Keynote Address The O’Neill Playwrights Conference You asked me to talk about the state of the theatre today. You said I didn’t have to prepare a speech. But I started making notes and it turned into a rant. Well, you know, ask a writer and what do you get. Writing. The state of the theatre […]
To protect and defend your copyright so the theater doesn’t become a work-for-hire arena where you get paid one sum for writing and then the producers own and profit from your material for as long as they want, as in the movies and television To protect your copyright so nothing in your plays, musical books, […]
Wesleyan University 2006 Thank you for inviting me to give this lecture. Because I have won prizes for writing plays, and teach the writing of plays, people always think I want to talk about the theatre, which I’m happy to do later on in the evening, if anyone has any questions. But my subject tonight […]
Southampton Writers Conference – July 2005 I am pleased to be asked to give a craft lecture, though truthfully, playwrights always feel a little odd in the company of poets and novelists and, you know, decent, honorable people. Because writing plays and musicals and movies feels like a real low down life most of the […]
Agnes Scott 2005 Women of the class of 2005, as you no longer have to sign up for Physics, French, or Field Hockey, I offer this charge to you, Sign up for FRIENDSHIP, for it is women who have seen to our survival on this planet. Sign up for FAMILY both born and created, lost […]
My story is about a run-in with a tree. Now it seems like a lot of people have had life-changing encounters with trees, from Adam and Eve and Jack and the Beanstalk, to the Buddha himself. But mine always felt too stupid to tell. But it changed my life and Helen and Amy asked for […]
Women Writing Plays is the introduction to the book, Women Writing Plays, a collection of essays celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. n my lifetime, in America, women writing for the theater has gone from unheard of to nearly commonplace. Unfortunately, the production of plays by women has not made the […]
Agnes Scott Commencement 2000 Thank you President Bullock, Dean, Board of Trustees, Honorable Faculty, Graduating Seniors, Parents, Friends and People Who Never Would’ve Believed It If They Hadn’t Seen It For Themselves. I am very pleased to have been invited to give this commencement address. I was not a very high profile student in my […]
Keynote speech for the Kentucky Arts Council’s 25th Anniversary Celebration Conference – CONNECTIONS IN THE ARTS December 7, 1995 It is my very great pleasure to come give this address. For it was this very organization, The Kentucky Arts Council, that saved me, as a young Kentuckian, throwing out a veritable lifeline that would pull […]