I am enamored of Bertolt Brecht who said “Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” I write inspired by the 40 years I spent as a union organizer, building close relationships with janitors, nursing home workers, teachers, meat packing workers--those of the large majority of our population who rarely go to theater and who much of mainstream commercial culture in the US has ignored or belittled. I write for and about them. I am inspired by much of the socially-themed theater of the 1930’s such as Waiting for Lefty, Pins and Needles and many of the productions of the Federal Theater Project of the New Deal as well as by Brecht's musicals.
I write with the notion that culture must be a part of any successful social change movements and in recognition that we are in a moment of great political and economic upheaval and injustice. I write to challenge the audience with ideas but to entertain them with music, humor and drama. My first play, Pray for the Dead-A Musical Tale of Morgues, Moguls and Mutiny, has been described as “Sweeney Todd meets Norma Rae meets Brecht.” My second play, The Moment Was Now, was described as a "historical musical masterpiece" by a national African American labor leader.