I wrote my first play at the age of twenty. The story had a ghost, a girl, took place at a train station, and wasn’t very good. Most of the plays I wrote in my twenties weren’t very good (I wrote about 40 of various lengths in those ten years). Like a joke, these first plays of mine had structure and wit, but lacked emotion, and understanding of space and topography--two key elements that differentiate a play and joke, but my friends liked what I wrote so I continued building plays, often using ghosts, and girls, set in public places. I tried to write good plays, but they always seemed to come as jokes.

What drew me to theater, and writing I suppose, was the use of time and space on stage, the way a play, the words and ideas are shaped on stage, shaped in front of an audience. I like to see how people reach the words. Do they laugh, or cry, or put their hands over their eyes when the ghosts appear within the same space? I prefer working with smaller companies, like HERE Arts Center in New York, Theater Schmeater in Seattle, Hyde Park in Austin, and The Asylum in Las Vegas. All intimate spaces, which brings the work closer to an audience.
Now in my thirties I don’t try writing good plays anymore, I just write. I call my esthetic “American Baroque.” I start with an organic, character-based story, often dealing with American issues, then build the setting around the wants and needs of the characters. Then I stretch and twist the world as if it were a reflection in a funhouse mirror. Like a joke, I try to ground the audience in something they can relate to, while adding separation with the fantastic. I focus on structure, shape, emotion, and the time and space those elements need to be communicated.

In the coming years I plan to resume my work with the small theater companies I have enjoyed a relationship with, and I will continue to build connections with groups like AndHow! in New York. These are companies who reach my audience, and a playwright with no audience is not a playwright. And I plan to contiue my work with indie newspapers, blogs, websites, and lit journals, which themselves are intimate spaces and can do what others can't. And, in that time, I will never use a semicolon; I promise that.

If you would like to perform any of the plays on this website as I have composed them, they are protected by copyright in the versions you read here. You can clear performance rights with Patricia McLaughlin of BEACON ARTISTS AGENCY 120 E. 56TH STREET, SUITE 540 NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10022 beaconagency@hotmail.com.

Timothy Braun

 

I don’t like the semicolon. It’s an angry shape with little emotion. As a kid I was the youngest of my family and became a joker to gain attention at the dinner table. I must have told my first joke accidentally, but my family liked what I said so I continued building jokes. In time, my jokes turned into stories, which turned into essays, which turned into plays. .