the family man oh that's that's my baby that was my play that kind of started off with me in terms of other people knowing and getting to recognize my work it was a contest that was held back in baltimore maryland sponsored by a b c and  arena players in baltimore and so the family mantle is the story of three brothers who returned to the family estate after the sudden death of their parents and i wrote the play because i'm from a family of support and love to parents but even within that type of family there's still always some type of resolve conflicts jealousies intention and things like that so i just wanted to write a play about a family dealing with some real issues in one of the real issues that we all deal with his death and so i wanted to write a play that had to deal with you know when you lose someone you know not only how you have to then carry on without them but how you have to continue to get along as family members and how important it is to say whatever you have to say today because we don't know you know how many days we have on this earth you know time is definitely short you know and so it's one of those plays where i wrote about you know if you need to give the give that you need to tell someone that you love them tell them that they don't wait because you never know what might happen the answers to everything and he thinks that that everyone she kind of consult him and he's a successful business person and so he does on one level care about his brothers but he feels like he's the one that shit instruct the brothers in everything they need to do that they can't really think for themselves even though both the other brother is a successful intelligent people as well the next brother is danny who is actually a surgeon in a new york hospital so obviously has education and intelligence but jerome still feels like he needs to instruct him on light things and things like that and then clinton is the youngest and who is actually he works as a mechanic in a garage so to jerome that something that's not a worthy career as an old when they should have something to do show better than being  a mechanic in a garage so the brothers don't really decide that they don't get along well but they have some unresolved issues that they have to take care of for the family man who actually i talked to so in my own family i thought it was interesting because i did it on the three brothers and i actually have three brothers and in the play the character names of the brothers are all real brothers made of middle names that's the characters that i chose and so but we didn't grow up in a big house that we didn't have you know but there's inmates and things like that which you didn't get to see in the scene that we did but that's the home that they come from you know and so i talked to other people you know in different family units just to see you know what do you what was the thing that you think about when you think about your own family you know and so one of the common denominator is that a lot of people share with me is that there was a situation that had been going on their family for years and some things to me it seemed like it wasn't even that big of a thing but they just held on to us over the years and so and then some things still maybe a little bit more in depth but the bottom line was nobody was talking about him they they had these conversations a long time and they just held on to just going to be mad about it you know that saying you know let's talk about it but it period move on and so i think ok i think that's something to i did arrest you know when things happen you don't talk about it so with the brothers they are now forced to be in each other's company you know at their parents or pass away so these things that they want to talk about now they're forced to have to deal with was memorable things photographs quentin's m v p trophy there was a picture of jerome who you found out late in the play he was voted as one of the top you know ten black business men in america and so we had that was out on the mantle and so throughout the play the brothers always referred to certain things were on the mantle the other part in the beginning of the play with the mother before they go to the airport you find out she always liked to have fresh flowers on the mantle and so even after she passed away they kept putting  on the mantle you know and so so yeah it was it was it was it was a really interesting interesting dynamic in terms of that so i think it was that  nine think my ministry without a doubt is encouragement you know when i have everything that i write in any play that i do this this level of encouraging someone to do something you know encouraging you to follow your dream encourage you to go to someone and say hey i messed up i  give in is encouraging someone to tell someone i love you today because you may not be here tomorrow i may not be here tomorrow it's always some some level of you know causing someone to think about the way things are whether good or bad you know it doesn't mean that everybody's doing something wrong but every play of mine before it in it's given you something to think about like you know am i doing this right or you know or did i wrong someone that maybe i need to go to and say hey you know what yeah that was my mistake my bad that would i take that when i did the first thing i would say is a writer has to write that's the first thing i hear people say all the time oh i'm right i'm right along with you what did you write i haven't written it yet well then you're not a writer yet so a writer has to write that's that's the one thing and then the second thing i would say you have to believe in what you do you have to believe in which you do and you have to love what you do i would do this you know it's not about money it's not about fame i do this because i love it if it was about money and fame i would have stopped a long time ago so you have to love what you do you have to believe in which you do i also suggest that anyone who's considering being a playwright go see professional shows go see broadway shows go to community show any chance you can get used to see some type of performance go because that is like one of the biggest learning experiences for me it was you know just going to see shows see how people put on shows it increases your level of belief increases your level of how to make you know what you write better how you sets look better you say i want everything so when i  right believe in what you want to do do it because you love it definitely educate yourself on the craft as much as you can which would include going to see professional shows as well and deaf and don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it