The playwright John Guare is the John T. Sargent Writer in Residence at the American Academy in Rome.
Where were you born and raised?
I’m a born and bred New Yorker. Rome is the only other city in which I’ve ever felt profoundly at home. So when Chris Celenza invited me to be the John T. Sargent Writer in Residence, I was thrilled.
Did you come with a project?
Unbelievably enough, in early November I was fourteen thousand feet in the Andes tracking down a story for a play. The air was so thin I damn near died. So I traded the highest city in Bolivia for the highest point of Rome. The air is eminently more breathable here. I came with hopes of turning a massive pile of Bolivian notes into a coherent first draft of a new play.
Have you had a particularly inspiring moment since you’ve been here?
One night at dinner, Karl Kirchwey, the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director, got me reading Racine who, I thought, belonged to another time that had passed. Wrong. Reading Racine showed me a way into the daunting project I brought with me to the Academy. That’s the Academy in a nutshell. It’s a place loaded with information you didn’t know you needed.
What’s the main gift of the Academy?
Solitude. And companionship. It’s amazing what one can accomplish in November and December and January with no phone, no television, no holiday blitz; those New York nemeses replaced with the gift of typing, figuring out your work on long free-associative walks and then sharing wonderful meals at the best table in Rome with the resident artists and scholars.
I’ve always loved the Academy for the gifts it brings its Fellows and Residents. I am so grateful to Chris Celenza for allowing me into that privileged circle.