I write plays because I believe the only way to change even one life, much less the world, is through art. As Peter Weiss said in Marat Sade, “What’s the point of a revolution without general copulation?” I write plays because there’s nothing more exciting than being able to move an audience, to laughter, to tears, to new understandings and empathies. Because writing plays allows me to rage against the machine and the dying of the light, because it’s scary as hell not knowing what or where a scene is going or if a character is DOA or a total surprise. Because the collaborative effort that goes into making a play come alive is thrilling, because I’ve never felt so alive as when I’ve had a play in rehearsal.
Because I was tall for my age I was only once bullied, by the two star players on my school’s football team. I threw their books out the school bus window. The bus driver let them out and they had to walk two miles to get to school, where they caught hell and two dozen shots on each hand with a riding crop by the good Christian Brothers for being late. They never bullied me again. Even as a little kid I stood up for my older brother, who my mother bullied every day. But when I helped found a children’s theater company after college I saw clearly how art could change people. One of the kids was always picked on until we asked the kids to bring in stories for an improvisation, and he was the only one who brought in a story, and it blew the other kids away and they loved improvising within it and wanted to be friends with the kid. In our workshops he blossomed into a confident little kid. Two or three months later his mother came in to tell us how coming to our workshops had changed his life, that he now couldn’t wait to go to school, had friends, high marks and a new, cheerfully confident disposition. In a weird way, my plays seem to be about standing up for the bullied and the manipulated—which I well know about from two of my closest relationships.
I’ve always said that my life could be seen by the loves I’ve had—and let slip through my fingers. Without love, there is nothing, and my plays are all about love.
All that keeps me writing with passion and I hope humor, as do the 99% of cops who think they’re above the law, our hypocritical politicians who certainly don’t represent the people, Joad, and how overwhelming our modern life is. With my writing, the core of my being and what gets me up in the morning, I try to make sense of my days.