A few years back, I heard the great playwright Terrence McNally deliver a lecture in which he encouraged writers to "write plays that matter. Raise the stakes. Shout, yell, holler, but make yourself heard. It's time for playwrights to reclaim the theatre. We do that by speaking from the heart about the things that matter most to us. If a play isn't worth dying for, maybe it isn't worth writing." And in this rage-filled world, where it seems the very definition of violence needs to be modified every few weeks to include acts that couldn t previously even be imagined, we have an ever greater need for artists to speak from the heart about the things that matter. We have a need for authentic voices that challenge us, frighten us, inspire us and maybe even move us toward transformation. Perhaps we even have a need for voices that simply entertain us and make us laugh in the face of pain with the abandon of a child.
Tennessee Williams once referred to artists as the "nervous system of any age or nation." I rather like that analogy and am pleased to say that the nervous system in this age - at least as it pertains to theater - appears to be functioning just fine. I would even go so far as to say that it s thriving. There are those, of course, who pass their days insisting that the theater has outlived its usefulness, that it has seen better days, and that it is dying a death that is slow and painful, but not unexpected or even unwarranted. While the naysayers sit at the bedside waiting for the theater to gasp its last, I go to shows and am heartened by the fresh new voices I am encountering all the time. And they are not simply talented writers, they are talented writers who are in fact writing specifically for the stage.
In the latest edition of this prestigious series that dates back more than 60 years, I am proud to introduce some of these emerging new voices. Each of them, included in The Best American Short Plays for the first time, possesses a distinctive voice. Each has something important to say. And each is poised to have a formidable impact on theater in the new century.
- From the Introduction by Mark Glubke
