About a year ago, I found myself longing to learn how to write plays. My MFA is in fiction, and I have published a short story collection and a memoir and have a novel forthcoming. So why this sudden call to learn how to write plays?
Part of it is my natural curiosity about all things to do with the written word, but I think my interest in theater was a direct outcome of the seclusion brought on by the pandemic.
I wasn’t exactly lonely during isolation. My husband and I were both working from home, and I had a neighbor who brought over her own porch cocktails in the evenings, but I missed being around other artists, a feeling that intensified as time wore on. I read a lot during that time and listened to James Lapine’s book, Putting it Together, about his first collaboration with Stephen Sondheim on the play Sunday in the Park with George. It was thrilling to read about the ways that they influenced one another and then about the influence the actors and crew had on the final production.
People say that writing is lonely, but I haven’t found it so, enjoying work over the
