Yale School of Drama Playwrights Roundtable – Guare, Wasserstein, Hwang (2001)

Three celebrated playwrights from the Yale School of Drama sit down to reflect on their alma mater’s 75th anniversary and the state of American theatre. John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation), Wendy Wasserstein (The Heidi Chronicles), and David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) discuss how Yale shaped their craft, the collaborative nature of playwriting, the “golden eras” under Robert Brustein and Lloyd Richards, and the ongoing struggle to make a living as playwrights. They share stories about classmates like Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand, and Angela Bassett, talk about the thrill of live audience response, and debate whether theatre still feels like “the most important thing you can do” in a changing cultural landscape.

00:00 – Yale School of Drama at 75 and guests introduction
00:53 – John Guare on Harvard’s Drama 47, George Pierce Baker, and discovering Yale
01:41 – Deciding to be a playwright at 11 and getting into Yale
02:19 – First impressions of Yale and hearing T.S. Eliot speak
03:33 – Wendy Wasserstein on choosing drama school vs business school
03:54 – Classmates at Yale: Christopher Durang, Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, Ted Tally
04:31 – Learning collaboration and the craft of making audiences react
05:11 – The playwright’s “novel under 100 pages” and timing a two-hour story
05:50 – David Henry Hwang’s path: Off-Broadway success before Yale and needing theatre history
06:29 – One intense year at Yale, Jonathan Marks’s theatre history class, and leaving early
06:59 – Acting classmates: John Turturro, Angela Bassett, Frances McDormand, Kate Burton, Jane Kaczmarek
07:31 – Notable Yale drama figures: Wilder, Gilroy, Kramer, MacLeish, Talley, Stone, Warren
08:15 – Are Yale classmates still in the theatre, and the ongoing alumni network on new productions
09:05 – Meryl Streep at Yale and the difficulty of three focused years in your 20s
09:44 – Guare on avoiding the draft, the Air Force reserves, and Yale credentials losing value in basic training
10:48 – The productivity of drama school vs distractions of the “real world”
11:15 – Robert Brustein’s era and the 1966 film project with Sam Shepard and others
11:41 – Yale Rep’s early years: Lowell, Jonathan Miller, Irene Worth, and the electric atmosphere
12:27 – The feeling that “the most important thing you can do is put on a play”
13:12 – Lloyd Richards’s tenure and whether that sense of urgency still exists
13:34 – Yale Rep’s role in American regional theatre vs a national repertory company
14:29 – The state of American playwriting on Broadway: Proof, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, Neil Simon
15:13 – Nonprofit venues backing new American plays: Lincoln Center, MTC, the Public, CSC, Primary Stages
16:00 – David Henry Hwang on reinventing Flower Drum Song and writing a new play about punk
16:41 – What troubles theatre today: costs, ticket prices, and building a younger audience
17:08 – The joy of rehearsal rooms where every word matters vs film and TV work
17:33 – Education programs and bringing public-school kids into the theatre
17:58 – Why most playwrights still can’t make a living from plays alone
18:21 – Teaching playwrights how to structure a life around their “habit” of theatre
19:03 – What great playwrights share: need to write, tough skin, and ignoring guesses about “commercial”
19:34 – The irreplaceable thrill of live performance and shared laughter
19:54 – Writing as a vocation and staying in the theatre any way possible
20:08 – Rewriting in rehearsal as a constant, and closing thoughts on Yale Drama’s legacy

Playwright Discussion is a curated archive of interviews with the great voices of theater, literature, and stagecraft. From Broadway icons to emerging playwrights, we explore the artistry and ideas shaping dramatic storytelling.

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