I am a Feminist playwright who has a vendetta to reap upon the Christian and puritanical systems that put women in boxes with tightly closed lids. I was raised under a religious institution that decided they could tell women what they could and could not be. As a writer I am in fight with that church that I was raised in. I am at dissonance with the entirety of the history I was raised in, the patriarchal hierarchy, the women who stay in their kitchen, the southern “politeness” that’s actually just suppression. These things piss me off, and that’s what I put ink to paper from.
I have found myself questioning as an adult whether it’s even possible to be respected as a woman in the church. Years of being raised in Christian schools led to lectures that told me my virginity was more valuable than me, that my visible skin was another boys suffering education, that my thoughts were only to serve my husband so he could serve God, that my ideas were valueless. This brewed a storm in my gut and I came to a quick conclusion that if I didn’t write it—I would explode. I write like this too, like a bomb might go off at any minute.
I work quickly and passionately and am a no stops kind of playwright—I’m someone who will redraft the entire play in a night and who won’t stop until I can hear that it’s absolutely right. I hear plays like music and see them like visual art, because of this I draw out visual representations of my work to make the puzzle piece fit together better. Those who’ve read my work have defined my plays as irreverent, nihilistic, brutal, and damning, for me they feel healing and that’s really all I need. I was preached love and acceptance, and then at dinner after church would be told that those who are different than us are unacceptable sinners. I was told my friends would burn in hell, that my neighbors were less than human, and then when I spoke out I was told to be silent. As a writer no one is able to silence me anymore. When I write I scream for all the times I didn’t growing up.
My goal as a writer is to heal myself. My hope as a writer is that in doing this incredibly selfish act, I might be able to validate the rage of a girl who has broken out of her prescribed box. I’ll stand beside her so she can write with the same overzealousness that I do…so that she can write to heal herself too. I have a right to be loud and my work stands by that.