I write my plays to create an excuse for full-tilt acting and performing.

I provide the bricks and mortar with the words and situations - the director and the actors and the designers build the house.

If all I ever wrote about was inner city freaks, I think it would be dishonest.

For a long time, my shows were about people walking out or about getting my gigs canceled or having the presenter not wanting to pay me.

I do write about people who are complex and are striving with something and can't quite get past their own stuff, which would be a proxy for myself because that's what the deal is with me.

If you say city to people, people have no problem thinking of the city as rife with problematic, screwed-up people, but if you say suburbs - and I'm not the first person to say this, it's been said over and over again in literature - there's a sense of normalcy.

It's a mental fake-out to myself. I make believe I'm making a new show so I forget the material I was working on and make up some fresh material.