In Praise of the Kitchen Table Play

Some of my best moments, as an artist, have happened *not* in rehearsal rooms or performance spaces, but at kitchen and dining room tables.

There was the play I wrote at Suzan Zeder's dining room table, when I house-sat for her one semester.

There was the day three friends and I sat around, over dinner on a back porch, reading plays aloud until we found one we felt like we *had* to produce.

There were the Playwright Family Dinners my third year of graduate school, where I solidified what I wanted in a creative community.

There was The Flea's production of The Seven Sicknesses, where we were fed throughout the course of a very long (but wonderful) series of shows.

There was the dining area at Judson Church, where I broke bread with actors on the very long day when we did a very rough draft of a play meant to be performed in a church.

And there was last week, when I invited four smart, talented friends over to read through the earliest, most ragged version of my current draft.

There's something really, really wonderful about the Kitchen Table moments.  They usually happen early, when a playwriting experience or a theatrical experience feels its newest, and somehow both at its most dangerous (anything could happen) and safest (anything could happen).  The people with whom you share the Kitchen Table stage are often your most trusted collaborators, or people you think have the potential to fill that role.  It often feels like things are still up-for-grabs, so there's a willingness to experiment or say the crazy idea out loud.  And it's so powerful to work on something that matters to you with people who matter to you, to say "come over because you trust me, let me feed you, be a part of these early moments."

I want to build more of those moments into my process, to build a sacred space in my house for friends and for work and for good food.  Because I think those moments and conversations keep me fed, and happy, and connected, in a way that few other moments can.  And I don't have to ask anybody's permission for them...I just have to invite people in.