When I wrote my first play back in 1999, I was 17 years old, living in Northern Idaho, writing for a small theater in Spokane, Washington. I was a year away from my high school diploma (which would turn out to be the end of my formal education), and I was pursuing a field that, at least where I lived, was virtually non-existent.

My journey since then - working corporate jobs when I should be in college, running a storefront theater in Southern California, establishing myself as a Philadelphia playwright, transition into video game development - has been in pursuit of one simple goal: to figure out my place in the world.

Consequently, my work tends to find those small passionate groups of people who share that similar existential journey, and nudges them front and center. From two lonely womxn scraping together a living in an Idaho forest to the WNBA all-star in the midst of a personal scandal, from the lone video game developer trying to make something meaningful to the middle school teacher chosen to colonize Mars. I am drawn to the people who have that one exceptional talent, and whose story pushes them to the limit in their quest for freedom, greatness, or redemption.

And while my plays tend to exist in different worlds, often varying in form and structure, they share one common goal: to highlight the triumphs and struggles of womxn living in the 21st century.

Which leads me to my role as not only an artist in the present, but for the present. As our society changes, so has theater in almost all aspects, from marketing to design, from aesthetic to sensibility. With my work, I seek to represent that growing shift in our societal norms with plays that feel as contemporary as the audience that it seeks, feature stories that are relevant to a new generation of theatergoers, and contain an awareness to technology that is fueled not by fear, but by hope.