Writer's Note: Doctors Jane and Alexander

I began writing Doctors Jane and Alexander in 2005. 

My mother had recently had a stroke, and I started interviewing her in the vague idea that I would write a play about my grandfather.  It was also just a way to pass the time with her and find a subject of conversation that engaged/distracted us both.

But as it happened, I needed to write a fifteen-minute play for a 24-hour play festival.  So I took the transcripts and shaped them into a play of sorts.  Onstage, the transcripts seemed to have real power.  So I decided to expand the work into a formal one-act, that my friend Ian W. Hill directed in NEUROfest, a festival about neurological conditions (my mother, post-stroke, was the qualifying element for that festival).  That was also when Alyssa Simon first became involved.  It was 2006.

From there, it received a Sloan Grant from Ensemble Studio Theater, which helped me develop it into a full show.  And then that show was given a developmental production at the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas.  And the play was further developed in a reading by the SciArt Center.

And then I put aside, for a while.  I was involved in a number of other projects, and juggling them was difficult.  I thought about it often, however, and I have always wanted to come back to it.  So here it is.  In its finished form, if I can manage to leave it alone.  It’s now a bit of a period play, because the main action is still set in 2005. 

But it is here, in large part, because of the many artists who helped me develop it: Gyda Arber, Timothy Babcock, Fred Backus, John Blaylock, David Brown, Peter Brown, Jorge Cordova, Talaura Harms, Ian W. Hill, Miriam Hyfler, Meredith Kaunitz, Lisa Kron, Jason Liebman, Josh Mertz, Nancy Nagrant, Jeff Nash, Patrick Pizzolorusso, Alex Roe, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld, Andrew Rothkin, Phoebe Silva, Ken Simon, Scott Simpson, and Sandy York (Hopefully I remembered everybody).

And of course I am thankful to the many people who helped me with the research, most of whom are here on the stage.  Unseen also is my cousin Elizabeth Midlarsky, who gave a terrific interview that was once in the play but now is not.  And the many aides who have helped my mother through the years, all represented by the character I call “Rose.”  Most are not from this country originally.  We who are caretakers are so dependent on their kindness. 

Most of all, I am thankful to my mother, who wrote many of the best lines in this play.  I just transcribed them.  And edited a little… 

Much has changed since I first began writing.  I have changed, my family has changed.  I believe the distance from that time has helped, especially in seeing myself as a character.  My mother is unfortunately too deep in dementia at this point to understand the play is being performed.  But she saw and appreciated the early versions, and even called out a correction from her seat.

Thank you all, and to all who supported the development in other ways.  It wouldn’t be here without you.