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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writing/making of plays is a horror show and a joy. I owe a great deal more than is compassed here.

My deep deep thanks, first of all, to the directors, creative teams, casts, and crews of all of these shows.

Profound thanks to Roger Rees, for initiating the leapFROG program under which I Have Loved Strangers was written, for some very important words of encouragement, and for an off-the-cuff witticism which became a major plot point. Thanks also to director Johanna McKeon for, well, lots, but also for an important nature walk, and to Amanda Charlton for finding me a lake house to complete the play and for teaching me how to make slow-cooked scrambled eggs deep in the night after the final performance at Williamstown during a thunderstorm.

Great thanks to Erik Ehn, whose silent playwriting technologies have been an inspiration and cornerstone of the last almost-decade of my writing life; the first draft of The Small came from the very first silent playwriting retreat at the delightful NACL, run by Tannis Kowalchuk and Brad Krumholz.

Mr. Burns was a bear to make and requires a whole separate passel of thanks, the most enormous of which go to both Steve Cosson and Michael Friedman. Thanks to Miriam Weisfeld, Adam Greenfield, and Rupert Goold, for some very fruitful notes, and to Robert Icke, whose thoughts while working on the Almeida production took the play to its very final form. I want to especially thank Howard Shalwitz of Woolly Mammoth, who cottoned on to the first ragged draft of the play and rather boldly determined not only to produce it but also to develop it along with Seattle Repertory Theatre. Deep thanks to Jerry Manning and Tim Sanford. Special thanks to Carey Perloff, and thanks much to Jeremy Wechsler who let me sit in on his great production in Chicago.

And I very especially want to thank the original group of Civilians’ actors who worked on the first stirrings of this play, and after whom the characters are named. To the Seattle actors who helped us workshop the play, as well as the first full cast in D.C., who were very brave and bold and great under a slew of revisions. And the New York cast who put up with a lot in that department as well, with verve. And everyone who has tackled the play since—it is not an easy show to make and the willingness and invention which so many have brought to it have been unspeakably moving.

Thank you Jon Vitti!

Special thanks to Mark Rucker.

Two of these plays were produced in Clubbed Thumb’s crucial Summerworks. A real debt of enthusiastic gratitude to Maria Striar for producing both plays as well as so many other great shows which have been ongoing sources of pleasure and inspiration and juice thoughout the years.

Soho Rep. has everything to do with how and why I have been able to make theater in New York. A very deep thanks to Sarah Benson and Daniel Aukin—and for the very great pleasure of working on 10 Out of 12. Additional thanks to Meropi Peponides and Cynthia Flowers as well as to director Les Waters, the cast, and the creative team—no play is easy to make, but this play was an unusual challenge to which everyone involved rose gloriously! Extra special thanks to Bray Poor and Sam Kusnetz for sound design ultra-heroics, and to Amanda Spooner for stage management ultra-heroics.

Very large thanks to Val Day for years of support and encouragement.

For inspiration, assistance, conspiracies and collaboration, special thanks to:

Craig Clinton, Anne de Mare, Emily DeVoti, Bret Fetzer, Ana and Nicolae Golici, Madeleine George, Rob Handel, Anne Kauffman, Todd London, Matt Maher, Johanna McKeon, Michelle Memran, New Dramatists, Ken Rus Schmoll, Jenny Schwartz, Maria Striar, Mark Subias, Les Waters, Barb Wiechmann, Mac Wellman, Gary Winter.

As well as to my family for their ongoing, and at times, improbable enthusiasm for my weird profession.

And, always, to Gordon Dahlquist.

A fond fond good-bye to the late and lamented Ohio Theatre, and to Walker Space.