I like to mark milestones as a writer, and knocking out a first draft END OF PLAY on a new full length play is pretty worthy of that. I’ve had the idea for this play since grad school at UT Austin, where we discovered a directory of the salaries of every public employee in the state, including the egregiously overpaid coaching staff for the Longhorns. Now I like Longhorn Football. I’d call myself a fan. But when you’re a struggling graduate student trying to make ends meet and you discover 1. football slowly kills the players with concussions and 2. the coaching staff earns millions of dollars a year while 3. the players go unpaid and get in serious trouble if they even take minor gifts, well, you can see how that might make a guy’s wheels spin.
So I conceived of a play where some students take direct action against one of the team’s coaches in the run up of a big game. It’s called JUBILEE, after the ancient Hebrew practice of the forgiveness of debts every 49 years. It’s a comedy about student loans. Right now it’s only a first draft, but I’ll work on it and see where it goes.
If you’re not laughing, you’re crying, and I figure the theatre is overdue for a play that tackles the student loan crisis head on and with humor.