The List

I have a long list of people I want to thank for making this year the most challenging, rich, abundant, creative year of my life. Please consider this my love letter to the world, the gifts of which I always endeavor to return.

• Thanks to Ari Roth and Shirley Serotsky for inviting me into Theater J’s Locally Grown program and giving me a new artistic home.
• Thanks to Eleanor Holdridge for being a director, friend, and collaborator who really gets me… and makes me better.
• Thanks to Jen Mendenhall, John Lescault, Michael Russotto, Deb Hazlett, Heather Haney, Pomme Koch, Grace Overbeke, Deb Sevigny, and everyone else at Theater J for helping me get HOT & COLD off on the right creative foot.
• Thanks to Gabriel Walsh for being a dream collaborator with a big vision who made EVOLUTION more than I imagined.
• Thanks to Michael Dove and Stephanie Freed for inviting me into Forum Theatre’s (Re)Acts project… and for screening my work not once, but twice.
• Thanks to Colin Hovde for launching the tenth season of Theater Alliance with REALS, and for doing so with generosity, patience, and creativity.
• Thanks to Shirley Serotsky for putting her immense imaginative might behind the production of REALS.
• Thanks to Andres Talero, Brynn Tucker, Jon Odom, Elisheba Ittoop, Kendra Rai, Blair Bowers, Stephen Royal, Stephanie Freed, Jessica Soriano, and Lee Daugherty for giving REALS some serious muscle.
• Thanks to Otis Ramsey-Zoe and Laura Zam for being keen kids to judge plays with.
• Thanks to Lee Liebeskind, Anne McCaw, and Jessi Burgess for helping me start to re-think THE GREAT DISMAL in ways I didn’t know were going to be possible.
• Thanks to Carmen Wong for beginning a very mold-breaking (if long-and-winding) journey toward a new performance.
• Thanks to Kathryn Velvel Jones and Bryn Boice for long-distance friendship, collaboration, and support of my work.
• Thanks to Gary Garrison, Ralph Sevush, Roland Tec, Seth Cotterman, Joey Stocks, and everyone at the Dramatists Guild for inviting me to join the conversation.
• Thanks to Renee Calarco for being my truest, most trusted theater confidant.
• Thanks to Rebecca Gingrich-Jones, Brett Abelman, Danielle Mohlman, and Renee Calarco for helping me keep the DC playwright conversation moving forward.
• Thanks to Karen Lange and Allyson Harkey for keeping ideas and possibility open.
• Thanks to Gregg Henry for everything he’s done this year to support me and to support local writers.
• Thanks to PD Michnewicz and Mary Hall Surface for giving me an opportunity to give OTHER opportunities to my fellow playwrights in DC.
• Thanks to the indefatigable Rachel Grossman for seeing, valuing, and welcoming my audience-centric vision… and for expanding it with an even bigger vision of her own.
• Thanks to Colin Bills for inviting me to join the KILLING GAME ensemble… and making me a better playwright and collaborator in the process.
• Thanks to the entire Dog & Pony crew for their friendship, open arms, ample smarts, and more fun than I’ve had making art in a long, long time.
• Thanks to Ian Gallanar and Patrick Kilpatrick for making a living playwright feel like part of Shakespeare’s world.
• Thanks to Hilary Bettis, Kit Williamson, Liz Maestri, Kristian O’Hare, Paul Cameron Hardy, Candice Benge, Kip Fagan, Josh Hecht, Charlene Donaghy, and everyone else I met at the Great Plains Theatre Conference for just plain being awesome.
• Thanks to Shirley Serotsky and Travis Bedard for two different kinds of tough love.
• Thanks to Kwame Kwei-Armah, Gavin Witt, and Susanna Gellert for inviting me to talk about My America, and to Hal Hartley, Cody Nickell, and Bruce Nelson for taking what I wrote and making it exceptional.
• Thanks to David Loehr and Jacob Coakley for giving me places to blog.
• Thanks to Suzi Steffen and Thomas Cott for periodically putting my blog in front of an enormous audience.
• Thanks to Ari Roth for timely, personal, behind-the-scenes brotherhood and support… and for exceptionally kind words when I needed them.
• Thanks to David Dower for taking time, on his way out of DC, to make me feel like I’ve got everything I need to change the world.
• Thanks to Polly Carl for giving both me and my work serious consideration, and for the regular doses of wisdom she offers the world.
• Thank you to Catherine Trieschmann, Mariah MacCarthy, and Kate Powers for their theatrical love and friendship and love from afar.
• Thanks to everyone in the DC theater Twitter-verse, from Alexander Strain and Eric Messner, for a year’s worth of invigorating and sometimes hysterical conversations.
• Thanks to Jason Loewith and Jojo Ruf for asking me out on theater dates, for including me in their grand plans, and (most importantly) for their friendship.
• Thanks to the 250 or so other playwrights in DC for building an increasingly connected and powerful community.
• Thanks to Ally Currin, Norman Allen, Heather McDonald, Bob Bartlett, Renee Calarco, and Caleen Jennings for scheming about the future with me.
• Thanks to Caleen Jennings and Audrey Cefay for inspiring me with their strong, strong voices.
• Thanks to Karen Zacarias for making me feel less alone.

And above all, thanks to my wife, Maura Suilebhan, for extending my imagination by one extra brain, for asking me the tough questions, for helping me see things in new ways, for making art with me, and for every last drop of love.