And Vaster

In their fifteen years together, married actors Michael and Corinne have stood by their decision to focus on their respective careers and each other, and to not have children. When Michael is suddenly confronted with a heretofore unknown seventeen-year-old daughter begotten from a one-night stand, their years of meticulous planning are rendered useless. They must revisit the decision they made long ago and figure out how to assimilate a nearly grown-up child into their kid-free family dynamic, without losing each other in the process.

Playwright Perspective

And Vaster started out as a different play entirely. A play that did not work, no matter what I tried to do to it. But I knew I had something special with the central characters, Michael and Corinne, and their relationship. Almost a whole year after giving up on making that first play work, I found this play in a poem. I discovered the work of Elizabeth Bishop by accident, and found myself reading her poem “One Art” over and over. I’m not drawn to poetry by nature, but it was clear that I had found it for a reason. Somewhere in the lines of that poem, I found And Vaster (its title borrowed from those same lines). I found the real story that Michael and Corinne had to tell, and by this point I knew the characters so well that the entire play poured out of me in less than two weeks, fully formed. I have never had an experience like that as a writer before or since. I probably never will again. It was something not unlike magic. And that’s about as much as I ever hope for when I write.

Who

Where

New York City. Present.