Theatrical Bio
I was a career academic chemist with an undergraduate degree in Cultural Anthropology. I have been writing plays since 1992 with a play-writing certificate from Loyola University. My play Cold Fusion (women and turmoil in science) was initially read at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. It is now a musical. My works to date are based on historical events, science, and women in science. House of Butterflies (lead poisoning effect on a family) has had two directed readings at Loyola University Chicago and Seattle University. Jessie and the Architect explores what happens when an agoraphobic brilliant teen encounters Mies van der Rohe in purgatory in her public housing high rise kitchen. The 10-minute play Whose Story Is It? explores the ability to experience love.
Artistic Statement
I grew up in the Sonoran Desert on which I am imprinted as outsider never to be embraced by an abundance of foliage. The desert is spare, alien, and endlessly beautiful and fascinating. My writing mirrors, to an extent, that aesthetic. I am driven to write about alien topics while attempting to make them native and understandable. The roiling of a scientific community in the drama Cold Fusion is presented as a rock musical. In the House of Butterflies, the element Lead plays a leading character. In the play, Jessie and the Architect, architectural modernism is examined when a precocious teen in a public housing high rise meets Mies van Der Rohe in purgatory. I anticipate applying this aesthetic to a wide range of other topics. Currently in the rattling around in my psyche is a play on the First Amendment as well as a 10 minute comedy, Turkey Bones.
How I Work
I find that if I can get started, particularly with made-up people, I write rapidly. I need to hear the people in my head. I used to wake up at night with their voices having come to me so I could write them authentically. When I write about historical people, they are flat in their recorded materials, and I have to alter them to bring them to life. Their historical voices aren’t necessarily speaking the way they should to the other people in the play. Characters still come to me but they “talk” in the twilight before sleep rather than in the middle of the night.