At the PWC this week: Keliher Walsh

Jerome Fellow Keliher Walsh is workshopping a new play at the Playwrights' Center this week with director James Eckhouse and actors Sally Wingert*, Torsten Johnson, Sara Richardson*, and Ansa Akyea* (*Member of Actors' Equity). The play is a re-imagining of the Garden of Eden in an old New England town. Learn a bit about Keliher in this mini-interview:

How does being an actor and director (in addition to playwright) feed into your writing?

Directing grounds me and challenges me to find concrete solutions. The practical mind dances with the dreamer's mind. In terms of being an actor, it can sometimes become a total food fight. The room gets messy. But I learn from acting, how my characters fight to win. It puts flesh on the bone.

What's something about you that may surprise people?

I’m a science geek.  I burst into tears when the Large Hadron Collider fired up. 

What do you do when you're stuck on something you're writing?

Those moments when I’m lost and staring down into the abyss is a terrible feeling. I fight it. I’m afraid of it. But being lost in the woods, makes me alive to the path. If I give in, those are the moments, I find my direction.

Who or what inspires you?

The messiness of life inspires me, the universal character of myth, the constant knitting and unraveling of order, nature, science, history, and always, always our search for love.