It seems that the hurdle you have to jump over is everyone's informed opinion. When you're a young playwright, you're probably too precarious in your own technique to understand that when these seemingly informed opinions are contradicting each other, it becomes this paralyzing monolith.

Richard Greenberg

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

Richard Greenberg

vanity mean thinking

The ocean is interacting with the surface. There is a possible biosphere that extends from way below the surface to just above the crust.

Richard Greenberg

biosphere ocean way

I had a plot connection that nobody understood for this fourth character, and decided, Oh, nobody gets it, that's all. I'll write another draft to make her make sense. It took me awhile to learn that these three people were the core of this play, which seems so obvious now.

Richard Greenberg

play writing character

A play gets on Broadway by fluke. And you don't even start out with that ambition. When I do a play, the intention is just to put it up somewhere.

Richard Greenberg

crafts ambition play

But you don't have your druthers in life, do you?

Richard Greenberg

I do think the past changes at a slower rate. It sits a little more still for its portrait.

Richard Greenberg

portrait changes think past

People talk about alienation in the city. Diners are a place where you feel comfortable, an extension of your house.

Richard Greenberg

city feel you people

I like the Mets. I'm interested in the Mets.

Richard Greenberg

interested like mets

When we watch a play under the standard circumstances, we've lost volition and time is passing. A still play feels like an existential threat.

Richard Greenberg

circumstances play lost time

The idea of a rupture between acts occurs in a number of my plays.

Richard Greenberg

acts between idea number

Frankly, seeing my plays with an audience is something I do with gritted teeth; I find the experience very difficult. I love the moment when you have just the dress rehearsal, when no one's there; that's kind of the peak to me. When people start filing in, I like to file out.

Richard Greenberg

dress me moment love

I was formed by 'The Forsyte Saga' marathon. There was something about seeing all those events telescoped that was unbelievably moving: that sense of time as something that can be tinkered with.

Richard Greenberg

something marathon time moving

You do think, if you have your druthers, 'I want to sort of be, not anonymous, but unknown'. But you don't have your druthers in life, do you?

Richard Greenberg

your think you life

It's weird, because I don't feel prolific. I don't write anything for months at a time.

Richard Greenberg

weird anything feel time

My mother wanted me to be a writer. But she was a child of the Depression and never understood that she wasn't poor. So, you know, the idea of not having a job, it would creep through. But she tried very hard to be subtle about it.

Richard Greenberg

me you mother depression

I think I can be an intimidating energy in the room. I think I come in with an aura of wanting results because as the playwright, I know how it goes, and there's the thought, 'Why can't they catch up?'

Richard Greenberg

thought think i-can energy

I don't write a play from beginning to end. I don't write an outline. I write scenes and moments as they occur to me. And I still write on a typewriter. It's not all in ether. It's on pages. I sequence them in a way that tends to make sense. Then I write what's missing, and that's my first draft.

Richard Greenberg

end beginning me way

I think I'm a writer, and it's my job. People in other professions are expected to do their jobs all the time. Why shouldn't I?

Richard Greenberg

job think time people

I want to be a playwright the way people are bank tellers. I want to keep doing it and have it go steadily and smoothly.

Richard Greenberg

doing go people way

My friends and family have been so well trained that they know I really mean it when I say that I don't care if the review is good, because that can be as dangerous as when it's bad. It's less demoralizing, but it can be just as confusing.

Richard Greenberg

good friends family care