You can't be a sort of pioneer.

1975 is as much a historical document as 1803.

I think that some of these plays are lost in this new horror called development, which is a place for dramaturgs to say "let me tell you what your play means," and the life gets sucked out of a play.

I'm an American playwright. Tennessee Williams got in all our DNA.

Everyone talks about America, this great country. You hear, "I'm more patriotic than you are. No, I'm more patriotic!" But how few people know the history of this country and how we came into being. That's the part that just amazed me.

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.