Orlando Shakes: What themes or ideas are you focusing on with this play?

Meridith Friedman: Finding the good in goodbye. Setting your own terms for determining your ending. The title is about David’s realization that his relationships have moved to a place where he can in fact go. This theme evolved as I wrote. This trilogy was mostly about Richard’s journey to fatherhood – that has been the spine all along. David’s journey came out of that, moving from rigidity to fluidity in couplehood and fatherhood. He can go because he knows he trusts Richard to take care of Josh.

Orlando Shakes: What is the biggest challenge about crafting a new play?

Meridith: Everything is hard. It’s all terrible. Starting is hard for me – finding my entrypoint. There is a period of trying to find your footing and stumbling for a while. With this play, I know the characters, but they have changed between each play. From the last play, Your Best One, it’s been two years. There is a learning process about where they are right now, about how their relationships have changed.

Orlando Shakes: Who or what was your biggest inspiration for becoming a playwright?

Meridith: When I was in High School I used to write short stories, and I loved to write dialogue. (Action didn’t interest me as much. I was excited about finding a lyrical way to say “He went to the door.”) In college I put two and two together. I was studying acting but I loved writing dramatic dialogue.

Orlando Shakes: If you could only describe your play using four words, what would they be?

Meridith: Surprising. Tender. Happy-sad. Funny.

Orlando Shakes: What is unique about your writing process?

Meridith: There are no rituals. No process. But I would like to have one. I hope I develop one as I age. Someday I will sit at the same desk at the same time every day and write. Right now I chug a diet coke, start at midnight and cry my way through it!

Orlando Shakes: Aside from this play what is next for you?

Meridith: I am writing episodes for television, but my next production is at First Folio in Chicago – it’s called The Firestorm. It’s about a guy running for political office in Ohio and the fallout he deals with regarding a racially charged incident that happened in his youth.

And I am also continuing to work this one out. There is more discussion with the commissioning theater, Curious [Theatre Company] in Denver, to be had.

About Meridith Friedman

Meridith’s work has received productions at Orlando Shakes, Curious Theatre Company, Kitchen Dog Theater, LOCAL Theatre Company, Actor’s Theater of Charlotte, Stage Left Theatre, Chicago’s Theatre on the Lake, The Samuel French OOB Short Play Festival and The American Southwest Theatre Company at NMSU. Her work has also been developed and workshopped at The Kennedy Center, Chicago Dramatists, The Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals, Florida Repertory Theatre, The Ashland New Play Festival, Florida Studio Theatre, The NNPN National New Play Showcase, New Repertory Theatre, The Lark, Actor’s Express, The Greenhouse Theatre Center, The Abbey Theatre, Capital Rep, and First Folio (upcoming). She resides in Los Angeles and writes for television.

Don’t miss Meridith Friedman’s I CAN GO at PlayFest presented by Harriett’s Charitable Trust.