I was 22 and stopped writing plays, and I didn't start again until I was 25. I was writing badly. In college, I attempted to write these more conventional plays, but the theater I loved was downtown experimental theater. I didn't feel like I could do that either. It didn't occur to me to do my own thing.

I'm very interested in silence. And, more importantly, in what happens when people aren't talking on stage. I'm interested in letting actors play and do things between the lines. And in slowing everything down.

For early plays of mine, I started with character. But I think that's because I hadn't been in theaters; I hadn't worked that much. I'm very interested in character, obviously, but once I started having my plays produced, I became so fascinated by the theatrical experiment and the weirdness of theatrical space, so now all my plays start with space and stage picture and setting - or container is maybe the better way to put it.

I'm terrible at speaking extemporaneously about my work - I get completely tongue-tied and consumed with fear.

Being sad and going out on terrible dates and having horrible breakups and then having a shitty job and then quitting the shitty job and then wondering if you shouldn't have quit the shitty job and then getting a new shitty job that you get fired off of after six weeks, it's all so good for your writing.

I was raised by a single psychologist mother and we spent every evening sitting at the kitchen table and dissecting our emotions and speculating about the inner life of everyone we knew.

I never had a lot of ideas. I always have exactly one that is the next project; the idea of a project beyond that project is ludicrous.