Accidents in a Moral Universe.(playwright comments on redemptive power of art)

American Theatre, October, 2001 by Blessing, Lee

Life's most crucial skill, a playwright suggests, is embracing one's self

These remarks were excerpted from a speech that Lee Blessing delivered in May to the 2001 graduating class at Oregon's Reed College.

Years ago a screenwriter friend of mine told me one of the secrets of his craft: to alternate rapidly success and failure in his central character's fortunes.

It means a sequence might go something like this: Our hero's awakened by songbirds on a spring morning. He rises, only to find himself wincing in pain from a hangover. He stumbles to the bathroom and wretches up whatever ungodly poisons he imbibed the night before. He opens the morning paper and peers at the lottery results. He's won! Millions! He screams for joy, dives...

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