Playwriting has brought out the best in me throughout my life and it soothes all the worries that rise up in my soul. I aim to do the same for others because I believe there is good out there that is worth fighting for. Linear time is not a construct, it is a predator, and I use my precious fleeting years to nurture hope in my audience. 

 

My work is the opposite of Nihilism and I write with a desire to bring out the best in my fellow citizens. My theater-making is also uniquely, and proudly, American. I was born in the Midwest in 1981, split between inner-city Columbus, Ohio and rural Appalachian Louisa, Kentucky. I consider myself blessed to have lived, and still strive to live, a robust life. One of adventure. I do not believe existence is a burden, nor that adults should be in a constant state of being taken care of by some authority figure. I argue humanity is at its best when it relishes the responsibility of autonomy over our own lives, making choices, and living with the consequences, good, bad, or tragic. At the forefront of all of my work, at my very core, is optimism in the face of profound, even pervasive, individual tragedy. In some ways I write specifically for the shut-in, or the person fearful of the world, or angry at it. I write for broken people, as most of us are. 

 

And from the whole person I ask patronage.

 

My writing strives to articulate the shared definition of objective good. I humbly reject subjectivism, didactic rage-baiting, echo-chambering, and the zealotry of both politics and religion. I use my theater to dissect and criticize anyone who drinks from the elixir of righteous certainty and the dopamine rush that accompanies it. My writing will pick a fight with the Pentecostal fundamentalist, the racially essentialist communist, and the ideologically captured fascist all the same. It is a privilege to age and observe the ebb and flow of socio-political change and the subsequent bemusement as so many discard long-standing truths for platitudes. I often wonder about the character of the person reading these statements. I'm not really writing a mission statement, I'm monologuing. But I don't want to talk at you, I want to talk with you, eager to learn who you are and what my words bring out in you. Being a playwright is my defining characteristic, and as I conclude I promise you my words are in good faith. Thank you.