1715

A playwright workshop in New London.

CASEY: Yeah I don't care about that.

MILLER: Tell me something else I don't already know.

CASEY: We don't need more negative noodling.

CHURCHILL: God how much energy it takes
Just to say one thing with all these nudniks
Breathing and complaining. But I am alive!

OVID: Big deal, alive.

(RIDING): Big deal, alive.

CHURCHILL: And yet, I'm half aware that these voices
At this table are all my own voice, all my own wish
To be held back from some imminent disaster...

BOWLES: Morning feelings, the warmth of sheets
With an angry woman not yet conscious next to you --

BARNES: Why do these children write poems
About their grandparents? Why are they not
Stealing diamonds on horseback? But the beer drinkers
Seem to be the ones who attract crowds.

WEINSTEIN: The problem, if it is a problem,
Is that as Frank said, you can't really send a message,
Or maybe it was Sam Goldwyn. No, he was
"Writers are schmucks with Underwoods."

THOMAS: I spilled a glass on my writing table
And wrote Under Milk Wood.

ELIOT: I spooked myself with my poems
And turned to counterfeiting Nick and Nora
For the conflicted Unitarian set.

ELECTRA: The only song anyone wants to hear
Is the one sung out of impossible love.

DARNIELLE: The death instinct feels pretty good,
Apparently. As does everything nearly feral.

CASEY: And you bring in too many characters!

MILLER: Too many characters.

CHURCHILL: I bring in my feelings of escape
And release, of lifting my head and speaking up.