Will this long presidency of George W. Bush ever be over? Living through it is starting to seem like some ghastly, upsetting novel in which the hero is the country, and the president is this disturbing, pig-headed, oblivious villain who makes things worse and worse and worse.

Since I also act, sometimes I get over my resentment and commit to the pitch as an acting job.

So many American plays are about family. When you're in the first part of your life, you write about family a lot. I find with my absurdist plays that I was actually writing about my family, but so disguised I didn't realize it myself.

The first several scenes are about sexual addiction. They're not specifically political at all... I didn't sit down and think, ''I am going to write something about the religious right.'' I started out by writing something about sexual addiction, and it evolved... I don't look at a calendar and say: ''Oh! There's going to be an election in 1996. I think now, in 1993, I'll start writing a play that'll be ready for it.''

My biggest problem with organized religion is that God has been imagined as a human being with emotions. I feel if you let go of that, then it's possible to see God as a force, to connect to him or her spiritually.

I didn't have a teacher like Sister Mary Ignatius.

I grew up wanting to be a writer for theatre.