I was offered a slot in a women directors festival, and I decided I d like to try to write something for it. I directed it in the festival in March, 1998. I am basically self-taught as a playwright. I ve been directing since college in the late 1980s, so I have a pretty good sense of what I feel works. When I see a play, I try to think about why something works or doesn t work, and how I might have done it differently.
Playwrights have to learn to think analytically and analyze things, just as directors do.
I did have an opportunity to study with a prominent playwright when I was in graduate school. I ultimately decided against it because I felt I needed to develop my own voice. They come from all over someone I meet on the street, an incident I read about, historical events. My overarching project will be a series of plays about the Jewish experience, each set in a different decade of the twentieth century, in a different location. Harlem who decides to convert to Judaism.