From the very same Internet that brought you everything else weird, here is Sad Playwright Dot Com, which features pictures of playwrights looking sad, which is their usual affect. Pictured: Awl pal Chris Shinn, who would still rather you didn't simply disappear after hating one of his plays. (via)

I have a new play that starts in previews this week. That means I have a lot of friends, colleagues and acquaintances who are going to have to negotiate the tricky thing of what to say to me after my play if they happen not to like it.

Let me be clear: I’m totally fine with being lied to. I don’t long to be told what everyone I know truly thought of my play. But in my experience, many of them long to tell me. They may not be conscious of this, but that’s why God invented the unconscious. Deep down, most people really do want to [...]