In a play that I wrote that explores schizophrenia, a character says, “I think everyone hears voices. Some get along with them. Some are inspired by them. Some write to get them out of their heads. Some learn to ignore most of them. Others become…very disturbed by them. Maybe they listen too much.” For me, writing is a way to get those voices out of my head and on paper, and though it sounds schizophrenic, it’s actually more therapeutic. I have to let go of a little of myself and give over to emerging characters. In a sense, my best writing involves a selflessness. The characters literally take over the page, and I let them talk and fight and work things out. Of course, I’m very consciously involved in their conversations, crises, and conversions, but I also want to be surprised as I write. Where they go may be inevitable, but I don’t want it to be predictable.
      My worst writing, I’ve found, happens when I try to control a character, to force this being in a direction I think is the proper one. In one play, two friends discover a dead body in their apartment. In my initial thoughts, I had planned for one friend to have done this as an act of revenge for a long-held grievance. As the characters began reacting to the situation and each other, the plot completely shifted. I grew to like these two and realized they just wouldn’t take the path I had outlined in the beginning. In the end, I was happily astonished. If I’m lucky enough to have this happen in my writing, perhaps the audience, too, will find this astonishment.   

DAVID MUSCHELL’s plays have received many national and regional awards, most recently, prizes from MultiStages Theatre in New York City and the Stage3 Theatre in Sonoma, California. Last year, Muschell was guest on both coasts for productions of his prize-winning plays. In all, his works have won a dozen national and regional awards for both adult and children’s theatre, including the Southeast Playwrights’ Competition, the Little Nashville National Play Competition, MultiStages New Works Competition, the Stage3 New Play Competition, and Alleyway Theatre’s Maxim Mazumdar’s New Play Competition (children’s theatre category). Ten of his plays have been published, and his most widely produced, Mixed Emotions, has been seen in over twenty-three states, Canada, and Japan. Most recently, Muschell published two plays with distinguished drama publisher Baker’s Plays of Boston: The Jesus Trip, a full-length adult drama, and The Golden Nest, a children’s play. He has also written eight films for industry. In addition to plays and scripts, he has written two books about the origins of words: Where in the Word? and What in the Word? Muschell holds an MFA in playwriting from Goddard College.