Killing Your Darlings. In Your Writing, I Mean. Not In Some Jim-Jonesian Way.

Hemingway said you should write your story, and then take all of the “best” lines out. Would we like F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Toni Morrison, or James Baldwin half as much if they took our their best lines?

Why Am I Even A Writer?

I write because…somehow I became a writer. I can only contribute what I can contribute. Believe me, I’d be a worse than useless frontline worker in this pandemic. I write because it gives me my best shot as being an acceptably good father, son, friend, partner, and citizen. I also write because, hopefully, in some small way, some of it may speak to someone else out there, and at least make them feel a little less alone. But that’s pretty lofty.

The Pandemic Paradox

This Should Really Be Titled “My Pandemic Paradox,” But Then It Would Sound Less Like A Robert Ludlum Novel, Which Is Frankly My Goal With All Of My Titles. I think the Pandemic may have broken me. And before I even start, I want to make it clear I’m not on the front lines ofContinue reading “The Pandemic Paradox”

In The Beginning, Was The Word, and The Word Was…?

In my experience, there’s a lot you have control over as a writer. That’s the craft part. But the inspiration, the sudden urge to take a Kierkergaardian leap of faith, isn’t a part I really understand intellectually. And not only am I OK with that, I’m grateful for it. This way, unlike almost everything else in my life, I can’t get in my own way.

Special Performance Celebrating the Life & Work of Tennessee Williams to Be Performed Online

The actor Harris Yulin and I put this together for Williams’s centennial and will be reperformed online Saturday starring Mercedes Ruehl and Harris Yulin.

Social Distancing From Myself

As someone for whom “inner peace” has usually been an oxymoron, being trapped indoors is a real challenge.

Alexa, Correct My life Choices

Why Covid-19 won’t destroy theater in the long run, but will in fact help people realize how much, despite what technology has lulled us into thinking, the need to be in groups is an absolute necessity to feel fully human. Optimism comes about as naturally to me as, say, an appreciation of Post-Structuralist criticism comesContinue reading “Alexa, Correct My life Choices”

Blogging!

IN WHICH I DIP MY TOE INTO CHOPPY CYBER-WATERS TO SHOUT MY BARBARIC YAWP FROM THE ROOFTOPS OF THE WEB, AND ALREADY MIX MY FIRST METAPHOR! It’s a scary time to be a person working in the theater. Let me amend that. It’s a scary time to be a person. 2020’s whole low-budget apocalypse vibeContinue reading “Blogging!”