My plays engage issues of class, gender and ethnicity/race, as well as characters’ personal and intergenerational history. Humor is an important element in all my work, and an absurdist lens is sometimes employed to take a fresh look at serious material. My process is often informed and set alight by material from history, both personal and otherwise, and from science, religion, politics, and other works of art, with the collision of disparate sources inspiring the voice and methods employed to tell a story and to build full characters. I have written a number of short and full length plays. One full length play, in part fiction and in part drawn from the transcripts of Compassionate Listening sessions conducted in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, received a series of staged readings in western Massachusetts part of a series of social justice performances and exhibitions. As an integral part of the experience, each performance was followed by intense and deeply felt open discussions between audience members and artists. The potential for theater to create real dialogue and opportunities for people to both share and listen was brought powerfully home to all participants on these occasions. Shorter parts of the play were also performed in venues around Los Angeles and in New York City, and a short story version of some of the material was included in an anthology published by Michigan State University Press. My current project, which recently received its first public reading in Massachusetts and will receive a second reading in Florida, explores family secrets, race, religious identity and issues of mental health.