Questions prepared by Artistic Coordinator Jorge J. Rodríguez

JR: How would you describe the evolution of your work at Yale School of Drama? Do you consider that your plays produced at the School fall within one set of concerns—aesthetic, thematic, or otherwise?

DF: I think that my work at Yale varies stylistically – from a sort of poetic storytelling in After the Flood my first year, to straight-up realism in Bibles and Candy my second year, to Good Egg, which alternates realism with more fantastical, theatrical worlds. But I do think that the plays I write combine thorny moral wrestling with a comic sensibility. What does it mean to do good? Where do our good intentions get us? And how is this funny and sad?

JR: How do you begin writing a play? Do you first imagine the characters, the story, or the topic you want to explore? Do you usually go through a similar process whenever writing a new script?

DF: It really varies script to script. Sometimes it's a topic from a newspaper story or something I overhear a friend say. Sometimes it's a personal experience I'm mulling. And how much I know when changes a lot play to play. For example, in Bibles and Candy, I knew the last line of the play before I knew who any of the characters would be. In Good Egg, I had no idea what would happen and kept being surprised by the choices the characters made, although I knew the issues involved early on. One thing I always do, because I'm a big nerd, is a lot of research. I don't think I've ever written anything without first checking out twenty books from the library.

JR: Good Egg alternates between realistic portrayals and imaginary realms. What inspired you to follow this more unconventional structure?

DF: This is the first play I've ever written with this kind of structure, and I think I was drawn to it because it struck me as the best way of telling the story. So much of the fascinating scientific information I came across couldn't be conveyed in a living room, and yet I knew it was integral to the play I wanted to write. I also am a little obsessed about what is shown and what remains invisible onstage. I made a choice in Bibles and Candy about what I left offstage; I think I made equally unusual choices here about what I chose to show.

JR: Throughout the play, Meg finds comfort in the magical world of classic 1950s movie musicals. What aspects of those films did you find particularly evocative in relation to her?

DF: Meg wants to make everything all right. She wants to be able to guarantee happiness—or, at least, ward off unhappiness—and I think 1950s movie musicals are all about being happy. Those films are also tied, for both characters, to their childhoods. Meg and Matt grew up watching these movies as kids. And, I can attest, if you watch movie musicals before you're twelve, before your sense of irony kicks in, they will always contain for you some kind of magic.

JR: Rather than taking sides with Meg's or Matt's opinion on the screening of embryos for disease, the play depicts their discussion in a more dialectical fashion, treating both of their views as equal. In doing this, were you interested in leading audiences truly to consider the issues at hand and arrive at their own conclusions about them rather than imparting some didactic lesson?

DF: Absolutely. Mostly because I don't have a didactic lesson to impart. I haven't figured out the answer to these questions. I have an emotional response and an intellectual response and they are at war with each other, much as Matt and Meg are. I would love it if audiences questioned the beliefs they walked in with, regardless of what those beliefs are, and kept talking about them after the play ends. My greatest hope is that fistfights break out in the lobby.

Read about Dorothy Fortenberry