Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.

Young people have got to start their own theaters, really. All good theater is a kind of mom-and-pop operation. Start your own theater.

Technology promises to let us do anything from anywhere with anyone. But it also drains us as we try to do everything everywhere. In a surprising twist, relentless connection leads to a new solitude.

I've had wonderful collaborators. They're very different, just as actors are. Working on a show with Nathan Lane is different from working on a show with Chita Rivera. It keeps you on your toes because it's different every time.

I'm of the school 'Write what you know.' You can educate yourself, but the best writing usually comes from the heart.

There are so many rules about play writing. I'd have a nervous breakdown if I followed them.

I don't think I've ever written anything even remotely naturalistic. The closest probably would be seen as 'Frankie and Johnny,' and that's only 'cause they eat a sandwich and make an omelet in act two. But it's a romantic fairy tale, and I'm very aware of that. I don't think it helps the actors in my plays to lose themselves in the reality of talking to another person. A good McNally actor always knows he's in a play with an audience.