But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn’t a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don’t have to be very smart.
That’s what I like about [smoking] . . . taking a drag off of death, Mmm! Gives me a sense of controlling my own destiny. What power! What exhilaration! Want a drag?
What I loved about the acting class was that you got to think all day long about a person that wasn’t you, and figure out why they were sad and what they wanted, what they dreamed.
But here’s the thing: what you do as a screenwriter is you sell your copyright. As a novelist, as a poet, as a playwright, you maintain your copyright.
There are probably brilliant people, geniuses, alive today who don’t even know how to say, “Hello, how do you do?” because their minds are absorbed with electronic images.
That was always my inclination, to start on a new play before the other one gets done, because at least you’ll have something to go back to if that play gets trashed.
The most glorious thing about working in the collaborative art is when you have somebody like Susan Kingsley or Kathy Bates who are better than your play.
It’s called Sisters of the Winter Madrigal. It was interesting for me to see it done after so many years; because I wrote it and I didn’t realize what a rage I was in.
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