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I love the characters not knowing everything and the reader knowing more than them. There's more mischief in that and more room for seriousness, too.

I enjoy the character interplay. Sometimes the audience is not laughing, but smiling, and that is almost just as good because it keeps them ready to laugh.

One of my biggest pet peeves is that I just don't like it when characters do things that are funny to the writer, but you don't know why they're doing it and it doesn't make any sense.

Since it's based on my parents, it's more emotionally close to me than some of my more surreal plays. And then I like the balance of the comic and the sad. It should play as funny, but you should care about the characters and feel sad for them.

I am a firm believer that a good plot makes for a fun enough read, but it's not what binds us. If we don't care about the characters, we won't care - not in a lasting way - about what's happening to them.

It's a very dull thing to watch, a writer at work. So dull that whole casts of characters show up just to watch the boring writer writing.

I have readers tell me that I must be bored, but that's not true. I am never bored with the characters. I like them.

Too many writers get stuck in the trap of writing what they think is funny and not considering who they are writing it for.