“The cause of plagues is sin, and the cause of sin is plays.”

_{~ some old fart from 1577, according to The Guardian}

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I came up with the idea for my play in the Spring of 2020, right after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. That time was terrifying. Millions of people died. I think it broke the world.

That March, while Frontline & Essential workers were risking their lives, the rest of us stayed inside, searching for diversions – waiting for the monster to go away. Like all the other suckers, I thought about Macbeth. I got stuck on the evil queen. Her transition from ruthless manipulator to gibbering mess always felt forced and unfinished to me. I realized the same thing applied to the Witches. Those four great characters were nothing but plot devices. I decided to embrace the cliche and write a pandemic-play.

I had a premise, title, beginning and end. I just needed to write the middle. It took four years.

Last August I typed my first lines. In February, I finished the whole thing.

Throughout this process I ruminated. What I would do with the play once it was completed? Would I submit it to contests or publishers or sell it digitally like an e-book? In the midst of my ruminations, ChatGPT was released to the public.

I used to be an internet writer. My old words are still out there, probably being bot-scraped and scrambled into a flavorless hash of empty calories.

I can’t control what people think of this play but I can control how it gets distributed. When you buy this, you will own something Artificial Intelligence could never create. I want my work to be read. I want it to be performed.

Break a leg, everybody!

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