My sense of my role as an artist has evolved over time. It has expanded to include more varied perspectives as the form and intent, as well as the content, of my work has been informed by accrued life experience.

I very deliberately say “expanded” and not “changed.” I have not abandoned my initial impulses, I have built upon and widened them. Earlier in my development as a playwright, I would have said that I simply tell stories as characters bring them to me. While my work is still very much character and narrative driven, I am more aware of both my power and my responsibility as an interpreter. I now feel much more of a responsibility to shape stories in ways that take account of the world in which I am creating as well as of the world that is being created in my work.

I tell stories through plays, rather than any other form of narrative fiction because I value the collaborative process. I have horrified playwriting students with my theory of how theater works: “We type. Actors take what we’ve typed and make magic.” Although that’s a little reductive and naive, it does reflect my unwavering enthusiasm for the production process and the joy I take in seeing the magic occur.