Though Doug Wright's works cover a wide range of times, places and topics, a number of them trace their origins to biographical subjects. Excepts from that interview follow, courtesy of the participants and the Dramatists Guild Quarterly, where it originally appeared. I've never truly adapted straightforward biography. To write a scrupulously accurate biographical drama about Duchamp would be a violation of his whole aesthetic. I had to write a play that structurally imitated his work.
Research is crucial, but indulging in it to excess can be dangerous.
It quickly becomes a terrific excuse not to write. You need to know just enough to set your imagination free, and then once you're into the first draft, you discover the gaps in your knowledge and start to fill them in. But to read everything ever written about your subject before putting pen to paper is a mistake. It can paralyze you. Too many options, too many episodes to dramatize.