Event Info
The Dreamer Examines His Pillow:
FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
In the third scene of this play, Dad says, “The individ...
8:00pm Doors at: 7:00pm
$18
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Event Description
FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
In the third scene of this play, Dad says, “The individual life is a dream.” For me personally, this is a most moving idea. It frees me from my fear of death. It puts my ego where it belongs, in a place of secondary importance. It binds me to the human race, and binds the race itself to the atoms in the stars.
Who am I? This is a courageous question. As a writer and as a man I am involved in one central struggle- to discover and accept who I am. I believe all fear has its roots in denial. I have, at one time or another, denied everything. Every fact of my specific self. My parents, my Bronx origin, my Americanness, my Irishness, my appetites, my mortality, my need for love and acceptance, my jealousy, my violence, my anger.
I am not a courageous person by nature. I have simply discovered that, at certain key moments in this life, you must find courage in yourself, in order to move forward and live. It is like a muscle and it must be exercised, first a little, and then more and more. All the really exciting things possible during the course of a lifetime require a little more courage than we currently have. A deep breath and a leap.
Writing is acting is directing is living your life. I have told you the things I have just told you so that you know something of my approach to playwriting. I see no difference between writing a play and living my life. The same things that make a moment in my life succeed, combust, move, these same things make a moment in my playwriting have life. And when I move in my writing, I have moved in my life. There is no illusion. It is all the same thing.
Acting is the same as playwriting – John Patrick Shanley