Later in Life

From Journalist to Playwright: Eden Lane's Second Act

• Broadway Bob

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In this episode of Later in Life, Bob talks with Eden Lane, a longtime broadcast journalist who discovered a passion for playwriting and hasn't looked back. In just over a year, Eden has written a half dozen plays, including one recently named a semifinalist for the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference.

The conversation explores creativity, reinvention, and why some of our most meaningful chapters begin long after we think they've passed us by. Along the way, Bob and Eden discover surprising similarities in their own creative journeys and discuss what it means to keep evolving, learning, and taking risks later in life.

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SPEAKER_04

Welcome to Later in Life. I'm Bob Bullen. And this is a show about people who have embraced a new chapter, pursued a long-help dream, made a bold pivot, or discovered that some of life's most meaningful adventures begin well after we think they should. My guest today is Eden Lane. And this was one of those conversations that felt less like an interview and more like two people discovering they had been traveling parallel paths in some way. Eden spent years building a successful career in broadcast journalism, including as an arts and culture reporter in Colorado.

SPEAKER_02

Hi, I'm Eden Lane. Thanks for joining me for In Focus. I'm standing in the theater at Miners Alley Playhouse during opening night for the Englishman.

SPEAKER_04

She was an actor and dancer in New York. And like so many of us, life took her in different directions, but the creative spark never really went away. What made this conversation especially fun is that Eden is an interviewer herself. So while I came prepared with my questions, she had a few for me as well, which led to a genuine back and forth about reinvention, creativity, and what it means to return to something you love later in life. Now, although we've been social media mutuals for years, this was our first real conversation. And along the way we discovered we had a lot of things in common, including that we're both relatively new playwrights. I have written one play, uh, a one act, and we discovered through the conversation that one of her plays and my one act are both being presented and produced at the same theater company, Anaconda Theater Ensemble in Montana, which is just wild. Eden is simply a joy. She radiates warmth, curiosity, and optimism. Now you can't see this on a podcast, but trust me, it's there. It's like she's glowing. One of the things that stood out most to me was how intentionally she surrounds herself with creative people, encouragement, and positive energy as she's embarked in this new chapter. And what a chapter it is. In just over a year, Eden has written, I think, six plays. And one of them, A Charmed Life, was recently renamed a semifinalist for the 2026 Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference. An extraordinary accomplishment for any playwright, let alone someone who only recently began writing plays. We had such a great time. I hope you do too. Here's my conversation with Eden Lane. Well, I just want to get started by saying what an honor it is to meet you. And uh and I was reading on your background, I was looking at all of the all the information you sent to me, and man, you are impressive in everything.

SPEAKER_03

Well, don't believe everything you read.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, it is, I mean, just the fact of like the the what you've what you've put out there in the world, the creativity that you've shown, like the fact that you're nominated for a Eugene O'Neill award, that's also cool.

SPEAKER_03

And well, just a semifinalist, but the that was that was yeah, that was that was that was kind of special. I have to confess that awards aren't the kind of thing that I normally you know put a lot of stock in, but to be even in the list of people considered for a project like like the the the O'Neill uh new play conference was so exciting, especially since it was for the very first play I ever wrote, and I've only been writing plays for one year.

SPEAKER_04

Wow. Wow. I want to get to that, but let's back up and just just tell me a little bit about who you are, Eden.

SPEAKER_03

Oh. Um, I'm a suburban housewife, I'm a journalist, I'm a writer, I'm an actor and a director, all of those things. And I'm trying to discover even more things. That's who I am.

SPEAKER_04

I love it. And looking at your impressive background, I mean, you've had so many chapters in your life. You've been a performer, a journalist, a broadcaster, a playwright. Um, looking back, do you feel a mom? Yes. Yes. Looking back, do you feel connect? Do you feel they're connected to you, or do you feel like they're entirely different versions of yourself? Like, how do all these pieces fit together for you?

SPEAKER_03

Those are all facets of a singular person to me.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Uh it's not, it's not changing gears or or shifting direction or opening a new chapter. It's all of these components of what is me that exist all the time in synchronicity. And it's just what do I have time to pay attention to and what is sparking my interest in any given moment. So it could be all of those things simultaneously, although I'd be exhausted if I tried to do them all simultaneously.

SPEAKER_04

Well, I love the fact that you the thing that that's so unique about your story is that you started out, I believe, as an actor and a performer. As a dancer, actually. As a dancer.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, a dancer in New York, and then taking a class at the American Dance Machine at the Harkness House. Lee Theodore was there, and she was so encouraging about because I was winding down my contract with the ballet company, and she was so encouraging to try theater. Um, and I did, and she was right. So started as a dancer, then working in musical theater, then in straight plays, and then off uh I went to transition and build a new life and got married and had a family. And then I became a journalist because I was involved in issues that affected my community and my daughter and in school. There's no better way to get involved in your community than to be part of what was then called the Parent Teachers Association. Um, because you get connected with people who are doing things in your community, and that was is what led me to a PBS station and then I became a journalist and and now I've retired from that and now I'm writing all sorts of things, mostly plays.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. And I love the fact that you started out kind of in the arts, went to journalism, which is still an art, but it's a different flexing a different muscle, and then return back to it. Like, what was it something that you mentioned when you when we first connected about how you feel like you're kind of returning back to yourself in some way? Talk a little bit about that. What does that mean for you?

SPEAKER_03

Working in journalism in the kinds of newsrooms I was working in, um, the most effective way to tell stories that mattered to your community was to find a human story that connected to them. So you could more effectively talk about the impact of the story, why it was important, so that you're serving the community more effectively. But doing that, you're meeting all sorts of people and probing them and helping them to trust you to tell their stories. And they're fascinating. And what that did is it helped me connect to the idea that that's kind of what I did as a as an actor. You know, you probed your your probed that story, probed that character, trying to find out what was underneath the text. Um and those skills sort of helped me be a better journalist. It also helped in broadcast journalism because you didn't get as scared. Uh you you knew how to to connect with people through a camera. After doing that for so long and collecting all those experiences, I was just brimming with uh um ideas for stories that um I got to tell in the news. But in the newsroom, you're telling stories in a much faster paced environment, not as often with as much personal detail because time limits. So I started writing them down. When I decided to leave the newsroom, I remembered this lesson from um Hal Prince that it's a well-documented anecdote that many people cite, where when he would have an opening night, the very next day he would set a production meeting for the next project. So the very next Monday after I left the newsroom, the first thing I did was decide to sit down and try to write a play.

SPEAKER_04

That's amazing. And uh, do you feel that having, you know, having been a journalist and hearing people's stories and kind of being the representative of their story, do you feel that helped you be a playwright?

SPEAKER_03

Not only uh the connection that you have with the people that you're interviewing and whose stories you're sharing, but keeping in mind who you're sharing them with and what the medium was that you're sharing them through, whether it's digital or print or audio storytelling only or on television, all of those ways of communicating the story to that audience really seems to help me figure out how to approach a story for a script.

SPEAKER_04

And you've only been doing this for a year, right? Writing a year, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I left the newsroom a year ago and the very next Monday.

SPEAKER_04

You don't waste any time and you knock it out of the park. I wrote my first, so I started playwriting like about a year ago myself, and I wrote my I know you got yours placed at the Anaconda Ensemble Theater in Montana.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Following your story about taking that chance, um, where you picked up a pen and or a keyboard and decided to write a play, made me look at that company and I placed a play with them for their Groundworks uh playwright, uh play reading series.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, have you? Did you hear anything back?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, they're doing it in August.

SPEAKER_04

That's amazing. That's fantastic. Are they doing yours? Uh are they doing it? So, what's the name of your play?

SPEAKER_03

Um, it's called Use Good Butter.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. Okay. Mine's gonna be part of a um, because I had originally written uh a longer version of the play that was a little, I think for me it was more of like stretching my playwriting muscles. So it wasn't like you were I knocked out the park and got like a semifinalist for an award. I wrote this thing and I felt like it was, I felt really like I did it, I accomplished it. I had some people read it and some people loved it, some people hated it. And um it did too much, I think. And then after having uh a workshop virtually, then I retooled it and much simpler, kind of get into the themes of what I was trying to explore. I made it uh kind of a 60-minute one act. Um, and that's gonna be part of like three different one acts that they're gonna put together as a as a performance. So that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03

So you know when it's do you know when years is happening?

SPEAKER_04

Next spring, spring of next year. Next spring. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I mean, but for me, it was uh for like when I wrote my play, and I would love to know like what it was like for you. Like for me, it even though I had this kind of like awakening that the first thing I did wasn't what I intended, but I did it so quickly. Like I didn't think about it. I just kind of I felt like I had a story to tell. It was like an aha moment, and I just started writing and I didn't overthink it. And I kind of let the play go where it wanted to go, and then had to pull it back and then finish the thing. What was your process like when you wrote your first play?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, not that much different from what you described. It's the the idea. I did a lot of research before I began because there were elements um of the story that was kicking around in my head that I wanted to make sure I had the facts straight so that um factual errors uh wouldn't bog down the dramaturgy and cause people to be distracted from the heart of the story. So I did research first. And then I just let it all come out of my head and onto the page so that um I could worry about what the form was, I could worry about what the editing was shaping it after I got it out of my head and onto the page, which is very much like the way that I wrote every news story I ever did.

SPEAKER_04

When you when you finished it and you kind of had a sense of what it would be like, did you have you had had the opportunity to hear people read it out loud yet?

SPEAKER_03

Oh yeah. Um I was lucky enough to uh post on Facebook, um, following your example, sharing what you were doing, um, that this is what I had done. And uh I was interested in finding actors who would do a Zoom reading with me. And a bunch of actors said that they would. But in fact, we ended up doing table reads in person at the communities, at the senior community center, to which I now belong, um, because it was cheap. And we all met and we did it twice. And then a wonderful regional theater here in Colorado called the Miners Alley Performing Arts Center offered to let us have their theater space for an evening to do a small invited reading.

SPEAKER_04

That's remarkable.

SPEAKER_03

For theaters to do that, it it takes a remarkable amount of trust to just give your your space over to a new playwright in that way, and for the actors to volunteer to let me hear the play, and for the audience to show up and let me see how they received it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I think that's critical in in this climate to reach out, whether you're trying anything in the arts or you're trying something else as you open up new facets of your life, to reach out and connect with as much community as you can because they will help you more than you ever could dream of. At least that's been my experience. It sounds like that's yours too, Bob.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. I mean, well, I my first experience of having people read my words out loud, it was surreal for me. I mean, I don't know what it was like for you, but when I had that workshop where they read it out loud, it's it seemed it all happened so quickly that I don't know if I was mentally prepared to hear what I had written and had in my head be digested and processed and said by other people. And my play was, I don't know, uh it sounds like your play was very personal in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_03

And my play, maybe uh I think every play I write has some element of personal uh storytelling in it because that's the way I can find the truth. But it's not my story, I'll say it that way.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my story was very was very based on personal experiences and having people who I don't know reading my stuff, and I had to like get over, like I immediately had to get over, like, that's not the character I envisioned because this is they have no input. They're just like people who just came blind. Not that it was wrong or bad, it was different. And so for me, it was very vulnerable. And then to have, and then we had to talk back afterwards, and I got feedback, which some of it was good, some of it was like constructive feedback, and it was I had to be very vulnerable in that moment. Talk about what vulnerability is like for you in terms of creating something and putting yourself out there, and and have you learned anything through the process of having your first play put up on its feet?

SPEAKER_03

Um, we've done a few different plays in this year um and readings at that same theater and in uh other table readings. It is a it is a very high energy kind of experience, especially for the very first one. Because you spend so much time with it working on it that your brain starts to paper over any errors or inconsistencies. And is for me, the first thing that steps out to me is when I see a mistake uh that I that I've made in the script because I kept fixing it in my own brain as I read proofread it, which is why you want to have a dramaturg or an editor or a director help you who has those. So I think the actual experience of hearing them read it and watching them apply their skill and share their talent and their generosity was so overwhelming that I uh all I felt was just grateful. Now you're also an actor, Bob. Uh, is and you've returned to acting from having done so previously. Yeah. When you watched those actors read your script, was there a part of you that understood their process, or were you wholly consumed with your reactions as a playwright?

SPEAKER_04

I think it was a bit of everything all at once at the same time. It was like I had so much respect for the fact that they were kind of they had never met together. This is a cold reading, so they were bouncing off of each other's energy. So I like that was really cool and fun to see. But as a writer, it was very much like you said, like there would be things I'm like, oh yeah, why I had mentioned this at one point. I had mentioned a cat over here, but hadn't mentioned it like later on in the script. It's so why did I bring that up? Because I had a a nugget of an idea that I didn't follow through in the script that I've kind of forgot about. And so, like you said, you kind of just you don't see the forest of the trees after a while when you don't have someone else kind of really, but yeah, it was like noticing things that I might have fixed real time.

SPEAKER_03

Like Did you have your keyboard out and you were making changes as you were reading a lot?

SPEAKER_04

No, no, I just was sitting there, I was sitting there like this, going like I my brain was like exploding with stuff. So, but then I like and like I said, after I got done with the with the feedback, and I thought, you know, I think I have a better idea for this play. I had to put it aside and set this play aside and just like let it enumerate, and then I came back and basically reworked it from the bottom up. And and that's hard to do sometimes. I mean, have you found that when you've when you've created things, especially with this new journey of playwriting, that you've had to just fully scrap an idea and uh and come back to it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04

What's the what's that like when you have to kill your darlings, as they say?

SPEAKER_03

Um, because in the newsroom you have to do that so often, it just becomes a muscle. Um it I I no longer have the um the emotional defensiveness of what do you mean you're cutting that out? That's I love that part. Um editors in the newsroom will do that, and and they're on a deadline. So very little time is spared for your feelings about having to cut something or start over. That foundation, that experience helped me do this. It also helped me in that now that I'm only freelancing and I'm completely retired from full-time reporting, I come down here and work every day as if I have a deadline for that day. I spend almost the same amount of time working on my scripts as I would on my stories. And in the newsroom, most newsrooms, especially broadcast newsrooms today, you're turning three to five stories a day.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So that's doing one or two scenes a day is is easy, easy, breezy.

SPEAKER_04

I I love that. I love that link of like you might look at it on paper, but like, oh, she went from like a broadcaster to playwriting. What a big switch. But honestly, a lot of the muscles that you use in one part of your life you carry over into another. And I don't think people realize that that as you get not to bring it to myself, but with acting, I had waited so long to do it. But when it came time to actually do it, I felt like I had a leg up in some ways. It's a lot of stuff I was really naive about, but some ways I had a leg up because I had already built the muscle of working in corporate America for almost 30 years, of like and you're in communications, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03

So there is part of that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, and not and like just not dealing with like the bullshit of like the toxic stuff that happens in community theater. I just know like, where are the where are the people I need to like make allies with? Who are the people I need to just like not let them take, suck up my time and like have that emotional maturity to walk into a situation and know where to focus and get the job done? I think is something that comes with age and wisdom. And I think has helped me in a way not to spend my energy spinning in circles and getting caught up in the drama that oftentimes happens in theater. But can you talk a little bit more about that in terms of how your how your skills have led you, have supported you in terms of like storytelling, in terms of quick turnarounds, in terms of like editing? Like what has helped you become so prolific in such a short amount of time?

SPEAKER_03

Well, like I said, the uh the the schedule of turning multiple stories a day built a habit in me that I sit down here and and write for hours at a time. And it's not something I'm finding time for. It's it just became part of that habit right away, following that example of Hayal Prince of the very next day, getting down there. And and that was true as soon as I typed end of play on the first script, waiting for the first reading, I started the next story, started the next play. Which is why there's uh a few uh that are in different stages of development. But also having returned um a few years ago returned to acting at the American Repertory Theater, jumping into an environment like that after having been away from the theater for so long was a little daunting, a little intimidating, but it was uh being thrown in with the best people, with the with the highest skill level and the most uh most um supportive intentions for producing a world premiere. I think that gave me a little bit of the audacity to even try because that experience was so positive.

SPEAKER_04

Uh, there's a couple of themes that I see having talked to Steve before you and now talking with you, is that you both have a very similar story and that you knew what you wanted to do and you took your skills from your previous, he was an engineer for like he he still is, and he took what he knew how to like to be an engineer. And he said, I I reverse engineered how to how to audition for the show, and it worked for me. And he talked me through his process and and the fact that you have taken your skills and brought it to this, and you have this kind of like innate desire to to push yourself further, which I think comes from also being a journalist in a very competitive environment, I would assume. So so I I find that fascinating in terms of the people who are doing new things later in life, oftentimes they don't let the noise bother them in terms of saying, I this isn't for me, I can't do this, or or the self-doubt of it all, because we all have self doubt. We all have imposter syndrome, unless you're Martha Stewart who says that she doesn't have time for that.

SPEAKER_03

Something that Steve shared and that you shared, um, I think is important, whether it's theater or anything else that you're trying later in life or Earlier in life, is that both of you reached out and and shared your idea to try something new with community. Both of you with your large TikTok following, him with his enormously growing TikTok following. Um, you shared it, you put it out there and you asked for input. You asked for support. And I I think that's critical when you want to try something new. Even looking at younger people who are shifting gears, somebody like um Vicky Joe Theater, who was a teacher. Do you know who that is, Vicky Joe?

SPEAKER_04

I don't think I do. I don't think I do.

SPEAKER_03

He's a YouTuber and uh mostly TikTok. He does theater reviews internationally from the UK and here in the world.

SPEAKER_04

I'm sure I've seen his stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Well, he was a teacher, and then he dabbled in theater while he was a student and a teacher, and he decided to shift gears and he reached out to community just like you did, just like Steve did, just like I needed to. And so I think that's an important lesson that all of you are are sharing with the people who are following you is ask for help, share your goals, share your challenges while you're facing them, and you'll find some help.

SPEAKER_04

With with your playwriting, like who who did you turn to for support? And how where did you know where your blind spots were? How did you how did you know what to ask for to be able to get you going?

SPEAKER_03

I think it was having been in new work uh earlier in my career, uh, before I became a journalist, and then returning to the theater in an environment like ART, watching how that process worked, watching uh Jill Bonnie, the director, work with the playwright and a dramaturg in the room. Um, I'm nosy, so I asked a lot of questions and paid attention to everything they were doing. Um and I think those experiences helped me understand that I didn't know what I was doing, but that was okay. And then just reaching out for community and talking to people, actors, who were willing to give me their time. Uh what a great gift that they gave me their time and their skill and their talent, and they gave great feedback. Um, I don't I don't have a theater behind me to provide me with a director and a dramaturg. So I just ask people.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I uh just like you, just like Steve, um, just ask for the help. And um the the helpers are there. If you've gosh, I sound like Mr. Rogers, the helpers are there.

SPEAKER_04

Well, he he said almost the same thing, Ian, like in different words, but he said almost the same thing. Like you can ask, and people will be there to help you. And that's something who's helpers.

SPEAKER_03

You only see when you see people who have done something that you admire that you'd like to try, write a play, sing a song, paint a picture, whatever it is that they're doing. You don't know all the failures that went into it before the part that you're seeing. Yeah, even in this age of social media, you don't know how many takes that uh influencer has done before they got the the clip just the way they wanted it. So failure is just part of the process. You don't, you're not really doing the work if you haven't had any failures to get any result. So if you're afraid of failing, that just means that you're ready to start.

SPEAKER_04

Could you give an example, maybe in your new playwriting experience or any experience later in life where you have failed and learned something from it? Because we talk about taking risks and not having a fear of failure in corporate America all the time to the point it feels like noise, you know. But it actually is it actually is real. Like I think the fear of of messing up, the fear of coming across as maybe a little messy, maybe a little I think of the younger generation who are so afraid of like being seen as cringe by being earnest in some way, you know. I wonder, is that gonna stifle creativity in some way? Because you have to fall on your face a little bit, and sometimes very publicly so, to be able to grow. Is there an example of of ways that like an experience you've had? I can't see if you're listening, but but you just eyes got very very wide.

SPEAKER_03

There's so many. Um, way back from the very beginning when I was first in New York working in dance and then theater, um, auditions were a daily uh a daily routine. Even if you're booked in a show and you're in something that's running, you just went to audition. Auditions were very different then. We auditioned in the theaters and we stood in line and uh no phone cameras, but um, you show up to auditions back then anyway, and you would line up and they would call a number, whatever number you were wearing, and say that those people stay here, the rest of you, thank you. You haven't done anything. All you did was stand there and let them look at you and they reject you. Why they reject you is none of your business. So that was from the very beginning. And then going into journalism, trying broadcast journalism, you make mistakes on tell on live television. But most people don't remember.

SPEAKER_04

They they remember the very next thing you unless you become part of a meme blooper of newsroom room.

SPEAKER_03

And even that goes away when the next one comes out. It does, yeah. It it does pass. Recently, I tried a play that was experimenting with uh form and structure. Um, and I had I I was so unsure if I could convey the kind of structure I was looking for, that as soon as I finished the first draft, I recruited actors to help me hear it much earlier in the process than I ever had or that any reasonable person ever would. But I wanted to test it to see uh, was it clear? Did it make sense? Was this format working? And it didn't. I mean, it kind of worked, but mostly uh they thought it was a novel or a or a screenplay and not a a stage play. That was so helpful to hear that. And they didn't have to tell me that. I could see that as they were doing it, I could hear it as they were doing it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Um so that was a failure, but it was a failure in that moment that allows me to recalibrate or adjust or maybe even abandon it, but uh then redirect my energy somewhere else. So that failure in front of all those people that some of them I didn't even know, they're actors from all over, because you can do it just like we're doing this interview. Yeah. Um, yeah, those failures are helpful. They they really are helpful. Um, and it's it's not that bad when you do fail. People are so much more concerned with themselves, they're not going to remember your failure the next time around.

SPEAKER_04

Ain't that the truth? There's two things I think that can happen as you get older is that you feel like you know everything about yourself and you feel like I'm a fully formed person. I don't care what anyone's opinions are about me. And I'm not sure if that's the right approach to take. As I'm getting older, I'm 46. As I get older, I'm kind of like two minds of like, I know who I am and I don't have time for this and that, and um protecting my peace and all of that stuff, you know, like I know where to put my energy. But then you have to also switch to be like, I need to be open to feedback and not be so not be so in my head about the stuff I'm putting out there and being willing to take to take input. Like an example I'll give you is when I was the last show that I did, right before we went into technicals, the director pulled me aside because I was kind of like backtracking in my development. And she's like, How did you think it went today? And I'm like, Great. And she's like, did it? Do you really feel it went great today? And I'm like, uh, what do you think? And she's like, I think that you're slipping, like you're losing the character, and I don't know what's going on. Let's talk about it. And I was like, Oh shit. And the entire time of my hand I was like, oh no, oh no, oh no, I'm failing, I'm failing, I'm failing. And then finally we got to the bottom of it after like a 30-minute conversation. And she was very kind and very, very professional about it, because that's what she does. And she said, I want you to feel empowered by this conversation, not feeling dejected. And I went home and I kind of licked my wounds for like a day or two. And then I came back, re-emerged. I put all those aside and I came back and I I I felt like, okay, I've I've kind of I had to take that in, hear that, process it, and come come out of it a different way. I guess my point is how do you feel about that in terms of like this notion of as you get older, you kind of know who you are, but you also have to like be open to change and evolution? Like it's uh it's kind of a two-way street, right?

SPEAKER_03

I know plenty of people my age that have decided who they are and they're not open to change. But I think they're the exception, to be honest with you. Um, because they don't participate in things anymore. So I don't run into them as much. Uh a few. But uh the more, the more engaged you are in the life that's happening all around you, the more you not only realize that you're never done developing, even you know, in retirement, and it's exciting. Who would want to stop developing? Who would want to just settle into being only one thing for the rest of the time you have left?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I I I don't understand that mindset. And I don't think most people really want that. Sometimes they might do it out of fear or they might do it out of um isolation. But um I think if we stay connected to the life that's happening all around us, whether it's lovely and fabulous and fantastic and exciting or scary and ominous and a little dangerous, the more engaged we are, the um the more we can leave space for ourselves to continue to grow and to continue to reveal ourselves to ourselves.

SPEAKER_04

I love that. I love that. It's like you almost work in broadcast journalism. Um and you're, you know, you have a way with the words. It's very lovely, though. Sincerely, what a well way to phrase that.

SPEAKER_03

Um I wish I had known you were going to ask that because I could have done it shorter.

SPEAKER_04

You're editing as your head as you're talking.

SPEAKER_03

No, as soon as soon as I finish the thought, then I'm like, oh, I could have said that more succinctly.

SPEAKER_04

I love it. I love it. Always, always thinking of how to how to refine. Uh, where do you see your playwright journey going? Where do you I I hate these types of questions because I sometimes And yet you ask it anyway. I know, but what would you like to see happen? What is like, or maybe even like what is your what's your next goal with this?

SPEAKER_03

Well, I've been submitting the the plays that I've written and the ones that I'm currently writing to any place that that seems like it's a good fit. Um so putting it out there, whether it's the O'Neill or um a small theater in LA that did uh they had a um a festival of 10-minute plays that were the the challenge was to write a noir. Um, so I did that and they produced it. But uh I think my ultimate goal is I would love to see uh one of the full-length plays get a production somewhere and to be able to be in the room with the director and the cast and the dramaturg and participate in that part of the play finding its life. Because not even though I finished the draft and I'm submitting it, they're not done. They're never done until you get to that piece and you're working on it and you have previews and you can make adjustments based on. So that's the dream to be able to be in that part uh for as a playwright. I don't know if that will ever happen. And even if it never happens, boy, it's been a fun ride to give it a try.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. I mean, I think it's gonna happen. I mean, considering the fact that just reading the descriptions, I would love to read one of your plays if you if you'd be willing to share them with me. Sure.

SPEAKER_03

Are you on new play exchange?

SPEAKER_04

I have to look up my my um my login information, but when I saw that you had that there, I'm like, I should be putting my play on there. I didn't make that connection.

SPEAKER_03

You should absolutely put your play on there.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I did that uh after I had two scripts finished because I didn't want to have just one. Um now I have a few. Uh some of them are short, 10-minute plays, which is a great exercise, by the way. I tried one of those prompts that the theaters put off for their 10-minute play festivals just as a challenge because I thought, well, that's much closer to writing a news story. So I'll do that. And it was it was a wonderful exercise and informed my playwriting for full-length plays because it helped me be more economic and get to the point uh a little better. Um yeah, put your plays up.

SPEAKER_04

Um, a few final questions for you that I just kind of wrap each of these conversations up with.

SPEAKER_02

So Okay, I'll be head now.

SPEAKER_04

Please don't. That's very boring. Um so if someone were to come to you and say, It's too late in life for me, what would you tell them?

SPEAKER_03

Well, if if you're still breathing and you still have ideas and you still have any kind of connection, it's not done yet. The curtain hasn't come down. So it's not too late. And even if you begin and don't finish whatever it was you started, wasn't it? Trying it just the best part. Wasn't that the most fun? Whether it's gardening or painting or writing or acting or singing or any of those things, it's not too late as long as you're still above the ground, as my grandma used to say.

SPEAKER_04

And thank goodness we still are.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_04

If you were to title this chapter of your book, if in this part of your life, what would the title of the chapter be?

SPEAKER_03

Semicolon.

SPEAKER_04

Semicolon. Brief, beautiful. Well, Eden, it's been so lovely speaking with you. It's been my pleasure. Thank you so much. Bye. Bye, take care. Thanks for listening to Later in Life. You can learn more about Eden Lane and her work at edinlane.org and follow her at Eden Lane on most social media platforms. You'll find those links in the show notes. If you have a story of transformation, reinvention, are finally saying yes to something you've always wanted to do, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out to me at the BroadwayBob at gmail.com. Later in Life is produced and edited by me, Bob Bullen. Special thanks to Rachel Joyce for our cover art and Rocky Patera for the show's theme song. And until next time, remember, it's never too late.