From Sanaz Toossi
I wrote my play Wish You Were Here in the span of two days and kept it to myself. I never thought anyone would do it, and I didn’t mind. I’d rather keep the play in a dark corner of my hard-drive then subject it to misinterpretation, or let anyone boil it down to a cringe-worthy adjective.
But Playwrights Horizons loved all the things about my play that I did, even the things I couldn’t fully articulate, like why I wrote the play. I could never get my story straight: I wrote this play for my mother. I wrote this play for the dirty jokes. I wrote this play to write my origin story.
My story kept changing, but no one seemed to care. I think that’s because at Playwrights Horizons, contradictions are welcome, and answers are not held in very high esteem.
Rather, I have come to know this place as a temple devoted to the question under the question, the untidy, the long conversation. I have come to know Playwrights as a church where we revere the messy, evolving truths that litter the sticky floor of a play— where we believe the hand that comes closest to touching those truths is that of a writer’s.
Playwrights has taken “risks” on some of our most daring artists, except that’s not really true, because at Playwrights, what’s risky is a culture that idles and art that never challenges.
Here is something I should not say: Writing is terrible. Putting on a play? That you wrote? I believe this to be self-inflicted punishment. Writers, we spill our souls onto a page and hope for the best. Then we watch the thing we created bloom and morph and become separate from us. It’s painful but it’s worthwhile— more than worthwhile, it’s a whole reason for being.
At every step of this mercurial process, Playwrights was with me— through doubt, through terror, through two years of Covid-19, every promise was kept. They were my play’s midwife through development, my cheerleaders through previews, and at every turn, the warm presence in the room nudging me toward myself.
I believe unwaveringly in this truth: We cannot envision the art that we will need. Artists make sense of our past, metabolize our present and imagine our futures, and so we must be their most fierce advocates so that they can lead the way forward.
There is no institution I trust more with this mandate than Playwrights Horizons. If you are able, I hope that you will give a gift to this beautiful place, so that we can ensure the health of
bold, gutsy theater to come.
Warmly,
Sanaz Toossi
Playwright, Wish You Were Here
P.S. Double your impact. Donate before December 31 and your gift will be matched up to $60,000!