It absolutely helped - to write the father in both 'Juicy' and 'Beasts,' I had to see the whole story from his point of view. All of a sudden I understood more of what my own father must be going through - the fear, the frustration, the anger... the hope that he'll leave a legacy.
My dad doesn't like religion much, but I grew up very close to the Baptist tradition. God isn't this distant thing. God is right here with you all the time. He's your buddy, and you can talk about everything.
I was a really bad teenager and I got my tongue pierced. I don't even remember where I did it, but it was under very surreptitious circumstances.
Oh, I love to read more than anything. I always love the 'New Stories From the South' anthologies - I think it's the best short fiction collection anywhere, just filled with treasures.
I think artists need the freedom to fail and I gave myself that freedom.
There are so many remarkable playwrights working right now, that I see everything I can. Annie Baker is a genius, I'll see anything she writes. The same for Lynn Nottage, Cynthia Hopkins, and Lisa D'Amour. Anything they've got going on, I'll go see.
My dad, like many Southern men, is this very emotionally expressive person who isn't as articulate in words about his feelings as he is with breaking a chair or something like that.
To me the voice has always been the way to start any character. Once I find that, I'm good to go.
My grandmother had six kids - one died as an infant - and she was dirt-poor, and all her kids got an education. And my mom grew up poor. And they both worked so hard and cultivated so much of their own happiness. I wanted to have that like an amulet. Not like armor, but like a magic feather. Like Dumbo's magic feather.
If you have a perfectionist streak - and who doesn't? - running can kill the perfectionist inside you.
Mostly I do Iyengar. I like anything that's hard enough to make me cry in class. I like to be pushed over my limit and broken down a little bit.
I wasn't the best waitress in the world, but I was cheerful and worked hard.
I always felt like there wasn't a blueprint for father-daughter relationships - for them or for us. Because what are they supposed to do with us, treat us like boys, or small women, or what? Father-daughter relationships are so unique from family to family, and I'd love to watch it explored more onstage.
I can't write about rich people having relationship problems and breaking up in New York. I don't know that world of Terrence McNally. I knew I had to write people who talk the way I talk. And they talked very different than Terrence McNally.
