II. I never met him, he died many years before I was born, but around the time that I began working on this play, my mom was going through an old safety deposit box and found letters that he had written home to his mother from Europe during the war. They don’t say a lot. It’s all very between the lines, but you can tell that the things he was seeing were absolutely appalling and impossible, really, to assimilate into his understanding of the universe. I wanted to try to capture that feeling of what it must’ve felt like to see the horror that these soldiers walked into before there was a name for it.


The specific story that Lou tells about Dachau comes out of research I did into what happened when the Americans first arrived at the camp. I don’t want to give too much away about the actual events, but I do think there is always a danger in making the narrative of the Holocaust simply a story of victimhood which, of course, it is on one level, like all instances of genocide. The story that Lou tells, though, which is based on a true story, gives agency back to the victims. These were not just faceless suffering masses, these were people with rage and dignity and decency. Lou’s story is also meant as a corrective to what Michael is saying in his book. How do you forget something like that? Why would you? You can’t forget something like that. And even if you think you have forgotten, that kind of trauma is something we pass on to future generations, on an almost cellular level. We live with our histories whether we’re conscious of them or not.


TS: Can you give us a sense of your process as a writer? How do you go about working on a play once you have an idea? SL: For me, it takes a long time to start writing. A lot of time thinking, a lot of just throwing ideas at the wall. With this play in particular, there was a lot of research and prewriting, as I call it. I came up with a detailed family tree and a family history and biographies for all of the characters in the play and some characters who aren’t in the play, but are crucial to the story. Then I started writing. Usually the first draft is pretty quick for me, a few months. It’s all about getting down everything in my head, trying not to judge whether it’s good or bad, just putting it on paper, so there’s some place for me to start. The hardest thing is always the blank page, so I try to get that out of the way as quickly and painlessly as I can. Then the revision process is, in some ways, where the writing really happens. That’s when I discover the play. That process can take years, and usually does. I began working on If I Forget in the winter of 2012, for instance, and completed a first draft of the play in April or May of that year, and I’ve been working on it since then.


TS: Do you sense there will be any major revisions during the rehearsal process? What precipitates revisions when you decide to rewrite? SL: I always expect revisions when I go into rehearsal. I rewrite a lot. I know as soon as I step into the rehearsal room, I’m going to want to change everything. The main way that revisions happen is just listening to the actors read the play. It feels like every step of the way you learn more information and so, on the very first day, when you do the first read-through with the cast, you learn a tremendous amount about what’s working and what isn’t. The actors themselves have questions and thoughts and concerns, and that’s a huge part of rewriting as well. That’ll keep me busy through rehearsals, and then previews happen, and at that point you always think you know everything already. And then the audience comes in and it’s almost like you start all over


again. Inevitably, the things you thought were working aren’t and the things you didn’t think were working are—so it’s a constant process of discovery and refinement up until the end. Roundabout allots a very generous preview period, several weeks, which is pretty much the best gift you can give a new play – time to grow.


TS: Can you describe what you look for when collaborating with a director? SL: What was important with this play is that it be an intimate, deeply personal and emotional family drama and also a play about larger ideas and concerns—never tipping too far in either direction. Dan Sullivan just understood that intuitively, on his first read of the play, and he’s been incredibly attentive all along to the balance the play is hoping to strike. As I’ve rewritten, he’s pushed me constantly to be alert to the ideas and to the way in which themes are explored and the way that story and character can illuminate those larger ideas. His instincts for character and for the way that actors are going to approach material are incredible. Because he was an actor himself, perhaps, he understands immediately what’s playable and what isn’t. So, he’s able to look at a text on a lot of different levels at once—in terms of dramaturgy, performance, the physical needs and limitation of a production. I think that’s probably what all great directors can do, which is of course why they’re so incredibly rare.


TS: The ideas in the play are sure to stimulate a lot of discussion—what would you like audience members to keep in mind when they are discussing the events of your play? SL: I’m really hoping that the play does stimulate discussion. Much of the play itself came out of discussions that I found myself having with family and friends, discussions that I wasn’t really seeing on stage. So, for me, the play is an extension of an ongoing conversation, a conversation that we’re inviting the audience to join as well. I don’t know that it’s something I would encourage the audience to keep in mind, but something that’s certainly on my mind as I listen to and watch the play today is how different it feels to have these conversations now than it did only a few months ago. Inevitably, one of the first targets of any authoritarian regime is history itself—what we remember, how we remember, why we remember. The past is never neutral and history is never settled. This play doesn’t attempt to offer any answers, but I hope, in its own small way, it can help to articulate why it is so vital that we continue to ask difficult questions, to grapple with painful, uncomfortable subjects. I believe, in the coming years, we will need theatre, more than ever, to remain a place for difficult questions.


TS: What else are you working on? Dear Evan Hansen is having a wonderful new run on Broadway. SL: I’m very eager to get started on a new play. After six years with Dear Evan Hansen, and writing for four seasons on the TV show "Masters of Sex," I’m really looking forward to having time to devote to playwriting. I have some outstanding commissions, including one from Roundabout, which I’m very excited to begin. I’m also just getting started on the screenplay for an original movie musical with composers Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, inspired by a book called Everything Is Coming Up Profits: The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals.•


IF I FORGET UPSTAGE GUIDE 5


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