What got you into playwriting?

I actually started out pursuing a career in acting. I was a theatre and English double major in college, so I've always liked writing, but I was like, I want to take over Broadway, I want to be an actor. Then I moved to New York, and a few years into my life there I was like, oh, you know what, I think I'm gonna start writing my own plays to put up with friends, sort of create my own opportunities. So I started doing it just for fun, but then I really enjoyed it and I found myself just getting way more creative fulfillment out of writing. Then I had a play accepted into a festival in New York, and so I put it up with some friends, and it was just such a positive experience that I was like, you know what? I think I'm gonna focus on this more, and I just sort of slowly shifted away from acting and just started putting all my creative energy into writing.

How long would you say you have been writing?

I feel like I started writing in earnest, like considering myself a playwright in 2018.

Okay.

Fast math, however long that is.

Six years?

Six years! Yeah, yeah.

Nice, there we go! I feel like you kind of already answered my next question. Is this the first play of yours that has been produced?

So I've had a few plays that I've self produced. So the first play that I had go up in New York was one of those things where they give you space and they would get an audience for you but I had to direct it, get actors, and do it with friends. I did have a short play of mine go up in a festival that was just a ten minute play, so this will be the first full length play that's gotten a reading with an audience, which is really cool. My first thing in Chicago, too.

The word “akrasia” means “lack of self-control” or “acting against one’s better judgment”-what drew you to this concept of acting against one’s better judgment and how that creates conflicts within the confines of someone actively working to better themselves in therapy?

So there’s a two pronged answer to the two pronged question. I get a lot of my ideas and inspiration from reading New York Times articles honestly.

Really?

Yeah, I was reading an op-ed on the subway about procrastination, and why people procrastinate, and there was a throwaway line that was like, ‘the root of the word procrastination is this word akrasia, the “-crastination” part of procrastination.’ A big part of the article was just about this very human impulse to do things that we know are bad for us in many ways. It could be doing drugs, or overeating, or staying in a bad relationship, so I was like, woah, that's so interesting, so I just sort of filed that away in the back of my mind. I had just started therapy at the time that I was getting into writing and had this idea, and I was just really struck by how in therapy, talking about something (like choices that I was making or relationships or situations that I was in), obviously when I was talking about it with my therapist I was like, yeah of course I should remove myself from the situation, or of course I should take care of myself in this way, but it’s so much harder in action. It’s such an easier said than done thing, so I think that like all of that was percolating in my mind as I started to think about the play, I think that's definitely where the therapy office meet-cute came from.

I love that, that's fascinating. I love hearing about playwrights who are just like, oh you know, I just read a specific line in the New York Times, or I saw something, or I was at this museum exhibition or whatever, and it just planted a seed in there.

Yeah, and you never know when something cool like that is gonna pop up. So sometimes I feel like, oh that would be so great, but I never use it, and then sometimes I'm like, oh that's interesting, and then it becomes the central component of a play. It's just cool how inspiration comes in and goes back out in those ways

You have these two characters, Amy and Jason, who throughout the whole play are continuously knowingly acting against their better judgment. Do you think it's possible for someone to live their entire life without ever doing so?

Oh man. I mean, I’m sure it's possible, but it would just take someone with so much self control, and I think it would take someone with very little ego, because I think that's so much a part of it...when we find ourselves doing these things that we know are bad for us, there’s a sort of egotistical element that's like, well I know it’s bad for me but I’m gonna do it in a way that won't actually be bad for me. So I think that for someone to truly go through their lives like that, that you would almost have to live a sort of monkish existence, where you would've had to have totally let go of your ego, and had a lot of self control...yeah, that’s a good question, I have to keep thinking about that. I mean, I’ll say yes it's possible, but I dont think it’s probable that anyone is doing that.

What do you think or hope people will take away from your play?

I hope it just opens up conversations about consent. I don't want to give away too much about the play in this answer, but I think that especially post the Me Too era-and in the middle of the Me Too era-we were hearing all these horrific stories of assault and abuse on a really big scale with very powerful people like Harvey Weinstein, so I'm interested in inviting people to think about how this may be going on a smaller scale, in people’s day to day life. Because that was a big thing for me with the Me Too movement, I feel like people were like, oh, well...I was having conversations with my friends like, “Oh yeah, well, that stuff happens to me all the time,” and I'd [say] , “Oh my god, you're getting assaulted all the time?” and my friends would [say] “No, it was just a gross dude at the bar,” or, “Oh, it was just a boyfriend not really listening to me,” and I was like, “But those things are still violations.” I guess I'm curious in just inviting these people to think about these issues on a personal level, and then also questioning, you know, these sort of romcom or dating norms. Like, somebody says no, it means they’re flirting with you. So I guess just a general questioning of these systems but on a small, intimate level.

Okay, one more question. What is your favorite play?

Oh my gosh. I think it's The Moors, by Jen Silverman. She's my favorite playwright for sure.