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(Lynn) My first audience was my parents and their friends. As a child, I’d compose short plays, performed by myself and my brother, which we presented at my parents’ dinner parties. The adults were very polite and tolerant, and showered us with adulation. It is then that I became addicted to applause and being in dialogue with an audience. That said, I began my professional career as a writer when I won a short play competition at the Actors’ Theater of Louisville. It was my first dose of validation, which ultimately became the fuel I needed to quit my full-time job and invest in writing.
Winning the Pulitzer for the first time was unexpected and a wonderful surprise. It was also strangely disorienting, as it thrust me into the spotlight. Suddenly, new golden opportunities emerged, including speaking engagements and a kind of visibility I hadn’t yet experienced. As a shy person, I had to cultivate a public persona. The prize also exposed my work to a broader audience and made people sit up and pay attention to me as a storyteller.
Adapting Ruby’s play into the opera, THIS HOUSE, was a delightful and bonding experience for both of us. In the process, we discovered that we had different skills that uniquely complemented each other. Ruby is a poet with a genuine gift for language and the ability to conjure beautiful metaphors. From years of playwriting, I understand structure and how to craft characters. We were able to strike a lovely working balance, tackling different aspects of the opera, allowing each other creative freedom, and then collectively finding a way to stitch everything together in a seamless way. We also had a glorious collaboration with composer Ricky Ian Gordon, who embraced both of our voices and further synthesized them in the opera.
The close-knit, nurturing dynamic of the New York theater community is home. It has been a communal space for us, lively and ever evolving, with one goal, which is to find new ways to share stories.
It is the story of a brownstone in Sugar Hill, Harlem, and Zoe, who returns to her neglected childhood home, which is still occupied by her brother Lindon, who’s a painter, and her mother, Ida. Now, married and pregnant, Zoe and her husband are trying to decide whether to move back into the old house, which is haunted by the memories of three generations of her ancestors, who embody the house. However, Ida’s mother and brother still cling to the past and find themselves locked in an emotional conversation with the house and ancestors that feel more alive to them than the world outside, which is rapidly being gentrified.It is our dream to bring This House to New York. The piece is set in Harlem, so it feels appropriate for it to be produced here.