I have walked many times around the world and each time it's different from the last one. It feels a little bit like I am a theatrical director, creating a theatre in space. It's really a theater in the sky. But of course the World Trade Center is certainly the most well-known of my productions.
I've always called myself a writer/performer, not an actor because I basically write what I perform.
Don't write about a character. Become that character, and then write your story.
I love the interactive nature of theater. I just craved it. As much as I love working on a film or TV set, most of the storytelling happens in the editing, whereas when you're doing a play, the storytelling is in your hands as an actor.
Anything you put in a play -- any speech -- has got to do one of two things: either define character or push the action of the play along.
I come from a very expressive family, so it's really not surprising that we became actors. There was a lot of real-life drama in our house. Some of it was drama, some of it was comedy and some of it was comic-tragedy.
It's difficult for writers in the theatre. It's difficult for writers in the theatre.
I've never been a puppeteer, I conceive and I write and I design and I direct. And not just puppets. I direct actors, I direct dancers, I direct singers, I direct films. I also direct puppeteers. I'm really a theatre maker, but there's not a word for that.
There are two strains, I think, in American playwriting, of importance. One is traditional narrative realism, which is definitely my strain, and then the other great contribution is American musical theater, which is a whole other kettle of fish.
But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn't a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don't have to be very smart.
I began writing for theater, and maybe because of that I've always thought of myself as a theater writer who does work in film sometimes.
[When you write a play] you walk into a forest without a knife, without a compass. But . . . if you have a sense of geography, you find that you're clearing a path and getting to the right place.
I'm still interested in perfecting whatever talents I have and continuing to grow as an actor and continuing to be useful to the telling of the story.
I started writing plays, but the fact that plays don't last forever was too much for me to bear.
I believe the way to write a good play is to convince yourself it is easy to do, then go ahead and do it with ease.
A play is not a tweet. It can't be compressed and embedded, and it definitely can't be delivered apologetically.
I'm not a poet. I wish I was a poet but I'm not. I'm a playwright. And so I have a different set of antecedents.
The thing I know how to do most is write a play. I came up loving plays and learning about plays and writing plays. I actually feel like an outsider when I'm writing movies and television.
A theater is such a revealing form of art, such a transparent and good actors, they're such powerful individuals. I always kind of dreamt that one day I will open my mouth on stage.
If you write enough musicals you pretty much have a sense of where they should go, what you'll need, and when; how to pull people on that journey.
My preference will always be theatre because it's where my heart lies and it's what I started with and eventually I want to direct it. It's where my real interest is. But I just love trying out new stuff. Acting for me isn't just for me about being in front of a camera ... it's so much more than that. It's always about telling a story and there are so many ways of doing that, so I'll always want to try something else.
anyone who writes plays is unbelievably persistent, because there isn't a need in the world for plays. Somehow you internally have to feel a need to write a play.
I already love acting and I love actors, so being able to communicate with actors and to bring performances out of them, and to tell a story and aid them, is really exciting for me.
I fell into writing plays by accident. But the reason I write plays is that it's the only thing I'm any good at.
I've learned that in the theater the story is everything. Every lyric, every line and every musical gesture has to propel the journey of a given character or the overall plot.
