I think that's the core of black aesthetics: the ability to improvise. That is what has enabled our [black people's] survival.

Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.

I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along.

So somehow, things that seem extraneous to the play in reality are not. The scene lasts 37 minutes, and you only need 12 minutes of that for the plot. But if you pull the rest of it out, it's not my play.

For me, the original play becomes an historical document: This is where I was when I wrote it, and I have to move on now to something else.

Death ain't nothing but a fastball on the outside corner.

I write for myself and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.