 Hello, everyone, welcome. We're so excited to have this conversation with all of you and three fantastic playwrights on demystifying the playwriting process. I'm Danielle Latopoul, artistic director of Rattlestick. And before we do anything at all, we wanna take a moment and read a Global Land Acknowledgement. We are hosted by Rattlestick Playwrights Theater whose physical space stands on the unceded lands of the Lenape people. As an online event that addresses global issues, we recognize that in countless places in the world, native peoples were abused, murdered, and forcibly removed from their lands by ideals and actions of land discovery and settler colonization. We recognize and respect all of the native peoples all over the world and invite every individual in this event to investigate the history of the land on which they stand and their native peoples. Colonization is an ongoing process that still harms and destroys lives and cultures. Let us honor, respect, and hold the open space for all native peoples past, present, and future. This acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to dismantle the ongoing legacies of settler colonism. And if folks who are joining wanna take a moment and just put in the chat what lands you're calling from or viewing from, that would be really special. And we are so honored to be hosting this wonderful conversation with HowlRound. And these three wonderful playwrights are all Mellon playwrights in residence. And we are honored and fortunate to have Basil as the playwright in residence of Rattlestick. So without further ado, I'm going to turn things over to Basil who will guide us through this next hour. Okay, great, thank you, Daniela. So this talk was proposed as sort of an attempt to have a kind of a casual conversation instead of a maybe more directed normal the way we usually have a talk back session. So this is Madeleine, Corey, and I. We've come up with three questions for each other about playwriting process, questions we'd like to ask another playwright. And none of us know at this point what each other's questions are. So that'll be a little bit of a surprise and maybe we have some the same questions, I don't know. But I know for me just coming up with the questions made me really reflect and think on my process. I don't know, did you too have that experience too? Yes, I would say yes. Yeah. Yeah, it made me sort of become a little introspective about the whole thing and think about it. I don't think you usually think about it that much. Yeah. Yeah, it put me in touch with some sadness that I have around playwriting at this moment, which I feel like I'm skating over the top of a little bit a lot. And in thinking about what I wanted to reach out to you two about, I was like, I touched some emotional, yeah, some emotional nerves. But I mean, they're calm questions, don't worry. But I realized I was like, oh, I'm so excited to talk to two playwrights right now. Like. Yeah. So we'll share our questions with each other and to see where that conversation leads and then make sure that we have time for you all to ask any questions you might have about process or anything that came up in the conversation. All right, so should I lead the first question? All right. This might be my best question. It might be downhill. Okay, so also it might be a little bleak. But I was reading, I read an article like a couple of weeks ago, I think. And it was one of those kind of horrible Bloomberg articles about like career stuff. And this one was about having, it was the topic of it was creating a new career at like in your sixties. So it was kind of, and then it listed the three things that psychiatrists say you need to be able to start a career, I guess. And one of them was passion, which had then said peaked in your twenties. And then the next one was, I think they called it the ability to learn something new but basically brain processing speed, which also peaked in your twenties. And then the third one was grit. And it talks about how grit continues to grow as you age. Your grit actually gets like stronger. And I don't know why it made, wait, what? You have no choice but to use your grit before your project is in decline. Your juice is dried up, you got to use your grit. And something kind of struck me as feeling very true. All of that. And it made me think about grit and in process. And I was kind of curious, do you feel like that assessment is true? And if so kind of where does grit lie in your process? How do you use it? I'll just say that I often say about the theater, which I'm gonna refer to as if it's an alive and ongoing thing. I feel like the way to have a career in the theater is not to quit the theater. Like that's the number one thing you can do is just not quit. And most people feel like that means you should, you have to feel great about it all the time. But a lot of people that I know in the theater want to quit every day or say they're going to and if they don't, then they're in the theater. And like that's the difference. So for me, and I spent easily two decades like every day being like don't quit, don't quit. Or I'm gonna quit, I'm gonna quit, but then waking up the next day and still being a playwright. So I feel like to me grit is a hugely important component of writing plays, which is important because I don't, I'm way better playwright now than I was 25 years ago. I'm glad I didn't quit. I wasn't, you know, and I hope that at 25 years from now if I'm lucky enough to be still alive and writing then my plays will be better. So I don't know what else can you ask for? Cory, do you have a more enlightened idea? I mean, I don't know if it's gonna be any more enlightened or more eloquent, but I would agree with that. I was just thinking actually, I mean, it's sort of related, but it's not related. But years ago, and I've talked about this a few times and I don't remember where I saw it, but there was a letter that Jose Rivera had written to playwrights. Do you remember this? I think maybe it was in the Dramatist magazine or I don't know where American theater, it was somewhere. And I mean, I know I tore it out and I had it like magneted to my refrigerator till it like was, you know, undistinguishable. But anyway, the thing that he said that I always, like that I remembered was the minute you finish writing one play immediately begin the next one. Don't like sit in the one that you've just written and wait for it to, you know, like, cause we have this tendency to do that because you just never know what's gonna happen, you know? And so there's just something about, I think, continuing and continuum that I think is connected to grit, which is like you fall down and you get back up. And, you know, that sort of thing because I mean, you just, you have to become familiar with rejection and disappointment and all of those things go along with it. So if you can't like handle those things, you're not gonna be able to make it. And so I think as you've done it, it just becomes, you know, second nature almost just, you know, accept those things. So I think it just becomes easier and you become better at it because you then focus more on your work, I think. I mean, I feel like there's playwriting offers this incredible lucky balance of like the more you do it, God willing, the wiser you are about it and the more you're, like the more you're able to start the next one right after the last one, you know? But then at the same time, I never feel like I know what the hell I'm doing, not ever, especially not at the beginning of a play, but that's lucky in a way. Like that's the kind of thing that will support your neural plasticity thing Basil that you're talking about. Like your cognition can never go into a decline because you're always like, wait, what? You're always learning. And I feel like I always say that also to younger writers, like leave your mastery for like something else. Like this isn't where I look for mastery. I never imagined that I'll be excellent at doing it, but I can always be engaging. I can always be at the very front edge of what I wanna know and think about and learn and understand. Nice. Yep. Are you gonna answer your question or? Oh, should I? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't have an answer for it, but I was thinking about how sometimes, I guess I was thinking on a more, my new level of like taking grit to just literally write sometimes, you know, and that I agree with everything you're saying. And I feel like the older I'm getting, the better I'm getting at writing. And although I might not like sit in like a flurry for like weeks, like just pumping out pages. There's something about that sometimes it's like, it isn't passion. Sometimes it isn't just like warp speed in a zone. Sometimes it just takes grit to like get to it, even when you don't feel like it. And that's like always a struggle, but yeah, and that's totally necessary. This is not on my list of prepared questions, but I feel like if we are allowed to like have a, what's the word in the debate? Like it's not a rebuttal, it's like a follow-up. Do you, it sounds like I don't have a lot of pleasure in the act of writing like this thing. It's filled with negative feelings for me. Basil, it sounds a little bit like, maybe that's true for you. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Do you ever have delight? Do you have delight in writing or no? I don't. In fact, it's almost unpleasant really. It's a kind of an unpleasant experience, especially a first draft is horrifying for me. After that, then I enjoy it more. I think I enjoy rewrites more than the first draft. I actually kind of enjoy rewrites actually. Yeah. Yeah, I tell people that I feel like I'm like ripping my guts out for like every single word sometimes, most of the time. That sounds rough. Yeah. I was on a silent playwriting retreat once with the playwright Adam Bach. And so we were all sitting together, not speaking for many days on end and writing plays. And Adam would sit in the middle of this room full of silent writers and write like on the computer and laugh his ass off at his own. It was so amazing to watch him be like, ha, ha, ha, ha. Like I was like, what is that like? What if you just delight yourself and fill yourself with joy with your own writing? I never have been able to achieve it, but I feel like it's a goal. That would be so nice. That's happened with me where I laughed and laughed through something. And but I mean, I pretty much at that time really would think like, this is the most horrible thing in the world. Nobody's ever going to see it. So then I like was able to just like let go and do it for myself sort of. Were you laughing because you thought it was so horrible? No, I thought it was funny, but stupid funny. You know, like horrible and all that. So it was like, oh, who cares anyway? And I just started like trying to entertain myself. I feel like I, characters have surprised me and made me laugh like occasionally. How are we doing? Are we doing like one, two, three or should we go around and like? I think we should do rounds. Yeah. You want to go next, Madeline? No, of course I should go next. Okay. All right. I mean, that kind of feels like it was segwaying into one of my later questions. Not that there's an order actually, but I think I'm going to jump to that question that I was going to ask, which was what is the biggest surprise that you've ever had while writing a play? Wow. If you've had one. Everyone thinks the live stream is broken, but it's actually. I mean, I've had a whole, I've had a character, a play turned from a five-hander to a three-hander in a single rewrite. That was a real shocker. I mean, no one on the outside, it didn't make any difference to the spinning world, but like it made a big difference to me. I was like, oh, it's a whole different ball game. There's got to be something interesting on that. Corey, that's such a hard question because I'm feeling in all my surprises, but the details aren't coming to me. Well, it's like where maybe you thought, I mean, I've literally sat there getting ready to type on the thing and think I was about to type one thing and I literally typed something else and been surprised. So that kind of thing has surprised me or like all of a sudden something will happen and I'm like, now what? Because it feels almost like I'm out of control of it or something and been shocked myself and not knowing what to do, like I have to get up and walk around or like, oh my God, do you know that kind of thing? So I don't know, maybe I'm just weird and this happens to me. So I just wondered if anything like that had ever happened. I definitely feel like that has definitely happened. Although I don't have the details of like what exactly that was, but I know things have happened where I'll suddenly learn something about a character because of something they've said that is like a really surprising. Also, I feel like surprises have happened in understanding the play. It's written, I'm in rehearsal, we're having a conversation with actors and suddenly I'm aware of my play in a totally new, surprising way that I wasn't. That's another good one, yeah. I feel like this is a sign of great artistic and spiritual health to be able to be surprised by your own writing. Like to me, that signals like a kind of a quiet ego and a very strong integrated soul that's like through which like your art is moving. And I go to this length to describe it because this is not a description of how I live inside my head, but it is a description of how I'd like to be. I feel like that if you're capable of being surprised by your own, what you generate, it must be that what you generate is coming from a source that is at once exactly you and much, much greater than you. And that just seems so beautiful and wonderful. So much more exciting than just being like, I feel like we don't need these two characters. Those are important and surprising things too though. Anyway, it's really about, that's really like an ego question, you know? Yeah. Corey, did you, are you satisfied with those answers? Yeah, that's fine. I mean, it made me wanna ask other questions, but that's okay, I'll wait because there's some of the other ones. But can you, you can ask one more and then I'll all do two or ten. I mean, yeah, because one of the other things I was gonna ask was because, and I guess maybe like this, and it is tied in because it's kind of a surprise thing. I guess I kind of sometimes feel like, oh, well maybe you're weird because these kinds of things happen to you when you're writing. The other thing that I do that I don't know that a lot of other people do is I don't write from a plan. Like I don't really know what I'm gonna write before I write. So I was, one of my questions was going to be how do you know when you're ready to start writing something? Because I don't like outline or know exactly, stuff comes up as I'm writing and then I'll have to like research what is this. So I understand what it is I'm writing about because I didn't know I was gonna write about that in advance sort of thing. So a lot of it is like that sort of, it's like in process and in real time in a way. So I think a lot of people write from plans or knowing exactly what they're gonna write. I know one person told me they always write the last scene first and then they write from the beginning to lead there and they never have changed their last scene ever. That's where they started. I mean that they start with the end and I was like, oh my goodness, I don't think I could do that. But I do know that I can't, I mean there's a point where I begin but then I just like don't know where I'm going either. Was it David Mann who told you that? No, it was Lynn Nottage actually. Really? Yes. Basil? Yes. I don't, I never start with a plan. Okay. I may have something I'm thinking about, you know like some kind of an idea about what I want to write about or I might have a place like a location but then I just stick people in and see what happens. And then I learn what I'm writing about as I'm going, like what you're saying, where I'll have to stop and research something. Right. I asked this question, Susan Laurie Parks came to my school when I was in grad school and there was a thing where we could ask questions and I said, do you always plan? Because I didn't, you know, and I was curious. And then she, every question everybody asked she turned back to a question to them and she said, what do you do when you're about to go on a road trip? And I didn't, I was like, get in the car. I was kind of going through all the things but what she was trying to get me to say was I get a map. So I assume that she probably has a plan. Yeah, I've never, I mean, for TV and film I do because I have to, people... You have to, which is stressful, I find. Yeah, and it's a whole different kind of writing. Yeah, it's very stressful for me to like come up with an outline. Like I'm always like, this is so anti-writing for me because I don't know what I'm going to be writing. How can I tell you what it's going to be? So it feels very, like I'm very, very stressful. Yeah. Yeah, well, you end up getting notes on your promise. You know what I mean? Right, yeah. Like this, and then they're like, or could it be different? You're like, I haven't done it yet. How do you know how good it would be like? Right. What about you, Madeline? I don't have plans because of this thing that we're talking about it but although that road trip analogy is a good one because like if you have a map, you haven't been on the trip yet. You know what I mean? Well, that's true, yeah. But I feel like I start when I, I have sort of two kinds of ways in. I have like an inside out version of wanting to write a play where I have like a basically like an emotional, oppressing emotional question that I can't, something that I can't deal with very well in my life. I'm writing into that. And then I have an outside in version where there is like a gimmick or a structure or some image from the world that I'm drawn to and that I wanna work. And then the, you know, so those are, they're kind of like two totally different approaches, really. One of them is like generates energy or heat and intensity and attracts things to it. And the other one, you know, like you have to suck, you know, meaning up into it. So they're not really the same. But do you, but do you have the two things like when you're starting play? I mean, like, would you know what the, say the image or whatever the thing, I mean, would you know those two things before you started? Yeah, I think that, and that would be like when I start, like that's what I can tell you. Like I have, like I'm working on a play right now and I can say that there's only one character in it and that it's about birds and epistemology and like what it means to know something. Now, I feel like once you, that's for me, that's enough. Like if I go in a room and close the door, like I have enough energy for six months, but it's not enough to pitch this play to somebody. You know, I feel like I need a sort of like anxious expression on people's faces when I'm like it's about birds and epistemology or like, you know, that's not the play. There's like, but it's enough there. There's just enough like Tinder and there for me. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I feel similarly to what you're saying. I feel like there have been times where I've created a structure for myself, like a box to write inside of, but very rarely. I guess it is more for me that emotional. Like I'll have a question or like you're saying birds and there's like one character, you know, I'll have something that I'm exploring, but I have no idea what it's gonna be. I mean, I feel like if you're using playwriting to do any kind of emotional or ethical or spiritual work in your life, then that's about as much as you want to start. Right. Trying to get to the other side of something. Right. You want to be different when your play is done, right? Right. You don't know something else about yourself. And if you know everything at the top, then you're- Yeah, there's nothing to write either. But there's not, but that's one way to be a playwright. Like there's no reason why that's not gonna be what you use playwriting for. Like you can also just like crack out, bang in mysteries or whatever else you want to do on stage. When I think about the outline situation, I think why would I then write the play? If I made the outline, I don't need to write the play. Yeah, a teacher, I forget who it was now because I didn't study playwriting formally either. So that's another thing that I have that might disadvantage or whatever. But I remember somebody once saying that if you talk about the play or if you tell somebody about the play, then you won't write it or you won't want to write it because it's like this. Like if you know exactly the plan, then what's the, you know, why are you gonna do it? Cause part of the fun is discovering it in a way. Maybe you know some of the highlights or something. Does that mean you keep your work secret until it's in draft form? I don't know. I mean, I don't really, well I usually will do one draft though before I start showing it. I mean, I've been in writing groups where I've brought in, you know, pages. So I think I've done it both ways. But I don't know if that's what he meant as much as you don't like actually discuss the play thoroughly with somebody before you actually do that time by yourself with just you and the play. I think that's what he meant more than telling somebody maybe you're having them read it as it's going along. I think that's okay. I don't really know actually. Can you also end up in that situation if you talk about your play before you've done it where you're sort of like too confident about what it's about? Cause you don't know birds. And then you like put in a few months on it and you're like, it's totally about frogs. Right, exactly, exactly. Is it my turn to ask a question? I think so. Cause I've asked like two, I think two or three at this point now. Me it's a real pleasure and a relief to be able to talk a little, just like to go back and forth a little bit. Yeah, I think so. Whatever extent Zoom will allow. Oh, I have, so I can't figure out which ones I should ask first. Okay, well, maybe this one is a little connected to this last one. So when you're writing for the stage for this, like for the physical stage, do you picture, are you living inside the play as an existential event? Like, are you inside the story of the play or are you thinking about the audience not in an abstract way, but in a physical way? Are you picturing like the geometry of blocking and the relationship of audience to stage and stuff like that and physical bodies? Does that make sense? So are you abstract in a way when you're writing for it or are you materially conscious when you're writing a play? I don't know the answer to this in my own head. So I'd like you guys to... I think I'm not either one of those things. I think, I mean, I know that I hear my character's voices, like they speak to me and I just write what they say sort of and I feel their feelings as I'm writing too. And so I think I don't think I'm in the story ever because I know that I have like sort of stepped out of the play and thought, oh, so this is what this is about. And then it was about something completely different like then they surprised me. So then I'm like, okay, I was wrong. In fact, usually I've been wrong or I've had a good idea like, oh, they should say this because then it'll mean this and then whatever it was that I stepped in to do is always horrible. Like, you know, so it's just... And I'm talking about first draft because I think my first draft experience is so different from rewriting experience altogether. So yeah, I think it's... I mean, I would have to say abstract would be my answer because it's definitely not, you know, but it's not place or story. It's not things or story. It's more of the people, I think. That's cool. I think I am in it inside of it. I'm not thinking about the audience watching or the relations, like literal. I'm not thinking about the literal stage. I think it's a complete world of its own but now that I'm thinking about it, I think it has an artifice. Like it isn't, I'm in the theatrical world if that makes sense. So I'm not really thinking about where everyone is on stage, but the vision is not totally real or filmic. It's a theatrical world I'm inside of or seeing. I wonder if I... I never used to ask this question or think about it, but I started to try to pay attention to the audience as a living, breathing component at a certain point because I was a little ignoring them, you know? And now having done a little bit of work in film and TV, not very much at all, but just a little bit, I see like, oh, this lens, I see that there is a more inside even. So I think that's what you're talking about, Basil, about artifice. Like there's a kind of artifice that I've taken as a given in the world of the story of the writing. And now I see that there's an even more inside of the story, which is like you're writing a screenplay. It's like you're an eyeball like moving around inside this world. Yeah, I would say that about screenplays, definitely that it's a different viewpoint or something that the way you see it or tell the story, that's interesting. I've always found it very interesting when I read a script or when I've taught class and someone will give me a script in there so detailed about things like, you know, to the stage, stage left, there's a pink lamp and whatever. And it's not like things that are actually important to the plot in some way, you know, like the pink lamp doesn't explode or something, you know, it's just that they've described it to such detail and to the stage left and stage right and whatever. And all of these, and I'm like, how do you know, first of all, you're going to have the budget to have these set pieces where I've always, I always find it so interesting when people are so detailed about that. And, you know, and it's such a clearly drawn picture of a visual picture. And I think I'm not mine or not like that at all. You know, I mean, I think place, there is place. And I do sometimes jump around from place to place. But so I've been told sometimes that it's kind of more cinematic because you'll go here and then you're in another place and then you're in a different place. But I'm not usually detailing the place so in such a detailed way. So that's kind of always very interesting to me. Yeah, me too. And I know I've had directors sometimes ask me, how are you envisioning this? Because I didn't like you, Corey, get very detailed, you know, about it. I've really struggled with answering that question sometimes because I, although it was a living breathing thing that I was inside of and thinking about, I didn't have like a stage idea about it. So that's, and sometimes I've been really surprised by, and delighted by design drawings of some, you know, just kind of seeing how someone else saw it. There's something about maybe, I mean, both of the, you're both, a little goes a really long way. It feels like to me in both of your plays in different ways with in terms of like setting and physicality, like there is a lot of nimbleness and a lot of seriality, but certainly based on your, but also in when January feels like summer. Like, you know, these are, and seriality and heightened location in the theater are best with less, you know, in a way, like it's like if you're Shakespeare or Alan Eckborn or something like that, you know, like, so maybe that's one of the things, it's like the more nimble you want to be in your theater world, the sparer your stage directions yet and certainly. That's true, I think, yeah. This question that immediately made me think about my students because like what you were saying, Corey, sometimes they're very just intense about what's the stages. And I teach at SUNY Purchase and I don't know who the other, all the playwriting teachers are, but I get, you know, I have playwriting one, two and three. So then sometimes my playwriting two students have had other playwriting one teachers. So I get like a little bit of insight into some of the others. And I know there's someone who had them, would have them make a stage, like totally create a stage for them to think about when they're writing their play, which always felt so strange to me. I mean, I totally understood the idea that most of them are writing for the screen. So they have a hard time transitioning sometimes. So I understood that, you know, but I also find, I found, I thought that's so like constraining. I would never say that to my students, but it sounded very just sort of, yeah, just very constrained. Even though theater is, you know, that's one of the pleasures of it, but it can be bigger than that model of a stage. I mean, there's the question of the objects in the space. And then there's the question of the audience, like the literal people in the audience. Also like an interesting puzzle to me always, and who's there and how they got there and what theater is or what theater is for. And to me like that, I don't worry that that's like gonna small in or pander in my work or anything like that. I feel like the more I can think a lot about who they really are, anyway, the happier I'll be with my playwriting. When you say thinking about the audience when you're writing their relationship, are you sometimes thinking about how they may respond to something? I guess, especially the more jokes I try to write. I mean, a joke is a real handshake with an audience. You know what I mean? Like a joke really, multi-visibly touches a group of people and tries to get something out of them going back towards the stage. And so, you know, thinking about them as a, I don't have a performing background, I should say. I think writers who, playwrights who start as actors and some of my favorite playwrights have been actors. You know, they, this comes intuitively to them. Like they know what an audience is. They've been up there like conversations with audiences, but for someone like me who started not just at the back of the house, but literally like under the bleachers to a terrified, you know, of how my plays would be received to even sit in the audience, like coming to understand who they are, like what they are, who they are as individuals and what they can do as an organism, like is a real part of my self-education as a playwright. It's not a question, I'm sorry, but it's just a... I mean, I started out as an actor. So I'm coming from that. And I mean, that's my training and that's where I got my degree and is acting. So I think that that training does go into my writing. I mean, I think I do write roles that people wanna play or can play. You know, I think that's kind of something that's just in, and so maybe the audience part is just part of it. You know, I guess, yeah, I never thought about it, but I think now that you're mentioning it, I think you do automatically realize that there's whatever. And I remember once, I mean, Danielle is here, but anyway, there was once when we were in rehearsal with When January Feels Like Summer and there was a scene that's supposed to be funny and it wasn't funny and it just wasn't funny and it just wasn't funny. And I was sitting there trying to say, why is this not funny? Cause it's been funny before. And I suddenly realized that the two actors were playing it for laughs. They were trying to be funny. And I said, they're trying to be funny. Tell them to stop trying to be funny and it immediately became funny. And but I think I realized that as in, like it was more the acting part of what I knew that told me that actually, that made me understand that in a way. And we did it and it was like, oh my God, it was like night and day. Cause it was just like a focus thing actually. It was so weird. It was like they were playing to the audience and it was like played just to each other. And don't think about being funny. The play is so funny. Yeah, that's the one that made me laugh and I was going to throw it away literally. I that play almost ended up in the garbage cause I thought this is the worst play ever written in life and I was going to throw it away. And I only didn't because my agent said, have you written anything new? And I felt so embarrassed that I had nothing to hand that I just gave it to them thinking like they were going to probably then fire me for it. And they said, oh, we sent it everywhere. And I was like, what? Oh my God. You know, I was so, so embarrassed, but anyway. Thank God. That's a story about how, how the curve of the world is spared a great injury. This is, this audience thing is a big, is a big deal for, for a lot of playwrights cause most playwrights don't get produced. You know, like- Right, right. Big deal for, for student playwrights because now we don't, we don't train our playwrights through apprenticeship or through being on stage or whatever, we train them in school. And, you know, for me it was a really tough look, like never having a chance to have plays produced for decades, you know, because I just didn't, I just didn't know what the, what the game was, you know, like really about. So that's why- I know that there's very, there are few things I enjoy more than sitting in an audience watching a play of mine and they have no idea who I am and I'm just sitting next to random people and just seeing them like experience it and learning from that whole experience, that is something I just love to do. So I'll usually sit, yeah, oh, I love that. I think it's just so much fun because, I mean, even if they hate it or whatever it is, I just find it so interesting and fun to sit there with strangers experiencing my play and just kind of picking up what their experience is. I mean, I do that in previews. I'll usually do it in previews a lot. I find it really, really interesting. I like- Oh, sorry. Basil, what did you say? No, I was just gonna say, I don't sit in that back row. You know, I'll go sit in the middle of the thing. I literally, I sat in the house for the first time in my entire life in my last show and that was February, 2019. And I sat in the very back row on the last night of the run. Before that, I was plastered to the back wall of the house, listening. I was there, but I couldn't sit in a month. I'm so, it's harrowing to me beyond description. Basil, do you sit in the house of your place? I do, I sit in the back, the back row. Yeah, it's kind of an excruciating experience. There's moments of joy, you know, when it feels like everything's working really well. And it's, you know, what happens for me is I'm, I always feel terrified that no one is gonna understand. And so I feel like I'm holding everybody in that audience and I'm like, I'm trying to take you with me. And I feel that the strain of holding them and bringing them, which I, so when there's moments where it's like, okay, they got it. Like there's like a relief about it. But most, like I, you know, people will be like, ah, people laugh so much. I didn't hear like a single laugh. You know, I'm still busy holding everybody. I mean, there's definitely, I like the learning about the play. Like I feel like the previews helped me learn about it. But I'm learning about it so I can better hold it. I have like eight million more questions. I'm, you guys have at least two more each, right? But now it's 546. I just want to say like, I don't know what our, Oh, yes. Oh gosh, time has flown. Do we, do we need to move along so other people can ask questions or should we do one more? Maybe one more. Can invite folks to chat in questions if they have it, but also what you all are talking about is so rich and so full. So I, we can just forward question. People can just chat in their questions. And if you all can keep an eye on it and integrate that. But what's happening here, I just feel like we're voyeuristically having this amazing opportunity to hear you talk so honestly. That is so special. So we certainly want to include other voices and questions. Go ahead and chat them in, but you all should keep on going as well. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, I think it's my turn again. Okay, let me see. Well, one thing I'm, now I'm veering off where we were, but I guess I'm, the space I'm writing in feels really important to me. And I was kind of curious, this may be like a double question, but for me, it's sort of, I realized I have three go-tos. And maybe it depends on my mood or where I am in the process, but I often feel like I need a space that no one else is in. Like if it's an apartment, no one else is in that apartment, a house, whatever. Sometimes it can just be a room, but life can be happening outside my room, like the family's home, but I'm like in a deadline, so I can go in a room and write. And then my other place is a diner, alone in a diner, which I love because I'm alone, life is happening, but I'm not a part of it. I'm not gonna get sucked into it. It's like, it's not my life happening around. And the other part of that is sort of aesthetics or preparing space. So I guess I'm curious about that for you too. If you have needs about aloneness or how your space is. I think I like to be alone because I sometimes talk out loud while I'm writing and I sometimes laugh out loud, I mean, I've been known to cry. I've been known to like get, because I think I get very involved with whatever it is. So I think I do like to be alone. But I mean, I've written in rooms with other people there too. So that works fine. I don't think, yeah, I don't, I mean, I know that when I first started, I was more particular about stuff. I used to like have hand sanitizer. I always use hand sanitizer. And I was like, oh, you're just so weird. And then I read somewhere that August Wilson always washed his hands before he wrote. So I was like, okay, I'm not that weird. So I mean, there's just something I think about wanting to remove the world from the, let the play come through you without some sort of, even though you do use your life and whatever's around you in it, but I think it's just wanting it to be its own thing in a weird, weird, weird way. But I can write almost anywhere at this point. I think I used to, I mean, one thing I will say this is making me think of is that I used to feel like I wrote easier. It was easier to write when I had jobs that I hated that I was like trying to steal time to write. Like, you know, like you had a full-time job and the only time you could write was like at midnight or you could write like on a weekend or that kind of thing. I think I enjoyed writing more because it was like I couldn't wait for those moments that I could focus on writing. And so when you have like this time to write all day, all the time, there's something very difficult and hard about writing, it's less pleasurable or something, it's less of an escape or I don't know what it is. So that's making me think about that, actually. Are you writing all the time now or are you stealing time? No, I mean, no, I think it's like procrastinate all the time now. I think I was more like focused on the writing like as I think it was the escape so I like couldn't wait to do it. And now it's more like I shouldn't be writing but I'm not, you know, kind of it's weird. Yeah, it feels like the job now. I mean, it is, right? And it is, yeah, it is less, there's something different about it. Yeah, yeah, when you were not getting paid and you didn't think anyone was ever gonna do it, that's when it was like fun to do it. Yeah. I really, I've written a lot on the subway. I really love to write on the subway. I really love the A especially, like it's a long, fast trip through a lot of different landscapes and it has those seats that face forward. I haven't written on this subway since March because I just feel like I really think the subway, I cherish the subway but I feel like people shouldn't be writing it what amounts to recreationally, you know what I mean? So I haven't been on it in a long time which is very painful to me but in general, because I just love the subway. But the subway is like a diner, I think, you know what I mean? It is, but do you physically write on the train or are you just like right there? No, I write, because I write in a notebook first so I can go with me there. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I would crack open the laptop on the A. I know, I was like, do you sit there with that? I mean, I do notebook stuff too on the train. I like that. I love to like copy little conversations I'm hearing and all kinds of things happening. I'm very susceptible to people's voices around me and but somehow on the train, especially at like, you know, in the daytime, like there's not a lot of chit chat really, like people are going about their business but they are themselves and they're with you but they're not with you and it's a perfect amount of companionship I think for writing. Yeah, that's, yeah, go ahead. That's what I love about the diner, Daniela. I was just gonna say we have a question from Sarah. So I just wanna float that in your conversation. Oh yeah, cause I'm not seeing the chat. I don't see the chat either. Do you ever show a very first draft, a pre-first draft to others or is the pre-first draft always just for you? I have people that see pre-first drafts as that's their charge. Like there's a writing group that I'm in and that's what we do there is that we bring in stuff that's early enough and that feels okay cause everybody's on the same page about where we're at. I don't think, you know, I would be very, I wouldn't show it early un-punished stuff to theaters and I would only throw it to the most select collaborators because I, I don't know, I'm very, I would be very vulnerable to being kind of influenced or having my tender little dreams crushed. Yeah. Yeah, say it. I would agree. I would agree. I wish I had a group like that but I don't but I have a couple of friends that I trust, you know, and who can read a really early draft and are able to excitedly talk with me about the things that are exciting about it. And in no way is it a conversation about where it's going unless I wanna have that conversation that I'm meeting but any kind of, like you said, Madeline, I feel very susceptible at that point and I may abandon the project if that goes wrong. But at the same time, I want to talk about it. I sometimes need to verbally process with another person. So at some point I need that to continue on but it needs to be the right kind of conversation. I think there's some people that, you know, they're demanding and structure oriented wishes for a play are the perfect thing but they're only the perfect thing when you're like nine, 10ths of the way done or seven, 10ths of the way done. And if you try to bring that person into conversation with you when you are working in miasma and you're doing the, is it birds or is it frogs? You know what I mean? Like that person can really hurt your play even though they're doing something awesome that you desperately need eight months later. Right. I'm looking at you for it. You can't tell if this is Zoom. So even though I'm staring directly at you. Oh, at me? Yeah, you don't feel, you don't feel that. I was wondering if you were gonna say other things about that. Yeah, no, I agree completely. I just, I think I completely concur. That's exactly the way I feel too. I wouldn't, I mean, and I think there are different people for different stages that you can bring in and that are gonna be useful. I think I've usually only showed very early things to either very trusted people, one or two, usually maybe one even. And then otherwise it's like writing group things. Those, in those environments, I have been known to bring plays in and increments, you know, in early, at very early stages. But otherwise, yeah. No. I'm married to another writer and I, whose work I love so much and whose person I love so much, she's like the greatest in the whole outer world. But I never show her anything until quite late because her natural criticality is so cute. It's one of the main things I love about her, but it's like, it's totally scalding to me when I'm like 15 pages in and she's like, why isn't it this? And I'm just like, no, look, I can't. And this thing, yeah, that's not what I want. I just want someone to wrap it in like, you know, lavender scented blankets and love it. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. Something, oh, Corey, isn't it your turn for a question? Oh, is it? I think I asked so many questions, but anyway, let me think, well, I feel like I asked the three, are we at time? I think we're close, but I think you should go ahead. Let me think. Well, if anyone else has any burning questions, please feel free to jump in. I'm trying to remember what the three questions were now. And if I didn't, I feel like I touched on all three at some point. So that's why I'm like trying to think of something now. Can I ask, I can ask my last one, because I feel like I've asked one and a half. And it sort of connects to this in a different way. I was gonna ask, and I know part of the answer for both of you, where and how do your plays live in your political life? And maybe that's an early, maybe some plays that's very alive early on, maybe some later, maybe it's all the way through for all of them, like how do they live in your life politically? I mean, I guess I once was called a political writer and I was like, I don't think I'm a political writer at all because I think I don't think about it usually in that way, he wrote you are. But I mean, I don't think I'm deliberately political. Let me put it that way. I don't write within agenda usually. So, and that doesn't mean right or wrong or good or bad or anything, but I'm just saying, I think I thought, all right, in my head, political, I think writing is political anyway when you're putting something down, it automatically is a political act in a way. So therefore it's important, I guess, that you're clear about what it is you're saying about whatever it is you're saying. And I do usually try very hard if there is a subject, I try to make sure that all the different angles to something are expressed as best possible. I try very hard to have a well-rounded discussion about something if I'm gonna have some subject there, it's not gonna be just one-sided to like, try to make you see this, I'll try to make you see all the different angles. So, I guess that's the closest I can get, that I think it's like, I think I write about things that I'm interested in and that touch me or move me and that I'm excited about or that means something to me. And so some of those things are sort of political type things. So then therefore that's what's gonna come through in the work, but I'm gonna try to be very careful about how I present it because I understand that it's important to be clear. I think, you know, when Corey said the act of writing is political, it sort of touched on where my head was when you asked that question, just that because everything feels political, I'm not thinking about something, I'm not thinking like this is a political thing I wanna write about it, no matter what I wrote about would be political. So I'm thinking of it in that way. So maybe then that tends to feel like the work can be political because it is no matter what you're doing in my mind. And I am thinking of it that way through the same lens that you're saying, Corey, and just that I know people are watching this and people are gonna think about this and I want to make sure I'm considering that, and that it has meaning. Before we wrap up Madeline, do you wanna answer your own question? Yes. Oh, I mean, I have a very sort of, I often feel vexed about it because I'm drawn to political questions and ethical questions, but then in the play I'm always feeling like, like I wrote a play that has to do with climate change, but the thing I want the Green New Deal and for the grid to be nationalized, but the play is about what is it in us that makes it so difficult for us to assent to things that would also save us? You know what I mean? So it ends up being, the thing I'm trying to write about is the backside of the thing I care about. And so I feel like I don't wanna look like I'm an apologist for bad choices or bad politics, but so for me it's a lot of live tension and I never really know what to do about that, but except just like March on my off days, you know. That's what we have to do, yeah. Yeah, and that seems to be like, that's sort of how to get at the heart of something really though is, you know, like what you're saying is sort of almost the bigger question of your desire. You know, how do we, what keeps us from being able to have that and then exploring that, having an understanding and empathy and true understanding? Well, I'm gonna say on that note of empathy and understanding. This is an incredible moment to have empathy and understanding for the three of you and also just for all playwrights and the complexity of the playwriting process. And I feel like all playwrights should be listening to this, other theater artists, audience members to just have a deeper understanding and appreciation of all that you go through to create, to sit in the theater and watch your work. And, you know, we wouldn't have the theater without you all as visionaries. For those of you who don't know these three wonderful writers work, you must find them and read their work and it's incredible. And this has been a really moving conversation and could just go on and on because there's so much to say. So I just wish that we could wrap you in your lavender-scented blankets as you deserve. And if we do it again, we must have lavender blankets or bathrobes or something. We have to do it live at 224 Waverly. So thank you to the three of you. Thank you for everyone listening. Thank you to the Mellon Foundation. Thank you to HowlRound. It is really powerful to be in conversation with all of you and we cannot wait to share more of your work with you in the future. So we're gonna close out now but thank you so very much and to be continued. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Bye.