I’m a playwright who has been working in the theatre industry for 16 years now, with a focus on the intersections of my life as an Autistic and Mad woman exploring the curiosity, trauma, and vulnerability inherent in those identities. I create worlds where these unique identities intersect and breathe. I desire to ally myself with members within and outside these identities to form a tapestry of different experiences in the world. Neurodivergent people, such as myself, communicate in ways unique to our neurotypes; trauma survivors see the world with a different vision of what is safe, unique, and stimulating; Mad people experience the challenges of life with special insights into both the beauty and terror of the world. My work seeks to explore all of these nuances while making space to invite in members of other communities of which I am not a part.

I thrive in deeply collaborative environments grounded in respect, transparency, vulnerability, care, and curiosity, knowing that a play only truly becomes a play when a myriad of artists enter the space with the same dream in mind: creating a miracle for an audience to feast on, connect to, and grapple with. As I write, my deepest excitement comes from imagining the creative process for the other artists involved: crafting characters that challenge and delight actors, envisioning settings that encourage risk-taking for set- and lighting-designers, and finding moments of intrigue and wonder for directors and producers. I want to spark others’ creativity; that’s why I fell in love with the theatre at 19 years old, and it’s why I’ll never leave this ever-changing, ephemeral, wonderful world.

I believe that a play is not truly a play until it is co-created with the insights, labor, skill, and love of the other artists in the rehearsal and performance space. Theatre does not take place in a vacuum - it wouldn’t have the same shine and glimmer for me if I were tasked with tackling every element on my own. As theatre artists, we gather together with a common romance and a common aim - to enjoy the unique practice of finding and developing moments that dazzle and characters who are full of vitality.

One of my primary interests in creating work for the stage is the way our forms are always morphing, fluidly moving into new territories and re-exploring well-trodden paths. Plays, after all, are just that: play. I strive to create atmospheres of strangeness that surprise audiences and encourage risky conversations that follow them back to their homes, work, and relationships. In my exploratory expressions of language and communication styles, world-building and time-shifting, I want to strike at the heart of the ephemeral nature of this form - and the rare opportunities it affords to investigate different paths toward Truth, with all of its messiness, questioning, and imprecision.

I have learned again and again, sometimes the hard way, that the singular thing required of me as a writer is an expression of Truth - as Picasso said, ‘art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.’ My first ‘lies’ to my parents at the age of 5 were in truth just Stories: scenes that filled me with excitement, populated by characters that made me feel alive and curious, scenes that felt like fun. It has been my experience that when the aim of my work is to represent not only my personal truth - my experience of the world, my passions and fears - but also a broader Truth about who we are as human beings inhabiting a planet filled with creatures and plants and LIFE that exists within and outside of us, the work takes on a trajectory of its own and draws an audience into the story.

I want to create space for further intersections - for the experiences of other marginalized groups to enter into the conversation and invigorate the text with their own unique perspectives. It is the unique and powerful posture of the theatre to create a physical space that encourages the inhabiting of an emotional space for audiences to engage with people, situations, and identities they have perhaps not had the opportunity to enter into conversation with. My purpose is to increase not only curiosity and acceptance of various identities - but to usher in love.