-What and who has inspired you the most in your artistic career?
I have never taken a writing course, per se. My background is academic: BA, MA, PhD and teaching dramatic literature. So, my inspiration comes the writers who came before me, or those currently writing. Ideas, plots, structure, challenges—all are provided by writers. I was brought up with a love and
respect for Shakespeare. In my formative years I explored the works of Samuel Beckett which led me to existentialism: Sartre, Gabriel Marcel, etc. My PhD thesis was on the works of Ben Jonson whose “Bartholomew Fayre” (1614) provided the background for my “Rodeo.” In my teaching at the university, I
introduced students, and myself, to the works of so many writers and thinkers.
-Every true artist is also a revolutionary against power. Do you think there is still
room today to express one’s revolution through art?
“[Writers] are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” Percy Bysshe Shelley. This is the true challenge. The word “revolution” invokes large-scale images: war, politics, etc. But there are also smaller, but not unimportant, challenges: a woman’s struggle against control by her husband (“Pirandello’s
Wife”), the poor manipulated by those who have power and wealth (“Borderline Justice”), a historical truth reinterpreted by later generations (“Alta California”), and so many more. Continued questioning is in my bones.
-We live in a world where, unfortunately, war still exists. Do you believe that if there were more dissemination of art through the media and social networks, the world would be a more peaceful place?
In my work “And We Were Left Darkling” I explored which predominates in humans: love or power. I was haunted by Yeats’ question: “what rough beast, its hour come round at last, /Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” We know and experience power daily. Does love, decency, respect have a place in the
world? In my script, two men, Adolf Eichmann and Raoul Wallenberg, play chess in an unspecified limbo. The former worships a god of power; the latter a god of love. Can we, in a world filled with power, hate, etc. attempt to know someone like Wallenberg, a force of love? Or are we destined to be left “darkling”?
-Are you working on a new project? If so, can you give us a sneak peek?
“I can’t go on! I’ll go on!” (Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable). I’m always working at something. I recently wrote a novel for young adults, “The Boy Who Earned His Magic.” Again, there is the human dichotomy as competing characteristics battle within the characters. This story also allowed me to note and explore the different elements that make up the United States. The central character, Howell, is joined in his quest by a blind Latino boy, a Navajo girl, and a deaf Haitian girl. All bring their different languages, different ways of seeing, and different myths to the story. Plus, their tale is set in the dramatic desert landscape of the Western United States. Recently, I decided to transform “The Boy Who Earned His Magic” into a series of one-hour teleplays: six in total. The earlier ones, including the pilot, are already winning national and international festival awards.
