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Getting the writing out, having it make sense and engage, these are particular hazards of the profession. The step that comes thereafter, well.. that’s the dance.

There is no surfeit of names of talent, who have had their work rejected, or thrashed across several desks as being unintelligible.

But Playwrights, as a breed, are driven to persevere, as a play is not finished just because it is written. Without actors to portray characters, and an audience to react to what they see and hear, the work is without witness, and incomplete..

I come from a musical family. At the beginning of their careers, my mother was a singer, and my father was a pianist, who often accompanied her. Music, especially classical and jazz, was a constant in the household.

The music of opera was part of that mix; my mother would sing pieces by Handel, Puccini, Bach.. But my first real concept of what opera was, and how a ‘composer’ crafted such stories to music, came with the title “Aida”, and the name Giuseppe Verdi.

I left America to become a writer, because I did not want to write what America felt my color gave me credentials to speak of: blackness. I wanted more opportunity than that ledge.

..while reading a blog on the BBC News site the other day [Gomp/Arts – Is Britain Best For New Playwrights?], I found myself distracted by several observations missing from the thought..

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Being an artist means being able to pull together the means for paying rent, and balancing the imperative which daily drives my writing.

For keeping my roof, I’m teaching. I have been fortunate enough to turn a love for opera, and a desire to share that enthusiasm, into working for the Washington National Opera Company, in their WNO/DC Public Schools program, as a guest artist in elementary schools, working with students to create a libretto to their own opera. This is my second year.