I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi, really in suburbia, so my mother was in community theatre plays.

There are probably brilliant people, geniuses, alive today who don't even know how to say, "Hello, how do you do?" because their minds are absorbed with electronic images.

It's really interesting that whenever you do something that is so out of character, like having an emotional outburst, that you don't get in trouble.

But when I got to SMU and decided to take a playwriting class, I said this isn't a bad idea. IfI write characters, they could be as dumb as me, and I don't have to be very smart.

It was kind of enlightening to become a playwright.

My first few plays took place in the South and even The Lucky Spot was in the thirties but in Louisiana.

I find it fascinating to think about what the world is going to be like when people won't talk anymore.