ABSTRACT
To be a writer means you have a space you keep sacred for your work. I know one playwright who works at a small corner of her dining room, at a desk facing the Hudson River, index cards neatly printed, taped to the window above. I know another who writes only in the office at the university where he teaches. The room is windowless, but plastered with circus posters and funky signs proclaiming “Eat at Joe’s, the best barbecue in Texas.” Usually some country music is playing behind the closed doors (open only during office hours). The place is a mess, papers and books strewn everywhere, stale cigars in ashtrays. How does he find anything in there? He is a brilliant playwright, always experimental and unique, always working, and who has a huge following. But don’t dare disturb anything on his desk, because he knows where everything is. Another playwright I know lives with his partner, also a dramatic writer, in a house they designed in upstate New York. There are two writer’s rooms, built and furnished like identical twins, on either side of the second floor. They are mirror images. Everything is sleek and shiny. Every piece of paper is out of 14sight, hidden in some wonderful pull out drawer in the recesses of the wall. The place is seamless. It looks as though no one works here — but they do. Both playwrights are always juggling three or four projects — planning, rewriting, editing. They are serious and their output is prodigious. They simply value and need order. This workplace works for them. They could not accomplish what they do amid the chaos of the described university office. Another playwriting colleague works in a warehouse loft. There is only one thing hanging on his wall — a painting of an old Royal typewriter. Oh what I would do to own that painting—or maybe I wouldn’t. It is a very large typewriter, after all, and there is something demanding about its imposing image. Maybe I wouldn’t want that much guilt staring at me all day.
