Playwright

I wrote three musicals during and just after my undergraduate years at James Madison University.  ("Shoptalk," "Waiting," "All's Fair.") I took some Shakespeare and a playwriting class, and my theatre friends offered to direct my shows. It was great, and it was painful. It turns out writing a play and letting someone else put it on stage is about as naked and vulnerable as I can handle, and at age 20 it was a whole lot more than I could handle. 

I wrote musicals because I was clueless about writing actual drama. My first play, "Shoptalk," was basically a situation comedy populated by my very fun and funny theatre friends. It was well liked because no one expected it to be any good at all. I learned so much, and we all stayed friends and had a blast. I can't say the same for the rest of my plays. The plays got better, but the process got worse. 

I'm an oddity among my playwriting friends because my first experience (three times) was writing a play and then seeing it produced, and I know how disappointing and heartbreaking it can be. But also, yeah, good. 

The thing that stuck with me was this. At the post-mortem evaluation thingie they used to do, one of my professors intoned: "Sarah Motes needs to write a play where there are two people in a room that they cannot get out of." (Professor Tom King, James Madison University, 1983). I kinda thought he was right but it sounded impossible. But Tom's challenge has reverberated down the years, and I started writing in 2021 on that theme.

I wrote 7 or 8 one-act plays on that theme but the characters kept getting out of the room. Of the ones who stayed in, one turned into a two-act play ("Tape") that is approaching "full length" (probably 90-100 minutes with intermission). I took some classes, met some great people, learned a lot.

Out of some prompt, I started something wacky that ended up being the two-act "Dr. Ripley and the Magic Pants," a dystopian comedy. I don't think it's Pulitzer material but it's fun. 

I'm kicking around a few shorter plays, one is "Kelly Brought to Justice," the trial of a woman in Human Decency Court where she is brought to account for bullying and being mean. 

Then I went on vacation in 2024 and a lightning bolt of an idea for a musical hit me. I tried to learn about structure and what happens when there are no songs, but that's over now because this idea has possessed me heart and soul.

I spend Thursday nights in the company of playwrights in a Zoom group, workshopping, reading, learning, critiquing. The critiquing is a bit gloves-off and I like that just fine. The people are wonderful and if you want to see the weird that crawls out of people's brains, hang out with playwrights. I also get to act when reading others' shows and that is a big highlight for me.