I once saw a tweet (I don’t remember from whom – if you are the writer, let me know and I’ll credit you!) that said something like: “The dirty little secret of most MFA programs is that they prepare you for a successful career in the 1960s.” It stayed with me due to its middle portion, “most MFA programs prepare you for a successful career” (regardless of which decade said career would happen in), because it’s undeniable that my MFA program prepared me for nothing but success: Plan A was to Make It™, and there was no plan B.
Before my former professors stand up and start yelling: yes, I was warned several times that the number of students who would graduate with agents, or having already sold any work, would be infinitesimal. “It’s not gonna happen to you,” was the lesson from most conversations about the industry—or rather, “It’s not gonna happen to you right away.” Of course, they couldn’t just say that we wouldn’t be successful at all (though most of us wouldn’t be), because otherwise what the fuck were we doing in that classroom? Instead, we were told not to think of ourselves as wunderkinder and prepare for the long game.
What we were not told, though, was HOW to prepare for the long game. What were we supposed to do before Making It? How would we pay our bills? How would we maintain a sustainable artistic practice while feeding ourselves? How would we seek out funding, support, collaborators, community? How would we not lose our fucking shit while we waited for our dreams to come true? Success was the only path, but we were apparently supposed to wait for it like it was the next subway on one of those days when the MTA decides commuting is just not the vibe: praying, crying, and hoping against hope.
This is not, by the way, how I saw things while I was in my MFA. I completely ignored all the advice I got and, pretty much from day one, thought of myself as a wunderkind—the teachers’ words were for the losers in the room. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: I am an arrogant mofo. And, sure! But also consider that by that time, ignoring naysayers had become a survival skill; I had been told I would never secure a spot in the program, or receive a full scholarship, or find an on-campus job that would pay my bills, and I had done all those things in spite of those who sought (often with good intentions) to discourage me. I had moved thousands of miles and carved a space for myself in this country by sheer force of will—so why would I start listening to the “no you can’t” people now?
Plus God, because He likes testing me, initially allowed me to believe my delusions were correct. The career experience that broke me, in fact, started out on a great foot: my play Machine Learning got into The Lark’s 2017 Playwrights Week, to this day one of the best festivals I’ve been a part of in my playwriting journey. I’ve talked about it before, so I’ll skip through that lovely experience, but the reason I say my trial by fire started there is that a) I had such a good time at PWeek that it set me up to believe all my experiences in theater would be as nice (lol) and b) the amazing Nissy Aya, who championed my play at The Lark, went on to champion it at another theater, which we’ll call Tony-Winning Off-Broadway Theater (TWOBT) — and that’s where our story begins.
The folks at TWOBT listened to Nissy, and their Associate Artistic Director (AAD) eventually sent me the following email in January 2018:
Just writing to let you know how much I admired MACHINE LEARNING. It’s quite a terrific piece, so fresh and emotional, and beautifully told. Really admired the way it told the father/son story without angst, but with great truth. And the academic context for it was quite believable in its intricacy, but done with a light touch.
Would be happy to meet you sometime, if that’s ever convenient.
It was the first time someone from a theater ever reached out to me, so of course I shat my pants and was like “yes please let’s meet ASAP.” In my mind, I couldn’t help but jump ahead and think “okay this is it—Machine Learning just had a great reading at The Lark, it’s ready to go, these people are gonna pick it up and do it, it’s all happening, fuck you losers I’m going straight to the top!!!!”
(Cue laugh track)
(Also “straight to the top” of… Off-Broadway theater? I guess in this fantasy, the play transferred to Broadway, where a TV exec saw it and greenlit my own TV show, which got all the Emmys, which then meant my screenplay was produced and got all the Oscars, and I was rich forever and did whatever I wanted. All based on one email.)
What didn’t help matters (“matters” being me not calming the fuck down) was that the AAD and I did meet for coffee, which was lovely. We discussed possibly putting the play in one of their festivals, and threw a couple of names around for actors; they were interested in bringing in an A-lister, and who was I to say no? In March, I received the following email (abridged for expediency):
So here’s the news on MACHINE LEARNING.
With [Big Stage and Screen Actor (BSSA)], we have two options: 1) see if he’d do a reading to see if it's a mutual fit; or 2) offer the play to him, in which case if he wants to do it, we would be able to produce it (yes that’s star power for you). The agent says the latter approach is more likely to work, as BSSA doesn’t love readings. But I don't know if you feel comfortable with hiring him without hearing him first. Could you let me know?
If [Artistic Director (AD)] were free next year, the slot in our season would be one that AD is to direct. He’s looking at a number of plays, including this one, and would be excited to do this with BSSA, if it worked out.
Put yourself in my shoes: I’m nine months out of grad school, living in this country for less than three years, and this guy is telling me that the artistic director of an Off-Broadway theater that has won a motherfucking Tony (which, granted I hadn’t heard of before moving to America except for a brief mention in High School Musical) wants to direct MY play and cast it with an actor that is famous enough that I had heard of him before moving to America? How could I not lose my shit?
I thought I was done struggling before I even started. It was only a matter of months, maybe a year, and I’d be writing full-time, for multiple mediums. I kept telling people about it, including my former professors, with an air of false humble excitement, a “can’t believe this is happening to me” speech that masked my true feelings, which were that I always knew I was one of the Special People. I remember my boss at work, a seasoned theater producer, telling me “don’t put all your eggs in this basket—theaters will often show interest in a play and then take a long time to produce it, if at all,” to which I nodded along like I totally heard her while internally thinking SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
And then.
We did a reading with BSSA in April. I got notes. I worked on them.
The new season announcement came and went, and Machine Learning was not in it—we were gonna “develop the show” throughout the season instead.
I turned in a new draft in October. I got notes. I worked on them.
I turned in a new draft in February (for those of you keeping track, it’s 2019 already, a year after this whole thing started). I got notes. I worked on them.
Another season announcement came and went—Machine Learning was not in it.
At this point, I was getting frustrated, especially since I was not getting paid for these rewrites. I asked if they could commission me—they couldn’t. I said that, in that case, I’d stop working on the script for them, and would only do rewrites if external opportunities came around, other readings or festivals that would pay me and that I could use as an excuse to rewrite. Machine Learning was gaining a lot of attention, so that ended up being the case.
I turned in a new draft in August. I got notes. I worked on them.
I turned in a new draft in January (for those of you keeping track, it’s 2020 now). A pandemic hit.
We did a Zoom reading in July with BSSA. I never got notes from that one.
Without either party really saying it, something had died—or, to use the word from the title of this article, something broke. Perhaps the play just wasn’t exciting for them anymore; perhaps BSSA couldn’t commit, and the idea of looking for a different actor felt too onerous. Perhaps they simply had other things to do, and tomorrow they’ll be like “Hey, what happened to Machine Learning?” and hit me up about it. But for me, the idea that TWOBT would produce the play became a fiction, and what broke in me was my ability to believe that fiction.
I’m not saying they never intended to produce it, or that they never will. I’m saying that for 2+ years I labored under the impression that if I rewrote the play just right, it’d be greenlit, and I now see how wrong that assumption was. The script was probably the least of it; BSSA’s availability, the complicated math of programming seasons, the allocation of resources, the pandemic—all of these things played a role, and yet I felt like I was the only one keeping me from my dreams. I still remember walking away from the meeting in which I told them I wouldn’t do any more rewrites for free shaking, wondering if I had made a huge mistake, if I had pissed away my chance to Make It by taking a stand like a spoiled little boy.
That stand, in fact, proved to be a decisive moment in my career. Not only I didn’t piss it away, I learned a valuable lesson: I had to advocate for myself, because it was no one else’s job to do it. My MFA often practiced a “the industry is gonna treat you like shit, so we’re gonna treat you like shit as well so you can get used to it” mentality, and did not teach us to protect ourselves from situations like these. I now tell my own students all the time: when you’re starting out, you are your own agent, lawyer, press rep, etcetera. Not that you can’t ask for help (in fact you should, and I owe a lot of my modest success to those who extended a hand), but you can’t expect anyone to do things for you, to step in when things are going wrong. You have to step in.
After that meeting where I made my case, I became a lot better at setting boundaries, turning down work that wouldn’t pay me or my collaborators, asking for what I needed – and not being afraid that an opportunity was gonna disappear just because I asked. With a few exceptions, no single thing is the reason an artist “makes it” (and that is a murky concept in and of itself, but in this case let’s consider “making it” as “being able to live off of one’s art”). It’s usually a succession of smaller things that build on each other, and each of them has to work for you. It was another lesson from school, “say yes to everything,” that I had to actively unlearn so that I could regain some sanity and not carry so much resentment around. There are some things I needed to say no to, because I kinda still wanna love writing? It’s important not to hate the thing you work on, and to not hate theater is already quite the challenge…
And by the way, I get that this could sound like I’m saying that the folks at TWOBT are evil assholes, which could not be further from the truth! When they heard I needed help with my visa, they actively offered to sign whatever piece of paper would help me stay, and ended up playing a key role in my petition not once but twice. I became involved with their education program, where I teach to this day, which has been an absolute joy (and very well compensated!). Last year, they did an amazing workshop of another one of my plays, which was transformative for that project. We’ve done really good things together, and I’m excited to keep working with them.
In some ways, I am grateful for what happened. Sure, it engendered disappointment, resentment, and trust issues, but that fades with time (and therapy, and twelve-step work). What remains are some of the most important lessons I’ve learned: To take power back from others and put myself in the driver’s seat of my career. That my idea of success cannot be defined by the industry, but by how much I enjoy what I do and how sustainable my practice is. That people are so much more important than institutions, that I rather make a friend than a “contact,” that something feeling right in my gut trumps whatever splashy person or press or venue is attached to a project.
As for Machine Learning? It kept winning awards and being presented at festivals all over the country, and I eventually realized if I did one more pass of it I was a) going to ruin it and b) shoot myself. In some ways, its lack of production came to feel like a cosmic joke of sorts – Samuel French was ready to publish it, and it STILL would not get produced.
And then.
A seed that had been planted by my friend and frequent Machine Learning collaborator Gabriel Vega Weissman years ago finally bloomed (again: ask for help! Just don’t put all your eggs in one basket). Earlier this year, a theater he had sent the play to, Central Square, invited us up to Boston to present it at the MIT Museum, and a few weeks later, I got an email from them: the play has been programmed for their 2023-24 season and it’ll run (knock on wood—seriously, knock on it) January 25th through February 25th.
I thought I’d be too jaded to enjoy this moment, but… I’m not! I’m very excited. I get to work with the team I want, at a theater that’s very excited about the play, and with the support of one of this country’s most respected scientific institutions. This is a dream come true. It took longer than I expected, but it arrived when I was ready for it.
I often think that if this play had been produced back in 2018, it would probably not have been mine. I would’ve let other people take it from me and do what they thought best with it. Now, I’m a much more effective collaborator; I know how to fight for what I believe in while letting everyone else do their job. As I often say, “I’m bringing in the blueprint, but the rest of the team is building the house.” There was a time in which I would’ve let that blueprint be completely redrawn. Now, after being broken and becoming whole again, I’m confident about what I bring to the table.
I’ve given up on holding my happiness hostage to whether the outside world changes. This essay is not meant to be a call for the industry to change the way they deal with playwrights (though that’d be nice). It’s not even a callout of my MFA program, which in spite of its shortcomings, was kind enough to award me a full scholarship, introduce me to some really great people, and remains the reason I was able to move to this country. Do I wish they’d been better about building a bridge between school and the real world? Sure! But I’m still deeply grateful for what they gave me.
Instead, let this essay be a defensive driving lesson. I can’t control what others are doing on the road. If anything, I can try to find some sympathy for the fact that most of the drivers, even when they cut me off or bump the side of my car, are doing their best. My job is to watch out for myself, so I can get to my destination. And, having gotten here (mostly) safe and sound, I can say: it feels pretty awesome.
My Fantasy 2023-24 Season
It’s that time of year again! Sadly, the plays I programmed for my fantasy season last year remain unproduced (I think), but I’ll give this another shot—and for variety’s sake, I split this between world premieres and New York premieres (my fantasy theater is in New York, you see).
New York premieres:
Eliana Pipes’ DREAM HOU$E: when this gem got a rolling world premiere at The Alliance, Long Wharf, and Center Stage, I thought I could finally shut up about it, because of course New York ADs were gonna scoop it up, right? Wrong. People are stupid and this play still has not gotten the Off-Broadway premiere (or the Broadway transfer) it deserves. It has something for everyone: home renovation reality shows, gentrification, Latinidad, good jokes, guilt that’s not just for white audience members… program now!
Kimberly Belflower’s John Proctor Is The Villain: I saw this beauty at Studio Theatre and it felt like watching a Taylor Swift fanfic Tumblr retelling Arthur Miller’s The Crucible on stage. Belflower captures a specific type of internet lingo with precision and marries it to a grounded academic study of an American classic, all the while keeping you entertained and providing a new interpretation of Lorde’s Green Light that low-key blew my mind (and also made me listen to it on repeat for days after).
Chiara Atik’s Poor Clare: this play was presented at the 2020 New Works Now festival alongside Machine Learning up in Northern Stage, and I have not stopped thinking about it since. It takes the language of social justice and applies it to the medieval life of St Clare of Assisi, a noblewoman who gave it all up to live in poverty like her more famous friend, St Francis. The language is hilarious, but the lessons cut deep, and I still use its closing monologue in one of my writing classes, because it will haunt you once you’ve heard it.
World premieres:
Nikki Massoud’s CUT: A Blasphemy: this reinterpretation of the biblical story of Samson and Delilah is a stunning, horny playwriting debut by one of my dear Purple House (and now life) friends. In a recent talkback for a presentation of the play, Massoud talked about how, as an actress, she has internalized language in her body, which informs the way she writes—and you can definitely sense that in CUT, which lives up to its title in visceral scenes that will turn you on, terrify you, and leave a knot in your throat all at once.
Jesse Jae Hoon’ Somebody Is Looking Back At Me: this year, I decided to take my job as Marketing Manager of The Playwrights Realm seriously and read the plays that’ll go up on our INK’D Festival before they are performed (time for a raise?) Jae Hoon’s script made me feel all kinds of uncomfortable while exploring the concept of “elite capture” as exemplified by a group of Asian American friends who fight AAPI hate by… gentrifying a neighborhood? If you’re in New York, you can watch it next week (and maybe catch a glimpse of yours truly in the audience)!
This was a masterpiece. I'm so happy to meet you (even if that happened in a different life haha) Arrasou ❤️