Will

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Will wrote *BERZERK!* and created the *BERZERK!* Fandom page.

## What inspired *BERZERK!*?

*BERZERK!*, like all of my writing, is a pop art collage that comes from both me and the pop culture that I'm surrounded by. I always prefer to write about people with abilities. I understand their world's better than the one we live in. I try to use their realities, which are both filled with shining heroes and the darkest of villains, to speak directly to our world.

*BERZEK!* holds a lot of inspiration from Sarah's set designs. It really put my gears in motion. I wanted to incorporate the as much as possible into the script, to one, respect Sarah's design, and two, show how a piece of work can grow off a design. I would love to write another play based off a set design in an inperson setting. From looking at the world created by the set alone, I said to myself, "This can not be a post-apocalyptic play," but I still wanted to honor the destruction that was provided with the set design. This is why I decided to just have a city be blown up. So my starting point was a blown up city, heroes, but I didn't know what about these ideas would make a play.

   I was playing a Marvel themed card game by myself one night (exciting, I know) and came across the idea, "What if people are stuck in a simulation." This came from one of the prompts from the game, but I couldn't stop thinking, "What if the X-Men got stuck in the danger room," which led me to a memory. This memory was the *Power Puff Girls* episode, "Bubblevicious," in which Bubbles goes into a battle training simulator, and exits tough, rough, and most importantly, mean. All of this just to circle back to the X-Men, specially the story, *Deadly Genesis*, in which it's revealed that Charles Xavier allowed a young group of untrained mutants to go on a dangerous mission, in which they all died, which is followed by Xavier removing their existence from everyone's memories, and pretending like this never happened.

All of this pointed me to the exploitation of youth in American society, most importantly, standards of child stars and the American military complex. At eighteen, you can go die in war, but you can't drink a beer until you're twenty-one. Young stars, like Taylor Swift, are able to make millions for record companies, but aren't allowed to own their body of work. American societies, and most societies in my opinion, profit off of youth exploitation. I wanted to start a conversation about this in the best way I know how: a comic book play.

## What have you learned from working on *BERZERK!*?

I feel like, I learned how to trust a team with my work. This is my first fully-produced theatrical piece of work, so putting it in the hands of others is scary. However, with this process, I've learned that interpretation is a blessing. It can open up your artistic brain to new ideas and revelations. Collaborating with the artists around me have been my favorite moments when making this play into what it is. I'm so glad to say that my play has become our piece.

## What do you hope that people can take away from *BERZERK!*?

I hope that people rethink their childhood. This play is about youth, and I want people to think about what in their childhood has shaped them to be who they are. With that, are they okay with that? How would you be different if the things that happened to you never happened? I want my plays to be suggestions for conversation, not answers to a question or problem. I'm more interested in asking rather than telling.

## Trivia

* Will is a licensed second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
* Will is a Twitch affiliate.
* Will insists that they switched bodies with a girl in kindergarten.
	+ During the body switch, Will recalls being in the girl's body as their teacher rubbed her eyeball on the girl's forehead to see if she had a temperature.
* Will is a mega Swiftie.
	+ Along with Amy and Bren, they make up the *BERZERK!* Swifties.