THE NOTEBOOK

Every play I’ve finished has refused to stay finished.

Where rehearsal keeps going.

Four hand-drawn panels: an empty stage, one chair, two chairs, and a ghost light.

The Notebook is where I follow the discoveries that arrive after the first draft—sometimes in the room, sometimes in conversation, and sometimes years after a production has closed.

A room. A line of dialogue. A whiteboard. A Post-it note. A box someone forgot to throw away. Small things have a habit of opening larger questions about playwriting, performance, memory, institutions, comedy, and the often invisible structures that shape how people think, speak, and behave.

No Notebook entry tries to explain a play completely. Theatre has always been a collaboration, and that collaboration doesn’t end on opening night. It continues in rehearsal, in conversation, and in the moments when a play becomes larger than the script that started it.

The best plans are temporary hypotheses.

FEATURED

When Bad Taste Has Rhythm

A reference can expire. The rhythm underneath it—and the nerve that put it there—may survive.

An early title page for The Buttcracker Suite, originally numbered Slay Ride VII.

Counting Jokes

Bert counted every three lines. I counted across three acts. For thirty years, both clocks ran at once.

Two Kinds of Trust

One kind of creative trust was discovered. The other was constructed.

FIVE NEW REFLECTIONS

New in the Notebook

Bronze see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, and hear-no-evil monkeys on a waiting-room bench, with fireworks beyond the window.

Looking Away Is an Action

A refusal becomes dramatic when the audience knows what could have been done.

A closed blue umbrella beside a rain-streaked glass door, with three indistinct reflections.

The Same Evidence

Three people, one blue umbrella, and no privileged explanation.

Ninety-two dollars on a pawnshop counter beside a ninety-five-dollar pawn ticket and an open receipt book.

Three Dollars Short

A small, exact errand opens a much larger reckoning.

A yellow legal pad with a carefully phrased statement and the word wet crossed out, beside an insurance folder on a kitchen table.

A Consistent Story

When helping someone explain becomes taking control of what they say.

Two adjoining empty rooms: a pawnshop counter with a receipt book and a kitchen table with a legal pad.

Two Plays, One Unfinished Conversation

The second play changes how we remember the first.

Cartoons

Browse four cartoon samples

Audience, Absence & Meaning

Rooms, Objects & Memory

Discovering Plays

Comedy & Form

Building Plays

Institutions & Invisible Systems

Some conversations begin with a play.
Others begin here.

A small hand-drawn cartoon from the sample collection

Explore cartoon samples WELCOME TO THE NOTEBOOK.