This HowlRound post made me feel more “understood” as a playwright than anything I’ve read in a long, long time. Please go read it and get to know me better. And then, if you want to know more, come back and read on. ——————– I’ve read it twice now. The first time, I was so [...]
If you don’t like a play, do you tell people? Not in private conversations with friends, but in public? Like… on a blog, or in a tweet, or via Facebook status update? For a long time I’ve largely remained silent. Is it time for that to change?
Every year I keep a running list of the books I read, then (at the end of the year) reflect on where my whims and interests led me. It’s time for that annual reflection, which I try to use to inspire and inform the next year’s course of study. In the past — before I [...]
A while back, my dear friend Patrick Kilpatrick prodded me to consider, here on my blog, the ways in which scientists and those of us who make theater might be similar to one another. I said yes immediately; as an extremely science-friendly playwright, I hoped that in thinking about the subject, I’d find at least [...]
I’ve been thinking about this blog quite a bit over the last few months, and I’ve got a few new thoughts about it that I’d like to share. I started this thing for two reasons: 1) To have a place other than Facebook to share news and information about my work, and 2) To create [...]
I am off, later today, to spend Christmas in Minnesota with my family. I am looking forward to it… but I’m also a bit afraid, too. Last year at Christmas, my son and I both got so sick that I spent almost the entire visit in bed, as did he. The year before that, a [...]
By now, you probably know that noted character actor Harry Morgan died earlier this week. Best known for his work portraying Bill Gannon on Dragnet and Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H, the latter role is what cemented him in my heart (and what will keep him there, I’m certain, for as long as I [...]
I have to admit: I haven’t read a word of Harry Potter. I saw half of the first film, when I was bored, but I shut it off halfway through without even the slightest compunction. I’ve never read any of the recent vampire books, either, and I don’t care to. I don’t listen to Top [...]
I wish playwrights were generally thought of with the same gravitas with which we think about, say, Robert Frost. In my newest 2am Theatre post I wonder: why aren’t we?
In 1997, a great swath of Grand Forks, ND and East Grand Forks, MN — where several members of my extended family live — was washed away by a devastating flood. More than 60,000 people had to be evacuated. The downtown area burned. Several people I know lost [...]
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