First Person: Djanet Sears on writing for theatre

Notes Of A Coloured Girl
32 Short Reasons Why I Write For The Theatre
by Djanet Sears

1  For me, writing for the stage reflects the hybridity of my lineage.  I am bi-cultural: African Canadian.  My practice is both oral and literary.  In the poem Talking Drums #1, African American author, Khephra, puts it this way :

     Carved from that same tree
     in another age
     counsel/warriors who
     in the mother tongue
     made drums talk
     now in another tongue
     make words to walk in rhythm
     ‘cross the printed page
     carved from that same tree
     in another age
     Khephra
          Talking Drums #1 (Khephra 125)

2  I was having lunch with Nobel laureate Derek Walcott.  We were mostly talking about a play of his that I'd directed called A Branch of the Blue Nile.  Towards the end of the conversation I said to him, "Can I ask you a stupid question?  His eyebrows crawled up to his hairline.  But he didn’t say no.  Not that I gave him much of a chance.  I quickly kicked all hesitation out of my mind,  and asked, "Why do you write?  What compels you to put pen to paper; finger to key?"  Derek Walcott retreated to the back of his seat, allowed his eyebrows to return to their original position, and looked at me.  Silence.  He seemed to be staring at me; almost looking right through me.  Realizing that I'd probably insulted him, I quietly set about plotting my escape.  Then all of a sudden a torrent of words spilled out of his mouth.  
“I don’t know why I write.”  That's what he told me.  
He said that for him writing wasn’t a choice.  From as far back as he could recall, he had written.  He described it as a kind of organic desire.  He didn’t know why he wrote, but when he experienced that urge, he felt compelled to act on it, whether he was on a plane,  whether it was first thing in the morning, or last thing at night.  He had to write.