Until I joined Warrior Chorus in Austin, TX, I hadn't realized how many of my dramas involved veterans. Often the veterans in my work are just... people, a character who says her/his lines without more than a slight passing reference to her/his experiences in the military. I have for years wanted to write a piece directly related to my experiences, but had not yet found the story and the voice the piece needed. But as I considered my work in light of The Warrior Chorus workshop, and my conversations with my new veteran friends, I saw, as if for the first time, that several of my works spoke directly about the experiences of veterans in and out of service and about those around them who were affected by the veterans in their lives and by war.
I wrote a screenplay, "Earthen Vessels," about a woman in the Air Force who was drone pilot and an Iraq war veteran. I wrote a full-length play (a comedy), "The Small Platoon," about a mother and her family burying her son who was killed in Iraq. I wrote a one-act play, "Go Home, Mister Chaplin" (now titled "The Joy of Force,") that was performed at FronteraFest three years ago, about an Iraq war veteran trying to recover the remains of her brother, killed in Iraq, which were stored in the basement of a funeral home in Midland, TX (based on a news report).
Last fall, I wrote another full-length play, "Drongo," about a family living in one of the bombed out cities that are now littering the world, and, in particular, Syria and Yemen. The images from those cities has haunted me.
And a new story is emerging, my story, as I read the Illiad and talk to vets and we share our experiences. A story I have needed to tell for many years.
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