REGARDING QUESTIONS
In my plays, books, and music, the questions are the driving force. Not the answers. The exploration of the unknown energizes my imagination and leads me to surprises. If I know the answers from the beginning, then I’ve asked the wrong the questions. If there are no risky questions to be asked, then most likely I’ve picked the wrong thing to work on.
REGARDING LOVE & ANGER
The subject of my writing may occasionally be filled with anger, but my approach to creating it must be filled head to toe and heart to brain with love. One cannot truly commit to anger until one is able to truly commit to love, and vice versa. It does not serve me as an artist to rationalize away my love or to spiritualize away my anger.
REGARDING READINESS
There’s no perfect intersection of subject, energy, finance, skill, time, and inspiration. It doesn’t exist. Stop expecting it. Get to work.
REGARDING PLAYS & POLITICS
When we see new plays, we want above all else to be surprised. Clever, twisty repartee can take a playwright a great distance, but it will ultimately make no lasting impact if the playwright is too conclusive. For instance, if a play’s political parameters are clearly defined by brick walls five feet deep and a mile high, then we will see ten miles down that narrow road. We will clearly see the obstacles. We will clearly see the resolutions. If the playwright fails to deviate from this road, even if they’ve the best of intentions, this predictability will disengage us - if not bore us - no matter how percolating the comedy or tragic the plot. When I go to the theater, I don’t want a sermon. Surprise me. Challenge me. Ask uncomfortable questions whose answers are not made painfully obvious by prescriptive, didactic, political parameters. Or ANY parameters.
REGARDING THE CREATIVE PROCESS
What’s my creative process? To begin with, I aim for a shitty first draft. I mean it. The shittier the better. I have to relax my expectations to relax my brain. Only when my brain is relaxed can I start to freely associate and unearth all those shiny gold nuggets. Nobody ever needs to read or hear my first drafts, but one cannot begin a second draft until one has a first.
REGARDING MAGNANIMINITY
I think this is common for most writers: when we discover a talented peformer - unknown or established - we’re compelled to write for them. To give to them. We’ll convince ourselves we can write the role or the song or the orchestral piece that will propel them to the stratosphere of art. This motivation certainly makes the process more charged, if not more efficient. My work may never find its way to Dianne Wiest, or that fantastic unknown from that play reading down in the East Village, but this reality doesn’t compel me any less. Yes, there’s always rent to be paid, but art in its purest form is always given.