Once, while interviewing for a writers group, I was asked what my plays are about. I instantly and unironically answered: “Gay sex!” (I was not admitted to the group.) To be fair, this answer isn’t totally untrue: I've written a trilogy of plays excavating contemporary gay fetish practices, and queer desire is a core driver in many of my stories. But my plays also deal with topics such as privilege and entitlement, whiteness, capitalism, toxic masculinity, sexual assault, suicide, and the relationship between shame and violence. My work is frequently metatheatrical and utilizes elements of autofiction, often taking place at cultural contact zones but always written, inescapably, from my own perspective. Stylistically, I love unexpected structural twists, fast-paced dialogue, and awkward humor. And taking a note from Artaud’s essay on theatre and the plague, I tend to write characters who embody my worst impulses and fears, because I believe that witnessing the consequences of bad behavior in fiction helps us make better choices in reality.

Ultimately, though, my overarching project as a playwright is to create room for productive discomfort. Theatre, like kink, is a safe and boundaried space in which we act out imaginary situations, exercising our best impulses while exorcising our worst. By communally engaging with stories that are uncomfortable but contained, we can confront our biases and assumptions, practice curiosity, and more deeply understand both the world and ourselves.