Each month on The Subtext, Brian speaks with a playwright about life, writing, and whatever itches we are scratching.
This month he talks with award-winning playwright Tim J. Lord about his journey in the theatre, from working as a technician for a professional theatre company, to working as a lighting designer, to finding himself at Trinity Rep, to meeting Paula Vogel and attending her renowned playwriting boot camp. They discuss how he aimed to find the human story in his play We Declare You a Terrorist, about the harrowing theatre hostage crisis in Moscow in 2002. Lord also shares details about his writing process and feelings about home.
Lord’s plays have been produced and developed at theatres across the United States, including at New York City’s Public Theater, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and Maryland’s Round House Theatre, among others. He was the first recipient of the Apothetae-Lark Fellowship for a playwright with a disability; a 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts; and a 2017 Jerome Fellowship from the Playwrights’ Center. His new musical Through the Sunken Lands, created with composer Avi Amon, premiered last year at the Kennedy Center. Tim’s plays often blur the lines between the fantastic and the everyday, focusing on telling stories of people and communities often overlooked on our stages.
