Being a playwright and having your work viewed, read or produced is always a risk – you subject yourself and leave yourself wide open to anyone with an opinion, good or bad, smart or stupid! Every time you submit your material it’s a risk – you must develop a thick skin and learn to take rejection, as it isn’t always about the material. It could be about a myriad of reasons. Every time one’s play is produced there’s always a risk: Will it go well? Will it get good reviews? Will people buy tickets? Will it be a success? Twice I decided to produce plays myself – that was a huge risk, and you have to be prepared that you are going to probably lose money, it’s just a matter of how much! It’s kind of ironic because in my life, I’m not a huge risk taker – it makes me unbearable anxious. But for some reason, I keep coming back as far as the theater is concerned.

I am about to take a huge risk and do something that I have never done before. In 2019 I wrote a play called A Shonda, which asks some very hard questions about Orthodox Jewry and fundamental Christians. A Shonda, a play with movement and music, tells the story of Duvid, a Hasidic Jew, and Clay, a Southern Baptist, struggling to reconcile their faiths and their families with their sexuality. The play explores religious and sexual identity, clashing cultures, loyalty, hopes and dreams, parental bonds and attendant feelings of safety or threat. It is a plea for understanding and tolerance at a time of fear and religious, moral, and political polarization. But mostly, A Shonda is about communication and unconditional love: the difficulties of it, the search for it, and the desperate need to be heard.

It was to premiere in March 2020 in D.C. but then Covid struck and all bets were off. Finally, almost five years later, it is to be produced in South Florida this Spring by a theater with a great track record and credits. AND then I got a call last week from the Artistic Director telling me they would like to turn the play into a full musical and asking me if I’d be up for it. I will be taking a huge leap of faith, letting his team transform the play. I will have script approval, but they will be doing most of the work without me being there. It’s scary and exciting and certainly a huge risk. I can’t tell you right now how it will turn out, but I will let you know!

“You are a storyteller!” That’s what the late great Gordon Davidson , my most important and beloved mentor, told me years ago. I have always been a theater lover and a storyteller – as a child and teenager I wrote skits and scenes and was always “putting on a show”. I wanted to be an actress. I began writing things for me to act in, including a standup act that I performed all over Los Angeles. When I became involved in Theatre East, a local theater company at the time,  I began trying my hand at writing full length plays that I would star in. Well…I wasn’t a very good actress. But during this time, I met a successful TV writer producer, who became familiar with my work. One day he brought me a stack of TV scripts, plopped them down in front of me and said “Write one of these – you will make a fortune in television.” I did, and I went on to have a successful career in TV, writing for such shows as Murder, She Wrote, ALF, and the first season of Full House among others. My TV career ended however with the birth of my second child when I couldn’t keep up the hours of a staff writer on Growing Pains.

“Good times and bum times, I’ve seen them all and my dear…I’m still here!” So sang Carlotta in Sondheim’s Follies in an ode to her resilience, and that’s what I’m singing as well. After almost twenty-five years of writing for the theater, over thirty produced plays, despite tremendous ups and downs, triumphs and disappointments, nightmare productions and euphoric successes, I’m still here. So how did that happen? Where have I gotten my resilience from? It’s not constant…sometimes it swells and conquers and sometimes it wanes and runs thin. Was I born with it, did I develop it over the years, did I nurture it and allow it to flourish? I do know that I’ve always felt I had an important story to tell, a voice that needed to be heard, and that may have been at the heart of where I got my resilience. I was and am ready and willing to do anything to have my voice heard, take non traditional avenues, go in the back door, try new things. Other times I succumbed to the frustration and feelings of failure and had to step away, take time, breathe and reboot. As I write this, looking back, perhaps that’s the key to it – knowing that there isn’t just one way, one road… being open and adventurous and willing to try new things. Sometimes they don’t work, but sometimes they do. And then it’s glorious.

I am a very visceral and instinctual writer and theatergoer. Overall I am committed to doing good work with good people. I don’t have any hard and fast rules; it’s about my visceral reaction. When I saw Fun Home my heart started pounding, I was completely engaged in the life of the family, I was moved to tears more than once, and I spontaneously jumped to my feet and cried “bravo!” when it ended. I also love plays that speak to me about different things and perspectives at different times of my life. I’ve always loved Death of a Salesman. In my younger days, I saw it as a play about a tragic guy who was over the hill and used up, struggling to maintain relevancy. When I saw Mike Nichols’ production a few of years ago, suddenly it was a play about the lies family members tell one another to protect each other and preserve their fragile existence. I am excited by imaginative work such as that of Tony Kushner and Rajiv Joseph. I love to go to the theater, become immersed in the world of the play, cry, laugh, cheer…. the best theater that I aspire to is provocative as well as entertaining, challenging complacency and the status quo.

I write of themes I return to again and again: family, identity, home. In much of my work, these themes have played out against a backdrop or seen through a lens of the social, political and religious landscape of our times. It has been said that I provide a voice for the voiceless. My plays are challenging, provocative, dangerous and always ask hard questions. I do not provide answers but aim to have the audience talk about the play on the way home, argue it out, go across the street and have a drink and discuss. I leave it up to the audience to provide their answers. I am very proud that my plays, while entertaining, are meaningful and challenging. My characters may not always be “nice” and sympathetic, but they are interesting and raise consciousness. I have also promoted diversity in my work – I have won the GLAAD award, NAACP awards and others. I am constantly asked, “what do you want the audience to take away with them?” As always, I don’t not presume to offer answers, only questions. I have no agenda for what I want the audience to take away with them except to see the truth of human behavior and something of their own humanity. To see something of themselves reflected on the stage and in one way or another understand it, not necessarily condone nor accept it, but understand it. I leave it up to the audience to answer the questions. I hope it will start conversations about why, and maybe if we can talk about why and try to understand it, then maybe we can start to change it.

After 25 years I am still committed to learning, to constantly reading plays and to going to theater as much as possible! Accept that writing is rewriting. And it’s important to hear your work instead of just reading it, so when you write something have a reading, even if you’re just grabbing a few friends and sitting around your dining room table. It informs you as to what is working and what is not and helps you on the journey of finding the play. Write from your heart, not what you think is commercial. And follow Tony Kushner’s great advice: Whenever you feel stuck, go back to your original impulse. I have that one hanging over my computer to remind me daily.