Sometimes the better the writing, the harder it is to play because you really want to service it. It's hard to be that quick and articulate in life. You've got to try to make it seem discovered, you know, not rehearsed.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I've always known that writing plays is very difficult, because I've written three or four that have never been produced.
When I do write, it happens really easily. I'll just kind of sing along to whatever I'm playing, then find a line to build off of, then sit down and write. When I do write, I take care of business!
I don't write a play from beginning to end. I don't write an outline. I write scenes and moments as they occur to me. And I still write on a typewriter. It's not all in ether. It's on pages. I sequence them in a way that tends to make sense. Then I write what's missing, and that's my first draft.
In the theater, when people hear that you're writing a play, they want to know what it's all about, whether there's a role for them. You write it fairly quickly, and it becomes a group activity before you're really ready to have company.
It's very hard when you're doing a new play that you believe in, and you want to tell the story in the best way possible.
Writing doesn't come easily to me. It gets more and more difficult.
You can't really write until the characters kind of show up one day and tell you what they're going to say. You start to hear the rhythm of the way the people talk, and then it becomes easier.
I would say it's not as hard as writing, because when you're a writer, you walk right into the pit all by yourself, but when you're a director, there are at least 80 people who scream, 'Don't do that!' when you make a mistake.
It's a lot easier to act when the writing is good. Nothing is more frustrating than trying to figure out 'Well, why did I say this next?'
Any play is hard to write, and plays are getting harder and harder to get on the stage.