My playwright buddy Sam Hunter has just been awarded a Macarthur Genius grant, which is a generous and life-changing gift of $625,000 to support further work on his plays. I HAVE A LOT OF CONFLICTING FEELINGS WHICH I WILL LEAVE BELOW.
1.) JOY. Sam IS a genius. He really is. Not to mention a very kind, grounded, and thoughtful and humble person. He deserves this.
2.) ENVY. Sam grew up in a christian, conversative home in Idaho, and he writes frequently about people of faith with deep questioning but also deep love. I love his plays, but reading and seeing them always makes me turn inward. Makes me mad at myself. I wish I had the intelligence and emotional maturity to explore faith in a plays in a real way, which I’ve been trying and trying to do, with so far, not much success. He nails the thing I so badly wish I could do.
3.) ANGER. In an LAtimes article about the award, this quote: “…A bumper crop of talented American playwrights more interested in artistic expression than commercial validation is being recognized with the most prestigious awards and lucrative fellowships available. Yes, that’s right, playwrights, not screenwriters-in-the-making, not stage dabblers until HBO comes a-calling, but dramatists through and through.”
WHEN ARE PLAYWRIGHTS GOING TO STOP GETTING SHAMED FOR ALSO WRITING TV? The playwrights that are lauded as noble for maintaining their artistic integrity and not selling out are most likely the ones who are currently having so much success as a playwright, that they don’t have the financial need to pursue a career in TV or film. I had three years of living just off commissions, fellowships, and royalties, but the money ran out. I tried teaching and I was not good at it. Was I supposed to turn down an opportunity to get paid to write in a different medium just so that I might not be able to pay my rent, my debt, but also express myself? Maintain my ‘integrity?’ I’m still writing plays, but also not worrying about where my rent is going to come from. Is that terrible? Is TV so terrible? Currently, isn’t so much of it interesting, character driven, truthful and relevant? LATIMES, WOULD YOU LIKE TO PAY MY STUDENT LOANS? NO? OKAY.
FEELINGS OUT.