Playwright Steven Druckman: on love, acceptance & the complexities of navigating life as an artist in today's world.

Chapters
00:00
Introduction and Connection
02:26
Real Estate Dreams and Retirement Plans
04:48
Adoption Story and Family Background
07:27
Understanding Sexuality and Identity
09:54
Coming Out and Family Dynamics
12:35
Spiritual Experiences and Past Lives
15:07
Reflections on Family Relationships
17:59
Life Lessons and Personal Growth
21:52
Adapting to New Environments
23:34
Pets and Their Needs
24:21
Relationships and Love
25:22
Career Transitions and Playwriting
28:51
The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Relationships
31:55
The Journey to Becoming a Playwright
35:25
Navigating the Film Industry
38:35
Upcoming Projects and Aspirations
40:42
Life Lessons and Philosophies
43:42
Reflections on Society and Politics

Summary:
In this episode, Stephen Druckman shares his personal journey from his early life in Boston to his successful career as a playwright. He discusses his family dynamics, coming out as gay, and the challenges he faced in his identity. Stephen reflects on his artistic philosophy, the importance of kindness, and his current projects, including a new play. The conversation touches on themes of love, acceptance, and the complexities of navigating life as an artist in today's world.

Takeaways:
Stephen's early life was marked by family challenges and adoption.
He always knew he was different and gay from a young age.
His journey into playwriting began as a way to express his identity.
Stephen emphasizes the importance of kindness in life and art.
He believes love is the core reason for our existence.
His experiences in the theater have shaped his artistic philosophy.
Stephen's new play explores themes of love and aging.
He reflects on the impact of the AIDS crisis on his generation.
The conversation highlights the importance of authenticity in art.
Stephen's insights on the current political climate reveal his concerns for the future.

Bio:
STEVEN DRUKMAN was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his play Another Fine Mess (Portland Center Stage). His plays include Pru Payne (Arizona Theatre Company, SpeakEasy Stage in Boston, MA); Going to See the Kid (Merrimack Rep); Death of the Author (Geffen Playhouse, starring Austin Butler in his first stage role); The Prince of Atlantis (South Coast Rep); The Innocents (Asolo Rep); The Bullet Round (Arena Stage, Portland, OR); In this Corner (The Old Globe, winner of the San Diego Circle Best New Play Award); Going Native (Long Wharf Theatre); Flattery Will Get You (Connecticut Rep); and more. Drukman’s work has been developed by the Mark Taper Forum, Manhattan Theatre Club, Intiman Theatre, Sundance Theatre Lab, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, and many others.  As a journalist, Drukman wrote for The New York Times for many years, as well as The Nation, The Village Voice, and International Herald Tribune.  He also served as the theatre reviewer for Artforum and WNYC-FM. As an actor, Drukman has been directed by Richard Foreman, Anne Bogart, Maria Irene Fornes and Arnold Wesker, and was a member of the Organic Theater Company in Chicago, where he won a Jeff Award. He received his Ph.D. from NYU, where he is an Associate Professor of playwriting.

To contact Steven:

To contact Wilkinson:  BecomingWilkinson@gmail.com

Transcript

WILKINSON (00:00)
Good morning. My guest is Stephen Druckmann. Hi Stephen. We're like way old friends we met what a week and a half ago. Right. You were in Palm Springs.

Steven Drukman (00:01)
Good morning.

Hi, Wilkinson.

Yes, ancient friends, we go way back. I know everything about you.

And for the first time, yes, in my 61 years of life, first time in Palm Springs. And I liked it a little bit too much, I have to tell you.

WILKINSON (00:17)
Really?

Well,

you can always come back. Everyone comes here.

Steven Drukman (00:29)
Listen, I'm

Zillow, I'm wearing out the Zillow website on my computer looking for real estate, really.

WILKINSON (00:34)
Huh.

Are you in a condo or co-op or apartment? Where are you now in New York?

Steven Drukman (00:40)
I am, I'm in Queens, I'm speaking to you from Queens Yeah, exactly. Well, there's a line in the play that you saw that she says that, he says, don't you want to go to Queens? You've got something against Queens? And she says, no, my husband plays one on stage.

WILKINSON (00:48)
Yeah.

So anyway, so are you seriously looking out here now?

Steven Drukman (00:58)
You know, I am because it seems I'm fixated on this idea that I want to retire, even though it's a writer never really retires until they lose feelings in their fingers. And even then with new software, don't have to stop writing. Yeah, I am considering it. like the desert. I've always liked the desert. I like golf, even though I've never really played golf. I watch golf and have

WILKINSON (01:05)
Right.

Steven Drukman (01:22)
I love all sports, but I really love golf and baseball. so I'm told that Palm Springs is a good place for golf. love the Rat Pack. so, yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. And sometimes I like gay people and I understand there's a gay pop music. Yeah, that's nice.

WILKINSON (01:29)
They're not here anymore.

There's a couple of us, yeah, there's a few. So I

started coming down here in 2010 and I rented my friend's house like a month at a time for all those years, like probably seven years. And then I bought here. But I just sold my big house and moved. I got the best deal on a condo, so you missed it.

Steven Drukman (01:52)
Mm-hmm.

well. There will

be others, I hope. Do you have that deal where you're on leased land or...?

WILKINSON (02:03)
I am, but the one, I'm in the La Pomme, which is near the airport, but not near the airport noise. And it's an unusual thing. Mostly they're Indian leases and they call them Indian leases. I don't have to say Native American leases. They call them that. But this is a private lease and it's good for another, I'll be long gone. I think I've got another 51 years on it or something.

Steven Drukman (02:26)
Don't say, you know.

WILKINSON (02:26)
And

it's mine is super, it's only like 175 a month, which is super cheap. plus, plus the condo I just got, I bought it for almost what the guys that sold it to me paid three years ago and they put a hundred grand into it. So everything is new in my condo, like brand new. So I did the universe dropped it in my lap.

Steven Drukman (02:32)
Wow, okay. Well, I'd like something like.

Wow, you did very well for yourself.

WILKINSON (02:52)
When you come out here and looking around, I'll tell you that story. I won't mess with it right now. So let's hear a little about you. You were born on the East Coast, right?

Steven Drukman (02:57)
Okay, I look forward to that.

Boston, was orphaned instantly, adopted by the Druckmans. I do.

WILKINSON (03:06)
Okay.

Do you know your story on the adaption or

I mean, were your parents, were they killed or did they give you up or what was the story?

Steven Drukman (03:21)
know,

my parents were 15 years old, my birth parents. They met doing theater, believe it or not. My father was the star of the Boston Children's Theater. He was the best actor. And he was killed in Vietnam. Yeah. In 1968, I was born in 1963. He was very poor, came from very

WILKINSON (03:25)
Whoa.

Hahaha

Wow.

Was he really?

Steven Drukman (03:46)
circumstances. My birth mother was, you know, decidedly middle class but didn't want to rear a child at age 15 and we can blame her. She was reared Marxist and in a kind of radical leftist family and she has refused to meet me. I don't yet quite know why but I finally found her again.

Almost a year ago when my play was done in Boston, I wrote, just emailed her by happenstance and we struck up an email exchange. Much to my surprise and pleasant surprise.

WILKINSON (04:17)
So she actually talked to you this time. But I mean, I mean in the written talk, yeah.

Steven Drukman (04:19)
We haven't actually spoken and we've never, that's right, yes.

And she did write me, when I did find her, I hired a private detective when I turned about 30 to find her and wrote her a letter and I said, will call you at such and such time. You leave very cryptic information in the letter in case the wrong person finds it. And when I did, her then husband, her husband picked up and he said, she doesn't wanna talk to you, this happened a long time ago.

Your father's dead. I wish you a good life or something like that. was pretty devastated. Yeah. For what you've wondered about for 30 years, well, let me put that to bed now. You're never going to meet her. And then later she came around and wrote me a letter and gave me all this information. And that was how I found my birth father's family. And his mother actually lived in Provincetown, Massachusetts, of all places, was a lesbian.

WILKINSON (04:48)
Have a good day.

Steven Drukman (05:07)
and had retired. My birth father's mother. Yeah. And she was an Irish, wonderful, and we ended up having a relationship. But the strange thing is, you know, I searched for that side of the family for a long time after my birth mother rejected me. And I happened to be having a summer vacation in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

WILKINSON (05:08)
Wait, now who is the lesbian?

Wow.

Uh-huh.

Steven Drukman (05:31)
And I looked up in the phone book just for a lark. And there was that last name. And so I called and I said, were you related to Douglas Chatelose? That was my father's name. And she said, I was. I said, well, you know, I've been looking for your side of the family for a very long time. And she said, who are you? And I said, I'm his son. And she said, my God, I held you in my arms the day you were born. And I haven't seen you since I'm down the street.

WILKINSON (05:56)
Wow. You're gonna make me cry. Wow.

Steven Drukman (05:57)
Yeah, I know it makes me

weepy too every time I think about it because she was the loveliest of souls. yeah, yeah. And so that was out of a sort a bad situation. I made lemonade and had a relationship with her until she died.

WILKINSON (06:05)
Wow.

Wow.

Cool.

Now, did the drug ones have any other kids? Were you a...

Steven Drukman (06:21)
I have a younger sister also adopted with whom I'm very close. adore her. And I feel very, very lucky for how things worked out. I mean, I could have been aborted. I could have been adopted by people who were a lot less supportive. And yeah, I've had a pretty good life.

WILKINSON (06:23)
Okay.

Okay.

Right.

So when did you figure out you were different and or gay or how'd you approach that?

Steven Drukman (06:44)
Well, I'm both different and gay.

I always knew I was gay, but it was confusing to me because, partly because of my father who sent me to a lot of camps every summer, overnight camps, beginning at the age of seven or eight, which was fine with me because I loved sports. I wasn't very good, but I wasn't very bad. I was never the last kid picked. But to this day, I still...

WILKINSON (07:00)
Right.

Steven Drukman (07:11)
love sports. And I fit in with all the kids that and you know, you're eight, nine years old, how you're formulating sexuality is strange, but I knew I was one of them in terms of behavior in terms of likes in terms of all those things. And so the other kids at the sports camp who were almost universally heterosexual jocks, you know, and

WILKINSON (07:20)
you

Wait, who is the them?

Steven Drukman (07:36)
but I knew I had different tendencies. And so I just thought, I was a little concerned about it and I would read Dear Abby and whatever was available to me. And she would say, you know, don't worry, this stuff will pass. You're probably normal. She didn't say it to me, but she would say it to the student. And so I just thought eventually it was going to pass. I'm still waiting here, age 61, hasn't passed.

WILKINSON (07:45)
Right.

Right, right.

Wow.

Steven Drukman (08:01)
So for long time I think I just call myself bisexual because I assume that must be what I am because I really do, if I fit in anywhere, it's with these other guys who I'm playing sports with. Yeah. And there's a little bit of that to this day. I've never quite felt at home in the gay community. I can probably count on my left hand the amount of times I've been to a gay bar. Yeah.

WILKINSON (08:12)
Right.

Really?

Steven Drukman (08:25)
I'm not interested in them because I mean, like drinking. I like to go to a bar and drink or watch sports or something. But I don't, and I never went out dancing. I always liked country music and classic rock and jazz. I never liked female vocalists, which it seems like gay men tend to like female vocalists. Even when I started writing plays, there's definitely straight plays that...

WILKINSON (08:32)
Right.

Right.

Steven Drukman (08:49)
pun is not intended there. mean, not non-musicals. I'm not a fan of musical theater very much. It's really funny how my aesthetic is so heterosexual. I don't have anything against gay people. Don't get me wrong. Some of my friends. Well, listen, I have a lot of lesbian friends and that tends to be where my aesthetic is. I don't drive a Subaru, but I, you know.

WILKINSON (08:55)
Right.

Are you sure you're not a lesbian inside?

Well.

Steven Drukman (09:14)
I've been called a lesbian before and I take pride in that.

WILKINSON (09:17)
Now you don't have a car in New York, do you? What?

Steven Drukman (09:20)
I do. I

never use it and I pay gobs of money for the insurance and the stupid garage where it sits. I pay $375 just for it to sit there. But it's because my mother's in Boston and she's not doing very well and I keep thinking I'm gonna need to zip up there. And then yet I never do. I mean, I do sometimes, but it is a waste of time. I may end up selling it particularly for these tariffs, well, it looks like the tariffs.

WILKINSON (09:39)
Right.

Steven Drukman (09:48)
are a done deal and selling a used car can be not a bad thing at this time.

WILKINSON (09:55)
I went to get that when I went COVID happened. I had just split up with my COVID boyfriend and he had he had a Jeep and it was like 2019 two door Jeep and he paid like 46 for it and it was only a couple years old and he said I'm going to sell it. I go how much and he goes so I bought it for 24 or five.

without even going online and checking prices during, remember when they had the chip problem, no chips, car prices. The dang thing was over 46,000 when I bought it from him for 24. It was like crazy.

Steven Drukman (10:25)
Yes, I do.

I'm learning

that you are a financial whiz. You seem to be blessed. I'm just going to follow you around when I have to look for real estate out there.

WILKINSON (10:35)
Hahaha

absolutely. I

know I am the you're familiar with the law of attraction, right? I am the I'm the poster guy for that. It's amazing. I mean, I could sit and tell you stories for hours, but yeah.

Steven Drukman (10:45)
I suppose.

It's you have good karma, right? I mean,

you were a much better person than I in past lives, I'm sure.

WILKINSON (10:57)
Of course.

Steven Drukman (10:59)
i mean that's

that's not high bar at the time if if this is what is in there

WILKINSON (11:02)
I've got to throw this in here because last

week this happened. I've done energy work for like eight years here with a guy, like every week, like ka-ching. Anyway, kind of let that go a little bit and I just do periodic things with him. But anyway, I had a shaman on my show and so I had a session with him to find my spirit animal. And it was so weird, you're talking about past lives.

He does like a guided meditation and you're in this zone, right? And so I'm, when you, the final thing, your final journey on the meditation thing is you go down in this hole, in this meadow, there's like a black hole and you climb down a white ladder, counting backwards from 10 down into it, right? Then you wait, no, no drugs, no drugs, no.

Steven Drukman (11:47)
and this is without drugs.

WILKINSON (11:51)
But that's

my friend, I told him this whole story last night. He goes, what were you on? I go, nothing. It was like this whole crazy thing. But anyway, so the first part of the meditation, so we're walking, he's describing all this. He's holding my hand and we're going toward the hole with the ladder. And then all of a sudden I looked and there was like seven or eight.

beings holding his hand. And I knew, I knew they were my former lives. It was so weird. And I, and I, and I stepped, I stepped on the first rung of the ladder to go down into the hole and they went and they just morphed into me like, that. And then it got interesting, but I'm not going to tell a whole story on here because it's your story, but, that, that, that was wild. It was.

Steven Drukman (12:16)
my-

Wow.

No, can you reveal what

your spirit animal is?

WILKINSON (12:36)
Well, I didn't have a spirit animal. So anyway, I go down there. He said, don't do anything. You're in this blackness. Obviously you're lying there. had something over my eyes to make it really, I'm on a flat surface and I'm having this journey. And I get down there and he said, don't do anything, let your spirit animal show up and then ask it its name.

So I'm waiting, nothing's happening. I'm waiting, nothing's happening. And then I see like this tiny little light in the distance because it's pitch black, right? And I think, well, maybe something's coming. And then all of a sudden this creature drops from the ceiling of the cave in front of me, like boom, like this. You'd think I was having an ayahuasca thing or something, but I wasn't. it was on mushrooms or something. So anyway, so this, couldn't see the face real clearly, but

It was this beautiful man, like a man's torso, huge wings, these muscular lower body and legs, but it was like an animal and part fish. And this is the weird part because it's one of the things I haven't delved into it, but I say to it, what is your name? And he says, my name is Shiva.

Steven Drukman (13:28)
yeah.

WILKINSON (13:44)
Shiva the Shiva, great seriously. And I knew nothing about it till the Shaman left and I Googled it. I had no idea. No idea. And then I'm on the back of this creature and it goes up on a mountain through this forest under the ocean, up in the air and then dives like into the, into the earth, like right through it. Like it was water, you know, like you see a ghost.

Steven Drukman (13:50)
Yeah. Wow.

WILKINSON (14:10)
walking through a door in a movie, that's how it was, just like that. So then we get up, we kind of deprogram, he leaves, I go, my God, that's like a major Hindu God. It's like, whoa. But honest I'd never studied anything. I didn't know anything about it.

Steven Drukman (14:24)
Well now, it's, don't think, does it usually take a fish form though, Shiva?

WILKINSON (14:28)
It's normally a guy sitting there with all these couple arms and stuff like that. But my creature was just a combo of all of these things. So I'm still figuring this one out. No, I'm a Leo.

Steven Drukman (14:32)
Yeah, not some as not elephant. Yeah.

Okay. Very interesting. Are you up?

Are you a Pisces by any chance?

Leo, of course you are, You have such a... You have such a, you know, a bullion personality. It's funny. Okay, if we must, yes.

WILKINSON (14:47)
Wow, what do mean? I'm a New York Leo, man.

There you go. Anyway, back to you, because this isn't about me, it's about you.

yeah. So, did you have a coming out story or situation with your family or what?

Steven Drukman (15:07)
Well, the only thing was with my father, because everyone knew I would make comments about how cute the waiter was. I mean, this is at age 14, 15. I was very, looking back, I realized that I was select about in high school, about to whom I would sort of reveal these leanings. And I had just thought I had done it without having to sort of formally do it, declare anything.

And we went away on a family vacation and my sister and I would just be talking at the table and she would make comments about guys walking around and my father's ears would prick up and he would be bothered by it and he finally, he took me in the car and never do this when someone's driving, I guess, I've learned. And I said, yeah, gosh, dad, thought you knew, everyone knows, I thought you knew I was gay.

WILKINSON (15:52)
Hahaha

Steven Drukman (15:59)
And he clutched the wheel tightly and said, I didn't know. I didn't know. And he was driving really erratically. I said, OK, let's breathe. It's OK. It's all right. Let's just get to our location safely. And it caused a rift, I have to say. And I don't know to this day whether it was because he was the last to know or whether was because he had a problem with it. I mean, he even asked me later on.

WILKINSON (16:01)
You

You

Steven Drukman (16:24)
early 20s when we were sort of alienated from one another. He said, why is this a problem for me? know, have gay friends and I just don't want you to be gay. And I said, you know, dad, I can't answer that for you. I wish I knew, but I think you have to just tell yourself it's not. You you just have to get over it. And I really hope you will because it's, and he did eventually. So we did have a really loving relationship.

He was, you know, unlike a lot of men of his generation, he was very demonstrative. He told me he loved me all the time and was very physical, physically affectionate, but also had a hot temper and was physical and would hit me a lot. we, you know, I mean, we would have formal spankings with straps and belts and that sort of thing, which I think was actually rather de rigueur for the time.

but also he was a hothead and he would sometimes just sort of haul off and yeah. So it was, I haven't dug into that with a shrink, what that means, but I always loved him. I adored him because most of the time he was most physically affectionate in a way that I saw other boys and their fathers were not. We had,

WILKINSON (17:34)
Right.

Steven Drukman (17:38)
season tickets at Fenway Park. I'm still to this day a Boston Red Sox fan. And we would sit and watch and he would spend the whole time teaching me about the game and with his arm around my shoulder. You couldn't ask for anything more. And when I went away to summer camp, I expected that from my counselors and I would jump in their lap and I would sort of nuzzle them.

WILKINSON (18:00)
Hahaha

Steven Drukman (18:01)
And I learned later on, I kept these relationships for long time, that it meant a lot to them. They would say, I never learned how to be that way with another male. And you taught me that, they would say. And yeah, so I'm very grateful to have had the father I had.

WILKINSON (18:18)
and how long has he been gone now?

Steven Drukman (18:19)
He died, it's funny, it's April 3rd. Five years ago, my best friend in New York, one of my best friends in New York died today. I'll always remember April 3rd. My father died on May 3rd, almost two years ago. So he's only been gone. He had cancer, but I think he was doing better. And I think he actually was COVID, but it just wasn't diagnosed as COVID. Yeah, yeah.

WILKINSON (18:32)
Did your friend die of COVID?

Wow.

Huh.

Steven Drukman (18:44)
Yeah.

WILKINSON (18:45)
Well, I don't know, the baseball thing's a little, that's a little lesbian too, I don't know. mean.

Steven Drukman (18:49)
God,

I drive my friends crazy because all I've been doing is watching MLB since the season began and the Red Sox are two and four and Raphael Devers finally broke out of the slump and I just bore the people around me. I've learned that that's my function as friend is just to bore people and I could.

WILKINSON (19:04)
That's some of your, that's your thing, huh?

Well, I've

never been into sports, but I will do a Super Bowl on one condition, that there's a lesbian there to explain the game to me. Then I'll go. I'll watch. Maybe. Not a whole lot around Poppin Springs, I don't think.

Steven Drukman (19:22)
Hey, hey, you're so rigid. There could be a gay man there who could have seen. There are a lot of gay male football fans.

know where where's that? Palm Springs. yeah. So where did you grow up? We're not supposed to talk about you but I will. and you're not a Bills fan? You're the only person born in in Buffalo is not a Bills fan. Christine Baranski is a Buffalo Bills fan if that makes you more of a Buffalo Bills fan. She's a big one.

WILKINSON (19:32)
Palm Springs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was born in Buffalo, New York. Then I... Eh.

What can I say?

you

So then I went to just outside New York City, do know where NIAC is? So I lived in NIAC, worked across the Tappan Zee in Tarrytown for five years. actually he was, Bob Schwartz was a way, way, way back, like a time life editor. And he became a, he was an entrepreneur and he actually invented the concept of a conference center.

Steven Drukman (19:55)
Sure, love Naya.

WILKINSON (20:15)
And that's where I worked. I was at the front desk when I was in school and then I was director of sales by the time I left, but it was a really fun thing. And he was like a crazy guy, in a good way, just insane. mean.

Steven Drukman (20:23)
at Timelapse.

Wow. Nyack

is a lovely town. Helen Hayes lives there, or lived there. She's been gone for a while.

WILKINSON (20:32)
Right, right.

Yeah, she had a place kind of on the water. She went downtown toward the water on the left, boom, up there. I remember that. Yeah, yeah. So that was interesting. I wish I'd bought real estate when I was there. What could I, should I? And then I moved to, from there, I moved to Seattle.

Steven Drukman (20:41)
Karen Finley lives there.

Well, yeah, we all feel that way.

WILKINSON (20:55)
for my adult life basically. And then I moved down here in 17.

Steven Drukman (20:59)
You got tired of the rain, I guess. Great, yeah.

WILKINSON (21:01)
I got tired of the gray.

And I had a, my friends couldn't believe I got rid of it. I had a mid-century saltwater front triplex right on Puget Sound, north of the city. It was beautiful. But it was great for those two or three months. And then the rest of the year was like gray, gray, gray, gray.

Steven Drukman (21:19)
Yeah.

WILKINSON (21:20)
But I had that place for like 14 years and it served its purpose.

Steven Drukman (21:26)
You know, there is something to say about the sun because, I have long, I've had long COVID now for a year and a half. And since I've been back from Palm Springs, I just feel absolute rubbish. I felt fine while I was there. And the same thing happened a month ago when I went to Miami. I just felt really okay in the sun. And now back.

where there's limited sunshine, and I don't think it's just vitamin D. I think there's something about the actual sun that is good for you. So, I

WILKINSON (21:53)
Right.

Well, the day I moved here, because I gotta remember Seattle, 70 degrees was great, right? I moved down here 127. But, and then, you know, I bought a used house, so I'm going to Lowe's four or five times a day, you know, end of the year conditioning out. I thought it was like, oh my God, what have I done? But I did that for a couple of days, and seriously, then this one day I go.

Steven Drukman (22:06)
Well, there is that.

WILKINSON (22:21)
Mind over matter. I'll deal with it. And it was like a light switch. Yes, yes, it was hot walking out, but I got in my car, the air conditioner came on, you know, it was fine. So, uh-uh. You have two, right?

Steven Drukman (22:26)
Really?

Right. Do you have animals? Do you have dogs? so then

I have two dogs and that is that's really my big worry about Palm Springs is being there in the summer and their little tootsies burning up. And also overheating because they're covered in fur like most dogs, not all dogs, but most dogs.

WILKINSON (22:49)
Right.

Well, everybody has a dog here,

Steven Drukman (22:53)
Yeah, that was what I discovered.

WILKINSON (22:55)
Yeah, what kind of dogs are they? I saw pictures I couldn't figure it out.

Steven Drukman (22:59)
did, Tully as was rescued, he's a big mutt, combination of, rather like me, of every sort of genetic type. And then the little one is Maple and she's only four years old. She's a doxypoo, which is Doxin and Poodle. And she looks like neither. I mean, she sort of is the shape of a Doxin, but she looks like a terrier. And she's...

WILKINSON (23:05)
you

Steven Drukman (23:18)
my baby. I mean, they're both my babies, but they're wonderful. Okay.

WILKINSON (23:22)
I think they'll be fine. I'm serious.

Everybody's got a dog here. It's crazy. All right, back to you. So, you're single now, right? Are you? Or not? you're not?

Steven Drukman (23:26)
Yeah.

Okay.

No,

no, I have a and we've been together almost eight years. So that's a really long time from, I think, I I bore him. We met on a grinder. But how else do you meet? How else do you meet? As I told you, I don't go to, I really don't go to gate bars, yeah. And he's a bit younger.

WILKINSON (23:44)
Where did you meet?

I'm on a reminder. Where?

You don't go to virus.

Steven Drukman (24:02)
So I didn't expect it to last, but it really was a sort of love at first sight thing for me that has only grown. And for me, again, I don't know if he would say the same thing, but yeah, I'm kind of, sometimes I feel a bit lost without him. You know, when I was in Palm Springs and he was through...

WILKINSON (24:09)
Right.

Hahaha!

But he's like over 18, right?

Steven Drukman (24:24)
yes, goodness

yes. Yes he is.

WILKINSON (24:28)
Okay, all

right, all right. Well, that's good. That's cool. Is he from New York?

Steven Drukman (24:31)
Yeah.

He's actually from Riverside County, California. Yeah. And wants to return to California at some point. so that's why I think it might be easy to sell Palm Springs to him. Yeah. I mean, he thinks it's too hot. That was his first reaction. But still, it's close to his family, I think.

WILKINSON (24:37)
Really?

I would guess it would be, yeah.

Steven Drukman (24:55)
I think I can make it work.

WILKINSON (24:56)
Just remind

him that's why God created air conditioning.

Steven Drukman (24:59)
I know. And if I would get solar, I would try to get solar so that you weren't always paying for cranking the AC and maybe you could even power an electric car that way. I realize this is tedious conversation, but it's really all I think about when it comes to retiring. Because it's so foreign for me. I mean, we don't have any of that here in New York City.

WILKINSON (25:07)
Right.

So you would buy a house or look for a house?

Steven Drukman (25:23)
I would like a house.

WILKINSON (25:24)
Because a condo,

I don't know if you could do solar on a condo. I've never seen that.

Steven Drukman (25:29)
Yeah, in my research on Zillow, you're right, it's pretty rare, but there is some. More townhouse than condo, so that it can be done.

WILKINSON (25:38)
Okay,

well some of the newer ones might even have that built in.

Steven Drukman (25:42)
Yeah, they should, if they don't.

WILKINSON (25:44)
Cool. So what is your partner's first name? Dean. So you had other partners.

Steven Drukman (25:46)
deemed.

I have. Probably the one you may know of was Scott McPherson, if that name means anything to you.

WILKINSON (25:57)
Why it rings a

bell, we'll talk more.

Steven Drukman (25:59)
I was an actor in Chicago, that was sort of how I started in the theater. And he was a playwright, but also an actor. And we met as two cast members in a play called The Normal Heart. Now this was, my memory serves, the first production of The Normal Heart since the one at the Public Theater in New York with Brad Davis. So Larry Kramer was out there a bit. And...

WILKINSON (26:01)
yeah, right.

Okay.

Steven Drukman (26:22)
Scott and I had a bit of a showmance. that's what you call it, yeah. Yeah, and we, didn't think it was going to be anything more than that. And I went home to Boston and I told my friends, you know, when I fly back to Chicago, this is 1986, I'm going to break it off because I think he's really just a friend. And I land.

WILKINSON (26:25)
is that what you call it? I've never heard of that.

Steven Drukman (26:49)
And I say, Scott, I have something I want to talk to you about. said, well, I actually have something I want to talk to you about. I tested positive for AIDS, for HIV, which was testing positive for AIDS at the time. And he said, what do you want to talk to me about? And I said, never mind. And I sort of did the anti-Angels in America thing, where Lewis, the protagonist of that play, flees.

WILKINSON (27:00)
Right.

Steven Drukman (27:12)
when Pryor has AIDS, I thought I had to stay. Even though I didn't feel that we were really boyfriends, I stayed and I stayed for another two and a half years. And he wrote a play called Marvin's Room, which was made into a movie with Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio. He wrote the Robert De Niro part for me, actually, because then I was an actor. wasn't a player.

WILKINSON (27:29)
Well.

Steven Drukman (27:36)
and Gwen Verdon was in it, Diane Keaton, I mean, it's quite a cast. He didn't live to see the film made, but he wrote some of the screenplay. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a formative relationship, a difficult relationship because we had to keep it secret. mean, was all of 22, 23 years old and...

suddenly I have a boyfriend who's...

We knew he was not gonna make it to see eight. He actually did see 30. He died at 33, I believe. Yeah, that was tough. I it was tough for my whole generation to really not come out, but to sort of reach your full flowering of early adulthood and figure out who you are as an artist when all your colleagues are, you're going to memorial services every

WILKINSON (28:10)
Wow.

Well, tell me about it because I mean I'm single and like the dating pool, a lot of them died for me. I mean that's the simple reality of it.

Steven Drukman (28:36)
Yeah, yeah, that.

I bet,

WILKINSON (28:41)
So let's move into your playwriting. And you're also a professor, correct? And you picked up a PhD on the way along there somewhere?

Steven Drukman (28:44)
Mm-hmm.

Correct. That's right.

That's right. I enjoyed the acting and acting tends to be one of the two gateway drugs into becoming a playwright. But I knew, I loved the theater, but I knew by the time it came to the opening night of a play that I was done with the play. I was not interested in performing five, six times a week.

for six or eight weeks, however long the run was. I thought the fun part is over, rehearsal, sort of digging into the text. it hit me as much as, and I was getting cast a lot. I was an okay actor, not a great actor. But it occurred to me that maybe I could love the theater, but maybe acting wasn't what I should do. because Scott had been a playwright, I didn't think I could.

WILKINSON (29:21)
Right.

Steven Drukman (29:37)
should be a playwright. I know that sounds strange. But I knew I was a writer. And so I went and I got a PhD. And as I got the PhD at NYU, to support myself, started writing more. I started writing journalism, even though I had never trained as a journalist. And ultimately I ended up writing for the New York Times, Arts and Leisure a lot. And I wrote for everyone. I mean, I was a real slut.

when it came to accepting assignments. I just wanted writing experience and I loved writing and I loved writing on deadline. And then I'm finishing up my PhD and it came time to write a dissertation and I swear to all that is holy, this play just kind of came to me. These characters started speaking to me. It may have been a way to avoid.

procrastinate, you to avoid writing a 300 page dissertation. But whatever it was, I knew I had to get it down on paper, you know, sort of clear the decks before I could turn my attention to the dissertation, which I did eventually write to get the PhD. But a friend of mine who was a director looked at it and said, I'm going to organize a reading. And he did. And it went well.

sent it to an agent. The agent said, I like it, I'm going to represent you. And he sent it to the Mark Taper Forum and the Mark Taper Forum said, yes, we will develop it. And then it was produced at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. And suddenly I was a playwright. I I thought this is my late thirties already. And I just thought, you know, I have to decide, I a scholar? Am I going to finish this PhD and become a scholar or?

WILKINSON (31:10)
Right.

Steven Drukman (31:17)
I have this really good journalism career, am I going to be a journalist? And sort of I was on the horns of that dilemma when this third possibility sort of emerged. since then, I've been a playwright ever since.

WILKINSON (31:25)
Right.

What was that first play?

Steven Drukman (31:32)
That was my gay play. That was a play called Going Native about a young 30ish man, it's embarrassing now that first plays and first novels, they tend to be a little autobiographical, but I'll never do that again, who doesn't believe there is a gay community. And so it really spoke to my life. He didn't feel he was part of the gay community. He liked...

WILKINSON (31:34)
My gameplay.

Uh-huh.

Steven Drukman (31:57)
sports, he liked other things, and it was very sitcom-y. this was, so this was 98, 99 was when I wrote it, but it wasn't produced at the Long Roof until right after 9-11, so whenever that was. So, know, Will and Grace was a thing then.

We were starting to really have more more gay plays being written. Billy Porter was in it and what's her name? Jessica Walter was in it. Jerry Adler, you might know from the Socrana, was in He a great cast. And it was, you know, it got okay. We got pretty good reviews. And it's funny. It was really kind of a

WILKINSON (32:17)
Right. Right.

Wow.

Steven Drukman (32:34)
boom, kind of sitcom-y play, which I haven't written since. I that was more than 20 years ago. And I had finished the PhD at NYU and I was teaching in the drama department. And the chair said to me, well, it's time for you to start playwriting, teaching playwriting here at NYU. And I said, Kevin, I've never taken a class in playwriting. I don't know anything about playwriting. He says, but you're a playwright. I mean, your career is taking off.

WILKINSON (32:57)
Ha

ha.

Steven Drukman (32:58)
You got to start teaching it. And I figured out a method that I teach to this day. I'm really proud that I did that, you because I thought, what did I do to write this play? And I thought, boy, I've coined this, I've sort of fresh minted this pedagogy of playwriting. I'm going to publish it in a How to Write a Play book. I thought, before I do, I should just check out other playwriting manuals that are out there and

WILKINSON (32:59)
my god.

Steven Drukman (33:22)
Every single one said the exact same thing, what I was saying. I mean, I could have saved so much time just by copying one of those. But every how to write a playbook really says the same thing. Because unlike other forms of writing, are principles. are, I won't say rules, because there's no such thing as artistic rules, but there are real axioms that you don't want to mess with too much.

WILKINSON (33:48)
Like what?

me an example.

Steven Drukman (33:49)
Well, you never want to have a passive central character, for example. Your hero or your protagonist must want something deeply.

your plays, you want above all your plays to be active. And to me, an active play has characters in the state of need, in the state of lacking something. To me, that makes them active. They don't even have to do anything. We tend to think of action movies and action, dramatic action as stuff happening and plates flying and swords. But really, Hamlet is the most...

active character in the canon of Western dramatic literature. And we tend to think of him as a slacker, as passive, as someone who hesitates, but he really isn't. He really cannot act and he really wants desperately so much to act. But Shakespeare, being a pretty good playwright, throws conflict, so much conflict in his way that he has to maneuver this way and that way and, you know,

to get what he wants. And so he really is the most active character because he is in the state of deep need, deep wanting, and the circumstances are so stacked against him. That's really what you want to do in a play. You never want to announce your point of view in the dialogue. You never want to announce exposition. It's a hard form. It's a very difficult form.

all my young playwrights at NYU struggle with it because there really is no other, I don't think there's a more difficult form of storytelling than writing a play.

WILKINSON (35:21)
Wow.

All right, I'll drop that down on my list of things to do then.

Steven Drukman (35:26)
Yeah, write a screenplay Wilkinson like everyone else out there. sure go to coffee and sit next to you know, isn't someone writing a screenplay there? It's got to be people, maybe not, a little north of you. That's where everyone is. That's where everyone

WILKINSON (35:29)
There you go, there you go

It could be, yeah.

So we talked before we started recording and I found very little on your private life, but a couple of times it came up, did you do a movie in 2018 or did that not come to fruition?

Steven Drukman (35:54)
no,

I wrote it and it got close but it never got filmed. Yeah.

WILKINSON (35:58)
okay, because I

was trying to find it to watch it, but yeah.

Steven Drukman (36:02)
I'm sorry. Yeah, I'd love to find it and watch it too.

It was, it turned out to be, it was a

It was a polish. It was supposed to be just a polish, as they call it. I was hired to polish an already existing screenplay. And I ended up, I'm really a man of the theater. I don't know much about TV and film, but I didn't know what a polish was. So I just completely rewrote the whole thing. And it was much, much better, I have to say, which isn't saying much. I should be careful, but it really wasn't that great a screenplay to begin with. And...

WILKINSON (36:09)
.

Rewrote it.

Steven Drukman (36:33)
And we thought it was going to be made. So I got screenwriting credit and all of that. no, didn't. It may still, maybe it will still yet be made, but it wasn't. Yeah. I almost had lots of TV shows too. got, you know, I was, I came so close at HBO with this and this story is probably so boring to you because every playwright has one or every TV writer has one. But we were literally chilling the champagne.

The champagne was on ice. We just thought we were going in for a formality to sign papers. And that day, the head of HBO changed. The head of... And he just wanted to bring in his own things and that sort of thing. And I didn't know. So I could have become... Had it gone that way, I might have... We might be sitting with the next... I don't know, Chase or...

What's his name? Weiner? Reiner? I don't, I know very little about TV. Mitchnick. Anyway, I'm not any of those guys. Okay, good for you.

WILKINSON (37:25)
I don't watch TV,

but I did watch and was it Hulu I think. Did you see the new Golden Girls but it's guys?

Steven Drukman (37:35)
No, but I was

supposed to go to my first night there, I was supposed to go to the party at the Dinosaur house that Steve got to go to. they even somehow got me an invitation, but I had already made plans to have dinner with Mel. And so I said, I can't leave Mel in the lurch. If you can't get an invitation for him, I'm not going to the Dinosaur home. I don't care. It's my integrity. Yeah.

WILKINSON (37:45)
really?

Right.

Steven Drukman (38:04)
So no, but I haven't seen it, but I actually hear it's pretty good.

WILKINSON (38:07)
Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I guess after Golden Girls and stuff, I just expected a little bit more, but, and then the writers, I don't know their names, but the writers did Will and Grace, so.

Steven Drukman (38:09)
for that form, right? It's like.

well, what do you expect?

Right. And I think that's Mitchnick. M-Mitnick? Mutchnick? I don't know. No. Especially the names I should know. never, you know.

WILKINSON (38:27)
It could, I don't know. I'm not good at names. What can I say? Yeah.

So what's on your horizon?

Steven Drukman (38:36)
Well, I guess I can say that there is an option, a Broadway option on my new play, West End and Broadway option, newest play, well not my newest, but no, no, something else. It's called Prue Pain and it,

WILKINSON (38:47)
Now, is that the Scarlet tattoo or another one? No? Okay.

group paint, yeah, okay.

Steven Drukman (38:56)
premiered in Arizona and then went to Boston. And it requires a talented, facile, intelligent, sensitive woman of 60, the character's 68 years old. It's loosely based on like Susan Sontag or Mary McCarthy, maybe a Joan Didion type, but an elder

female public intellectual who starts slipping a little bit. And when you've made your imprint in the world all from up here and you start slipping, perhaps a lot ends up slipping from you, including your sense of self. And she falls in love with someone who is not of her station, does not have her educational level, someone she would never, ever...

ordinarily to say two words to and it's a really sweet love story. I have to admit, you know, I don't usually write these, but everyone just cry and it's funny too, but they're just all sobbing at the end, which I love. I love making people cry. And so we've got that out to some of the top actors, you know, so we're waiting. Once we get the star, will, I think it will cook along.

WILKINSON (39:49)
Wow.

Steven Drukman (40:08)
I'm trying to be optimistic that it's going to happen.

WILKINSON (40:11)
So when we get to this point, I always ask my guests, what have you learned in your life? What do you run your life by?

Steven Drukman (40:15)
Yes.

Wow. You ask them that? Does anyone have an answer? I do believe in following your bliss. I do believe I've never made any decision based on money. I've been perhaps lucky that I didn't have to, but I do know, and this is speaking as an artist, that anytime you do make

WILKINSON (40:21)
Of course, and it better be good.

Okay.

Steven Drukman (40:43)
that sort of you think now is the time I'm going to write my commercial hit. Now is the time I'm going to ingratiate myself to these people because they can help my career. Now is the time I'm gonna date people who are, you know, I'm tired of dating the chorus boy with the pug nose and chip tooth. Anytime you do that, it's doomed. that's your first concern, if it's not hooked into being something more

authentic spiritual love, it's got to be love-based. I do know that love is the reason we are here. And this, and I almost hope you don't air this, but because I'm known as the greatest cynic in the world, but I have learned from, know, I've been in the depths of depression and, you know, whether it's through ketamine infusions or other psychedelics that I dabbled in,

or my own spiritual longings. I was adopted by Jews, went to Quaker meeting. That's sort of the closest Quaker that I get to in terms of orthodoxy. That love is what we're here for, and that's what links us. And so the kinder we can be, that Henry James quote, I've learned three things. The first is to be kind, the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind.

WILKINSON (41:55)
Wow, true.

Steven Drukman (41:56)
And I really

do believe that. mean, it sounds nice, but it actually happens to be true. The more kindness and that's what we're here for. It's the best I can do. I hope it's not trite, but I really do believe it.

WILKINSON (42:06)
Good word.

I arrived at that point a few years ago. With everything going on, political and everything right now, I think it's really important. Because the way I see it is this cosmic war going on with the ones that want to control and fear-based and all that. But a lot of people, they're awakening to what you just said. And it's a big deal.

Steven Drukman (42:17)
Yeah.

I think so.

Yeah, I mean, I think politically, worry, Wilkinson, that this is going to be a violent summer.

WILKINSON (42:39)
Could be.

Steven Drukman (42:40)
And the reason I say that is because he is very quickly disenfranchising the people who voted for him and they are becoming increasingly disenchanted with him. But I don't, and this is my own personal belief, I think the far left really shot themselves in the foot over the past 10 years with too much about nomenclature and scolding and punishing and purity tests and all of that.

And so those people don't feel that they can suddenly turn to Democrats. As bad as he is and as poorly as he seems to be doing, the Democrats are polling at the lowest they ever have. And I think it is because of that. And when people don't feel they have an option, they don't have anywhere to go, that's when we tend to behave really badly. I'm worried about it. I hope we don't. But I do think we will come out the other side. And I think it'll be sooner than...

than we think. But I agree with you. We're involved in this sort of great paradigm change right now, of civilizational war that we're witnessing day by day. Yeah. Sorry.

WILKINSON (43:41)
Ugh.

Anyway,

what's your weather like there?

Steven Drukman (43:45)
Today is gloomy, about 49 degrees, I think, is what Alexa said. The eighth or ninth time I asked her today, I always ask before I take out the dogs, hoping, you know, sometimes ask her twice in a row, hoping for a better answer the second time. It's not a nice day.

WILKINSON (44:04)
Yeah, we're not super, it's very sunny out, but it's 64 right now. So, yeah, for us. Hey mister, this was fun.

Steven Drukman (44:08)
that's Arctic for you. Yeah.

Well, thank you for this. really enjoyed it.

WILKINSON (44:19)
We

didn't talk a whole lot about your plays, but that's me. Everybody talks about them.

Steven Drukman (44:22)
hey, just come see them. hope people come see them. Yeah, that's

right. Everybody is talking about them. So why should we?

WILKINSON (44:29)
So

yeah. All right, we will be in touch. All right, take care.

Steven Drukman (44:32)
Okay, thanks a lot. Thank you.

Okay, bye.