Artist Statement

At eight years old, I lost half of my hearing, and began to navigate the world as a disabled child. Now as a disabled adult, increasing the representation of disabled people as complex and compelling characters is crucial to my artistry. Developing my play Left Unheard had me grappling with the frustration, relief, and longing experienced by me, my disabled friends and family, and countless others. I created the portrayal of hearing loss I’d never seen, but always wanted… though I didn’t know that would take the form of a giant beetle tormenting the main character. Nor did I expect so many of my own struggles—constantly compartmentalizing, being burdened and burdensome, a fear of losing awareness—to surface in the play. It was terrifying, and excruciatingly vulnerable. And I can’t wait to do it again.

When I was fifteen, I wrote and put on my first play. I didn’t know it was funny until I heard the audience reacting to my quips for the first time. Something clicked—people are laughing because of me. I have to keep doing this. Now, intertwining humor and despair is a staple in my writing. Showing work to the world that doesn’t incite a laugh here and there is unfathomable to me. The comedy in my work is meant to not just contrast sharply with the tragedy, but to work in tandem with it, in order to be more well-rounded and true to life. My plays will have you tearing up at the end (in which two diametrically opposed characters share a bittersweet moment of acceptance). But there will be plenty of laughter on the way there.

I also intend to write what I call “lowercase ‘t’ trans plays”. These are plays that include transgender characters who simply exist without their identities being heavily scrutinized or made into the biggest part of their story. They are as multifaceted as every other character in the world, and they are also trans. My first introduction to trans characters was the protagonist of a young adult book whose life was agony because he was trans—whose whole life was being trans. That stunted my view on what it means to live as trans, which I’ve been reshaping ever since. I’ve never been one to boldly come out of the closet. I just exist, and let people figure me out along the way. The same goes for my lowercase “t” trans characters.

Whether it contains semi-invisible beetles or freeze dried bodies, my writing aims to present the surreal as the real. This isn’t reliant on spectacle, just strangeness that is nevertheless accepted as part of any given world. My high school was small, experimental, and located in a former recording studio. This meant that every day, anything could happen, from possum invasions to human smoke detectors to bagpipe parades around Hollywood. Setting teenage angst and social struggles against such a zany background always kept life exciting—even when it sucked. And as my teenage difficulties became adult difficulties, that zaniness followed me in the form of midnight playground battles, evil guided meditation, and lime-eating squirrels. This is why my writing delves deep into interpersonal conflicts through absurdist perspectives. And that’s included in the format of dialogue itself, such as creating new ways to represent mishearing spoken words.