St. John's University

For many years, my fellow playwright Dr. Laurence Myers has taught at St. John's University. He gave me my first job in New York, stage managing his play Title: Nietzsche at Theatre for the New City (my friend James Robinson was in the cast, and suggested me when they lost their stage manager). And for not a few years, Larry has asked me to come speak to his students. This past Monday I was finally able to rearrange my schedule to make this possible. I had never been to St. John's, nor any Vincentian institution of higher learning, before then. Larry is going to have his students in his Creating Theatre course write contemporary mystery plays, to be performed around the campus, so I spoke about medieval theatre. I'm not an expert on that subject, but I read a lot about it when I was writing my own adaptation of mystery plays, "The New York Play." After I had lectured and answered some questions, some students read my Adam and Eve scene to the rest of the class; they seemed quite engaged by it, and equally importantly, got the jokes. I was particularly impressed with the international students (from the Caribbean, South America and Africa)- a really smart, thoughtful and engaged group of kids.