New play

At the O'Neill, a question that came up a lot was "where did this play come from?" as in "why did you write this" or "what was the motivation" or, in my case, "why Carthage, Missouri?" For whatever reason, that question was tricky for me-- play origin questions have always been tricky for me.

Carthage started with two chunks of scenes that I just wrote for fun the summer before I started Juilliard when I was still in the middle of Splinters, also known as the saddest play of all time. There was this super-early opening hotel room scene, and what later became Bryan's bee monologue. I wrote those in the summer, and then I didn't touch either one until-- oh, sometime in the fall. Maybe a month or two later, which doesn't sound like a long time, but for me, that's a long time to sit on something.

Anyway.

Now, when I start new plays, I try to be much more aware of why I'm setting out to write whatever I'm setting out to write. And I think that being aware of the impetus for a play earlier on helps me write it-- both quicker (this last one was less than a month start to finish) and with a stronger sense of direction.

So: This new play came from a character in Carthage, Irwin, whose life I wanted to see a little more of. The play is a response to themes in Carthage like reconnecting to family, abandonment, and selflessness, that I wanted to explore from another angle, and, if possible, more heart-wrenchingly. Don't worry, it's still kind of funny. Some of the time.