You've had a lot of accolades, but this is a big night.

it's a night that i have dreamed of you know since i was a child i've watched the tony awards i've always loved theater it's had such a big impact on my life there's so many amazing artists in that room tonight that i revere so to be able to stand in that room on behalf of our whole beautiful company and receive this it's um absolutely something that my childhood self would not have believed

Tell me about that.

Well, it's really extraordinary to me how few women playwrights have won this award.

And I didn't even realize it actually until we were in this conversation.

I think a lot of people don't notice.

So I wanted to call it out just to speak about how important women's stories are, how important women playwrights are, and how grateful I feel to be able to put my voice out there.

And you did, and you got it.

[laughs]

You know, Liberation has about a 15 or 20-minute naked scene in the play where you see six women, different ages, um, all different walks of life naked on stage talking about their bodies.

And so when I heard that story, of course it really resonated.

Just, um, in particular the difference between being a subject and being an object.

Mm-hmm.

That resonated with me so deeply, that your body is you, so if you hate your body, you hate yourself.

And in my play, women are really contending with what they love and what they hate about their bodies and trying to reclaim ownership of their bodies, and also leaning into the idea that your body works.

It functions for you.

[laughs]

You know, Liberation has about a 15 or 20-minute naked scene in the play where you see six women, different ages, um, all different walks of life naked on stage talking about their bodies.

And so when I heard that story, of course it really resonated, just, um, in particular, the difference between being a subject and being an object.

Mm-hmm.

That resonated with me so deeply, that your body is you, so if you hate your body, you hate yourself.

And in my play, women are really contending with what they love and what they hate about their bodies and trying to reclaim ownership of their bodies, and also leaning into the idea that your body works.

It functions for you.

It's not just an object of desire or an object of beauty.

[laughs]

And I think for them, what they said to me was that it was the first time that they understood that progress was not gonna be linear.

That it was like, okay, it's gonna go like this, and, and of course, we're living through something even worse now.

And so I think, I think that they, I th- a lot of them I talked to, honestly, were pretty disheartened.

Pretty disheartened and very sad to see so much of what they fought for, including Roe, overturned, and wondering about their tactics, wondering about their approach overall, and was it the right approach or not? And that is part of what the play's about.

At the same time, I really wanted to also honor the progress that they did make.

That was a true fact in the play, that when my mom was in school, girls used to play basketball on half a court.

Yeah.

[laughs]

... and drafts of this play with other titles and other approaches.

But actually having the play start with Lizzie speaking was the thing that cracked it open for me.

Having someone in the present come in and say, like, "Here I am with you, and we're gonna do this together," and bringing the audience in in that way.

And it sort of allows us also to look at the past in relation to the moment we're in now.

You know, Lizzie is not me.

She's, she's, it's not an autobiographical play by any means.

Yes.