These four plays are all works of fiction and not based upon any living person or persons; any similarities are coincidental.
For That Hopey Changey Thing:
I wish to thank my good friend Marian Faux for allowing me permission to give Jane Apple authorship of a book very similar to Marian’s own wonderful Wild Civility. I have used Marian’s research with elasticity, and therefore any misreading or errors are strictly mine and not hers.
For Sweet and Sad:
I read numerous books and articles while writing Sweet and Sad, and some have influenced the play, in large and small ways. In particular, Matt Taibbi’s enjoyable Gritftopia (Spiegel & Grau, 2011) is the book that Tim has been reading, and that has been depressing him so much. Others: Paul Goldberger’s Up from Zero (Random House, 2005), Robert B. Reich’s Aftershock (Vintage Books, 2011), Marian Klamkin’s The Return of Lafayette (Scribner, 1975). Tim’s story about the rescue of Yiddish books comes from a video I saw at the extraordinary Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, in which the founder describes the beginnings of the Center.
For Sorry:
Numerous books and articles influenced the writing of this play: Oliver Sacks’s The Mind’s Eye (Vintage Books, 2011); A History of Private Life (Volumes II, III and IV), Philippe Aries and Georges Duby, series editors (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992); Roy Franklin Nichols’s Franklin Pierce: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills (American Political Biography Press, 1993); Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Life of Franklin Pierce (Acheron Press, 2012); Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America, edited by Astra Taylor, Keith Cassen and the editors from n+1 (Verso, 2011); essays by David Brooks, Charles M. Blow and Michael Winerip (“On Education” column) in the New York Times. My daughter, Jocelyn, and her friends: Evan, Mat, Holly, Margaret, Sarah, Adrienne and Hilary, supplied me with invaluable insight into a younger generation’s take on Occupy Wall Street, President Obama, and so much more. My friend Oliver Cotton (unwittingly) supplied the anecdote about making the film about Columbus; and the edit and reordering of Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis was adapted from a version originally edited by Merlin Holland. The book Jane has been referring to and from which she quotes/paraphrases is: Michael J. Sandel’s brilliant What Money Can’t Buy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). The song Evan had on her iPod is Regina Spektor’s “Us” (from Soviet Kitsch, 2004). The story about the urinals and the fish comes from Tynan, a play adapted by me with Colin Chambers from The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan, edited by John Lahr (Bloomsbury, 2001).
For Regular Singing:
I read and consulted many books and articles while writing Regular Singing. Here are the most important: Oliver Sacks’s Hallucinations (Vintage Books, 2013) and An Anthropologist on Mars (Vintage Books, 1996); James Thomas Flexner’s History of American Painting (Volumes One, Two and Three; Dover, 1969); David Nasaw’s The Patriarch (Penguin, 2012); Paul Grondahl’s Mayor Corning (Washington Park Press, 1997); Robert S. McElvaine’s Mario Cuomo (Scribner, 1988); William Kennedy’s O Albany! (Penguin, 1985); John P. Papp’s Albany’s Historic Street (Papp Historical Publications, 1976); Stephen Rodrick’s New York magazine article “The Reintroduction of Kirsten Gillibrand” (June 7, 2009); William Safire’s essay for the New York Times, “The New Rainmaker” (August 28, 1986); Sari Brewster Tietjen’s Rhinebeck: Portrait of a Town (Phanter Press, 1990); Michael J. Sandel’s Justice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010); J. L. Austin’s How to Do Things with Words (Harvard University Press, 1975); Tom Wicker’s reporting for the New York Times on the assassination of President Kennedy; the newspaper Tim holds up is a copy of an issue of the Dallas Times Herald; Thomas Walter’s The Grounds and Rules of Musick Explained (Gale ECCO, 2010); Lorraine Inserra and H. Wiley Hitchock’s monograph Music of Henry Ainsworth’s Psalter (Institute for Studies in American Music, 1981); the compact disc collection America Sings: The Gregg Smith Singers (VoxBox, circa 1976). The story of the actress playing Rosalind is stolen (without her knowledge) from my friend Jemma. The story of Samuel Beckett’s slippers is from my friend Gregory. Barbara recites from Euripides’ Alcestis as translated by Ted Hughes (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000). My daughter Jocelyn and her friends Evan and Margaret were very helpful in describing what such an event of fifty years ago might mean to a younger generation today.
R. N.