I write about what we hide and what it costs us to keep those things buried. Like many Midwest playwrights, my characters continually try to reinvent themselves, rewrite history, or just survive the stories they’ve been told their whole lives. A lot of my work lives in that space between truth and performance, such as what happens when our fabricated selves start to crack and ooze truth. This is especially true in my plays about families.

Sometimes that takes the form of a ghost, sometimes a memory, sometimes a moment of magical realism. And sometimes just a conversation between siblings that turns wildly and hits a nerve like a long-covered power line. I like tension that simmers, until it can’t.

My process usually starts with an image or a line that won’t leave me alone. I’ll build around that, let the characters talk to each other (and to me), and see where it goes. Often I rely on the tried and true, Aristotle’s Six Pillars of Drama, to build out my imagined world.

I write scenes in order and sometimes not and out of those build the structure. I read my work aloud, listening for breath, friction, humor, and music. I revise constantly. And I’m always looking for the moment when the play surprises me. It’s when I know I’m onto something.