Emily Kaye Lazzaro

It’s the Friday before a three day weekend, the last of the summer.

When I officially started the MFA Playwriting program at Boston University we were given an assignment before our first class via email.  We had to write a ten-minute play.  Any kind, whatever we wanted, to be presented in our first class.  I pulled something out of my ass born mainly of having had an Indigo Girls song stuck in my head.

Namely:

Also I had been camping with my family around that time and there is always something so melancholy about Labor Day weekend, ESPECIALLY if it’s kind of cold?  Ugh, it’s so quietly sad when you prepare for a last summer hurrah and it ends up being too cold to go to the beach.  But you go anyway, because you’re there goddamnit, what else are you going to do?  And you wear your tee shirt the whole time.  And you don’t even want ice cream.  UGH WHAT IS THE POINT OF LABOR DAY WEEKEND ANYWAY?  More like Labor Cry weekend.  Wait, I can do better.  More like… more like Laboring To Not Cry Day weekend.

Nailed it.

Anyway, since the feeling of Labor Day weekend is so palpable for me, I pulled this play out of my ass based on an Indigo Girls song and having to wear a tee shirt on the beach and it ended up being pretty great!  So nice when that works out.  I find I’m better at writing when I have a very specific feeling bouncing around inside, especially if the feeling is quietly sad.  And that’s why writing is nice.  It banishes the bummer feeling out from my insides and puts it out into the world.  To bum out strangers.  Because that’s what art is for.  Bumming everybody out.

HAVE A GREAT LABOR DAY WEEKEND, YOU GUYS!