For the last thirty years, my professional work (and creative life) has centered on being a playwright, educating and nurturing playwrights and administrating a variety of playwriting organizations, educational programs and theatre companies that promote dramatists and the development of new plays.
Draw this picture in your mind: I was at a Valentine’s Party (okay, right there I’m suspect. Who has a party for Valentine’s Day?) crowded with too many people in too small a space that either arrived drunk, were actively getting drunk or were in the process of leaving drunk. It was, in a phrase, a party of . . . well, sloppy, gross drunks. That’s never, ever my idea of fun.
I’m standing in my kitchen, reeling from a long, tedious day of too many people asking too many things in too short a time from this one mortal person. My head’s pounding, my stomach’s growling and there’s so much tension in my back, I’m practically wearing my shoulders as a helmet. All I seem to be able to focus on is whether I should include one, two or three slices of individually wrapped, unnaturally yellow, processed cheese slices in what I’m sure will be the definitive grilled cheese sandwich.
I know I’m going to bleed – that’s a foregone conclusion. But I’m beginning to think I show up at my own staged readings just to figure out if I am going to bleed a little or bleed a lot. My first real thought when I sit down to witness a reading of a new play of mine is, “is this going to be a Band-Aid kind of evening for me, or should I call in the paramedics and a triage team, and for good measure, book an emergency suite at St. Vincent’s Hospital?” Because the really dramatic action isn’t happening on stage, baby. You want dramatic action?
I was looking for a rubber band this morning and in the back of a desk drawer I found a mini-cassette tape. The first “title” of it had been scratched through and scrawled on top of it was “9-11.” It then occurred to me that this is one of those tapes that used to pop into an answering machine.
I’m sending this message out to every writer I know, and by sending it to you, hopefully I’ll hear it myself.
I know, I know. Not too often you can say that. But within an issue that celebrates the gorgeous tapestry of theatres throughout the country – large and small – that produce new, original work, size doesn’t matter. What matters is that they have produced dramatists in the past and they continue to produce dramatists well into the future. I’m sure you realize that in an unsteady economic climate, that’s a tall order for anybody.
