If you lead with the anger, it will turn off the audience. And what I want is the audience to engage with the material and to listen and then to ask questions. I think that 'Ruined' was very successful at doing that.

African American women in particular have incredible buying power. Statistically, we go to the movies more than anyone. We have made Tyler Perrys career. His films open with $25 million almost consistently.

When the play is still evolving I try to be at rehearsal as often as possible, and part of that casting process. You find new things when the language is living in different people's mouths.

If you lead with the anger, it will turn off the audience. And what I want is the audience to engage with the material and to listen and then to ask questions. I think that 'Ruined' was very successful at doing that.

Each play I write has its own unique origin story.

I see the audience as the final collaborator. I think it's kind of bullshit when people say, "I'm not interested in the audience reaction." I'm like, "Then why do you do theater? You can write a book, then you don't have to see how the audience reacts." It's a living, breathing thing.

Hopefully this is going to be a trend, the beginning of a movement to reclaim theater for the artist and not commerce. I think there's a level of fatigue. Artists are tired of having to create work that's then coopted by commercial demands. When you begin souping up the car, the car no longer feels like your own.