I write short stories, and I wrote a play.
The things that converge in the writing of a play come from a complex of motives, a genesis shrouded in a certain kind of mystery.
I was twenty-nine years old and I wasn't a very good poet and I wasn't a very good novelist, [so] I thought I would try writing a play, which seems to have worked out a little better.
So, through all that early professional career I would occasionally do a musical, a pantomime or a play with songs. The next stop would be a Shakespeare, or an Ibsen, or a play by a brand new writer who had never done anything in the theater before.
Now I can't wait to write my next play.
In 1977, I wrote a series of poems about a character, Black Bart, a former cattle rustler-turned-alchemist. A good friend, Claude Purdy, who is a stage director, suggested I turn the poems into a play.
To write a play one must be born a playwright. Otherwise, you're starting at a huge disadvantage.
Any time you get to do a David Mamet play, it's a great opportunity. His writing is such that I think it's a big challenge, but when you get it right, it's a great opportunity to play every night, really.
Rattigan wrote some very good plays.
There are so many rules about play writing. I'd have a nervous breakdown if I followed them.
I wrote a play before that and it never saw the light of day. And then I started working on this play and it came out really quickly. Eventually I got it, and I wrote a letter to Sarah Jessica Parker and she wanted to do it. So that's how it happened.
I think Dennis Kelly's a really good writer.
If I can't find real situations that interest me in real life, then I'll go and write them in play form.
I read a lot of autobiographical stories, and I write plays and prose. And I play piano and cello. A lot of my downtime is devoted to that.
For myself, I feel more natural writing stories or novels than writing plays. I feel more like myself, like I can express myself better, and like I have a greater clarity about what I want to do.
I always say writing a play is like toothache: I find it incredibly painful, and it's only once the play's out that the pain is gone.
Many actors in films are willing to go to Broadway, and screenwriters are writing plays. It's almost commonplace.
I think a lot of the way that I try to write my stories come from watching my mom write plays and trying to do that.
I really liked writing rhyming poems and plays.
I don't think I could write a good play if I was setting out to write about the death of the American middle class.
I try not to write more than two or three, I try to just write one if possible, I write till the end at least a draft of a play or a novel; but sometimes, I'll take a break for a couple weeks for a project that is paying me money like a television project which I try to stay away from just to stay financially ahead of the game.
When you know your cast well and their strengths and weaknesses, you can start writing for them, just the way Shakespeare wrote for his actors.
Even if I don't have a job, I work on plays and scenes.
I wrote a play for Miu Miu called 'The Moment Is the Present, That's Why It's Called a Gift.' Instead of doing a catwalk show, all the actors wore the clothes and performed a 20-minute play.
Before 'This is Our Youth', I did a week of table reading 'Airline Highway' at Steppenwolf in Chicago while the author, Lisa D'Amour, workshopped it.
