The great risk is always saying, "how will I communicate what I'm trying to get across to a room full of strangers sitting in the dark watching a stage?"

1975 is as much a historical document as 1803.

Does any art have a practical value? People love to talk about how expensive a painting is. That's the only way we can talk about paintings in this century.

I am the same artist with the same nagging questions I had in my early 20's. What's real and what isn't? How do we tell what's real in our lives? How do we see things as they are? What is my role in life? If the Signature hadn't forced the issue by devoting its season to my plays, I could at least believe I had changed. Really, they're all the same! What is SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION but THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES with money?

Eugene O'Neil created an American theater, and Tennessee Williams taught it how to sing.

Every play is so important. It's a record of what life was like at the time you wrote that play or that book.

I think a playwright must be his own dramaturg. I believe in a theater where the director and the playwright work together to create what they need.