Artistic Statement

Artistic Statement

There's no one definite statement that says "this is it, this is life and it's all you've got." In my play, Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown, the various characters express themselves through monologues because they're drowning in the fast-paced immigrant lifestyle of (mostly) Southern California. It's comic to catch on to their panicky energy. They're more neurotic than Woody Allen. I used to write plays with three-act structures but this more chaotic set of voices turned out to be my more frequently produced play. People seem to identify better with these panicky immigrants and their mostly comedic journeys. So I no longer lament that people ended up liking them better than my "normal" characters in other plays. Who needs normal? Men wasn't my first play, but I figure let that be my better known one. My most recent play, They Call me a Hero, is being developed for Borderlands Theater in Tucson, which makes sense because it dramatizes the events that led to the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson and became one of the more dramatic examples of recent shooting rampages that get us all talking about gun control and/or mental health and then we do nothing about it (many states have actually expanded gun rights, not constrained them), so it seems like a fitting play, which is not a comedy, but it goes well with my panicky rhythms. The U.S. has become a panicky nation. I include in these files my older play (Men on the Verge) and my most recent one for that reason.