About Writing

Playwrights aren't often asked to make an artistic statement. I guess it's assumed that we speak through our characters, which is true.

But not being asked, it becomes tempting to try to say a few words.

I am interested in what is human. And for me what is human has to do with how people yearn and try and search and sometimes discover. And it is about the intensity of human connection or the desire for such connection.

I like to create worlds with aesthetic wholeness.

Language and dialogue are a form of music.

I enjoy making people laugh.

But in lightness there is darkness and in darkness, some light.

I am personally less interested in intricacies of plot and action.

On the other hand, I love things that are mysterious--things that hold you to them with mystery.

I prefer simplicity of form and detail.

I believe that the stage is a place where ideas can be expressed as a form of passion.

About Productions

The samples of work on this website represent a selection of my produced plays over the past seventeen years.

If you are interested in related materials or reviews, please see contact info on this website. Wonderful actors and directors and designers have done these plays. And audiences never cease to amaze me with their openness and readiness for new experiences and challenges.

I hope you'll read the samples and contact the website if you want to read more. And I hope you'll consider performing them. And if you do consider performing them, or even parts of them, or doing anything at all with them, please be aware that the plays are protected under copyright law.

Please get in touch if you are interested in new work in various stages of progress. Several of my newer works continue their journey as part of reading series, festivals and workshops across the country.

By way of introduction: From the time I started writing plays, I've lived, for the most part, far away from the theatre communities in which my work might be seen to belong in terms of its language and traditions. Kept apart until now, physically-- finally, in cyberspace, I'm joining in!

--Lydia Stryk