curiosity led me—a drama student without a background in science or math—to petition for astrophysics and metaphysics courses, determined to explore these questions further. I began to draw parallels between the stars—fragmented light blinking at us from the past—and the constellations of our emotional lives. This relationship between cosmic questions and intimate connections is where my writing lives.
If a stranger slipping a song into my ear taught me anything, it’s that even the smallest, strangest moments can change us—and it’s those transformations I aim to capture in my work as a playwright.
As the guitar strummed its tender acoustic melody and Bon Iver called out, “sharing smoke,” a melancholic nostalgia began to creep in. The song slowly unfolded with experimental textures and layered dissonance. If you listen closely, it becomes a story about two people—complicated and filled with longing.
The song played on repeat in my headphones: outside a movie theater, crying down Christopher Street, on a train in Barcelona. The cryptic lyrics—“A womb / An empty robe / Enough / You’re rolling up / You’re holding it / You’re fabric now”—felt like fragments of a memory begging to be deciphered. They lingered and rearranged themselves in my mind until, somewhere outside Barcelona, they unraveled into a scene in my notes app. That scene became my first play, The Glass Between Stars, a non-linear story of grief and love, mirroring the song itself.
My fascination with the universe began as a child. My head was always tilted toward the stars, captivated by the mysteries of the cosmos and the universes within human relationships. In college, my curiosity led me—a drama student without a background in science or math—to petition for astrophysics and metaphysics courses, determined to explore these questions further. I began to draw parallels between the stars—fragmented light blinking at us from the past—and the constellations of our emotional lives. This relationship between cosmic questions and intimate connections is where my writing lives.
If a stranger slipping a song into my ear taught me anything, it’s that even the smallest, strangest moments can change us—and it’s those transformations I aim to capture in my work as a playwright.