As a lifelong New York City dweller recently transplanted to rural upstate,
my greatest shock was the multitude of critters strewn about the country
roads, tragically posed, some splattered, others outwardly unscathed, their
final moment frozen in time, the mad dash, the leisurely meandering, the
stunned gawking… They are everywhere!

The scenery in this part of the country is lovely, fields and forests,
roadside streams, incredible foliage, nature in all its glory. And yet,
people can’t seem to help leaving their mark.

Had this been New York City, had these been humans, it would have been a
scene out of some terrifying, sci-fi horror flick, the future in which no
moral code exists and we all lurk around the mean gray streets like soulless
zombies risking life and limb to purchase a container of milk.

And yes, it didn’t take long for me to contribute to this landscape of
horror. And yes, I think it was a groundhog, but I can’t be sure. I’m a
New Yorker, I know the difference between a bagel and a bialy, but I
wouldn’t trust myself to distinguish one small brown critter from another.
I feel guilty about this.

Guilt is a strong emotion. And guilt was the initial emotion I wanted to
offer my young driver, a teenager who is preoccupied with exasperation,
steeped, as is her mother, in miscommunication, when we first meet her.
Exasperation is an aggressive emotion; its focus is outward. Guilt forces
you inside of yourself. But I didn’t want to keep her inside… I wanted to
immediately throw her passion off balance…

Nothing is less steady in life than relationships. Navigating them,
learning from them, honoring them is our lifelong journey. This is what I
like to read about, to watch in a theatre and what I aim to write about.
I’ve been fascinated with small, unexpected moments, interruptions, in our
lives when we step over our own rigid but fragile selves into the revelation
of another. Hopefully this is what happens to all four of my characters
entangled briefly on a still country road, a byway to someplace else,
anyplace else. They are noisy in their miscommunication, they are noisy in
their humanity, they can’t seem to help leaving their mark.

I was incredibly fortunate to work with four very talented actors. They had
never met when we began working together. My elderly couple, Marge Redmond
and Paul Barry, were strangers to each other. Yet early on in rehearsal I
gave them a song, their wedding song, and they spontaneously started dancing
to it, and yes, even, bickering through it. It was wonderful, it was a
lifetime in a moment. This is what all of my actors gave me, their ability
to navigate relationship, to allow themselves to feel alien within it, to
create it and to ultimately honor each other through the process.

I thank them, as well as the other brave souls that hung out on a country
road in the middle of nowhere for a few splendidly unpredictable days in the
autumn of 2006 to help me create A Driving Lesson.