Artistic Statement
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Richard Morell
Artistic Statement
My personal viewpoint onto life is tragicomic, and there are elements of both in all of my work. One constant theme in my work is alienation, but over the past few years I've also become very interested in spirituality, especially as it relates to LGBTQ folks. I'm also more and more interested in considering how our lives need to change to accommodate a post-carbon existence, where the ways of the American Dream become part of the history and no longer desirable in and of themselves.
In the past, I've had a more epic vision, and created scripts with large casts. These days, in deference to the current economic climate, I am working now to encapsulate epic ideas in smaller cast shows. Much of my work relates to the gay male experience. I'm putting up my large-cast shows in addition to the smaller cast shows I wrote, because of the theory that "nothing is wasted in divine economy." I also love to acknowledge the structural contributions of other writers and I have written quite a few of my own personal homages to Shakespeare, Chekhov, Shanley, Brecht and Beckett. Perhaps it's due in part to my years at NYU, and my studies of Chekhov and Fassbonder especially, but I like to see that I'm a part of the "river of playwriting" that connects us all.
I also have to say that I'm mostly a regional writer, locating many of my plays in the American West. Having grown up in Colorado, I have a strong affinity with Denver especially. Now I'm living in Laramie, Wyoming, which is an interesting place for a gay man like me. Though I have strong feelings about the connections between LGBTQ lives and the City as a concept, I do long for places like Laramie that re more accepting of difference, without one having to live amongst a million people. Some of my future plays and screenplays will delve into rural and college-town gay lives, to explore a different set of experiences than urban queers are used to.
I am aware this is just my Artistic Statement for this year, 2017. It's likely to change as I grow as a writer. I look forward to connecting with others of like mind.
In the past, I've had a more epic vision, and created scripts with large casts. These days, in deference to the current economic climate, I am working now to encapsulate epic ideas in smaller cast shows. Much of my work relates to the gay male experience. I'm putting up my large-cast shows in addition to the smaller cast shows I wrote, because of the theory that "nothing is wasted in divine economy." I also love to acknowledge the structural contributions of other writers and I have written quite a few of my own personal homages to Shakespeare, Chekhov, Shanley, Brecht and Beckett. Perhaps it's due in part to my years at NYU, and my studies of Chekhov and Fassbonder especially, but I like to see that I'm a part of the "river of playwriting" that connects us all.
I also have to say that I'm mostly a regional writer, locating many of my plays in the American West. Having grown up in Colorado, I have a strong affinity with Denver especially. Now I'm living in Laramie, Wyoming, which is an interesting place for a gay man like me. Though I have strong feelings about the connections between LGBTQ lives and the City as a concept, I do long for places like Laramie that re more accepting of difference, without one having to live amongst a million people. Some of my future plays and screenplays will delve into rural and college-town gay lives, to explore a different set of experiences than urban queers are used to.
I am aware this is just my Artistic Statement for this year, 2017. It's likely to change as I grow as a writer. I look forward to connecting with others of like mind.