This is my first time really participating in a quote unquote awards season, which, for those playing along at home, means a lot of interviews and the public eating of salads at luncheons. I have a lot of thoughts but the one at the forefront: it's funny, and weird, that theater people -- who I would call the KINDEST, MOST VULNERABLE, AND ALSO FUNNIEST, AND WEIRDEST OF PEOPLE -- get put in this March Madness type situation in which, for six weeks or so, we're pitted against each other -- because truly, we are family. I messaged playwright Kris Diaz, bookwriter of Hell's Kitchen, who I was in a writer's group with, what, 15 years ago? to congratulation him on his nomination, and he responded OOHRAH! which is the name of my play that I developed in that group, that got me my off-broadway debut, back in in 2009. (Favorite scene is above picture, PLEASE NOTE THE RANCH DRESSING.) Kris and I -- and so many of the other nominees -- have been at this together, for years. We remember each other as proverbial children, finding our feet. Not just writers, but actors, literary managers, dramaturgs, producers, we are truly all in it together, hoping to reach people with the stories that feel special and profound to us. We have been, and we will be. So there is this weird chunk of time, the Mays of each year, where our work competes, but honestly, we're all at the table, elbows placed, holding each other's hands, ready to arm wrestle, and somebody starts laughing because we theater people and we have no upper body strength and someone else says, remember how we used to have to literally walk up onstage at Rattlestick to pee because that was the only bathroom and someone else says, we are old, and someone else says, should we all just go get a drink? And we do.
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