Paula Vogel on ‘How I Learned to Drive’ Tony Nominations: ‘I Just

Playwright Paula Vogel was first nominated for a Tony Award in 2017. “Unsuitable.” He now has a second Tony nomination for “How I Learned to Drive,” which he wrote in two weeks 25 years ago. A play about abuse, love and survival questions the relationship between Uncle Peck and his underage nephew, Li’l Bit.

Off Broadway, the actors who created the roles of Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse returned for the play’s first Broadway play, as did the play’s director, Mark Brokaw. both players applicant, more. Speaking from his home in Wellfleet, Mass., Vogel said he plans to spend the day “doing all my work so I can get on a train tomorrow and come to New York, it will be exciting.” Here are edited excerpts from the speech.

So how does it feel?

The second time is more fun and beautiful. This feels like a joint celebration with Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse and Mark Brokaw. So we’re all back 25 years later. So this is a real phenomenon for me. And I was excited. I just got excited.

Why do you think the show took so long? come to Broadway?

I mean, it’s interesting. Mary-Louise Parker was speaking on The Village Voice. The cover was a photograph of that original production. And the headline read, “Too Hard for Uptown.” I remember seeing this and thinking, “This can’t be right.” We always do the hard stuff on Broadway. I have to say that this season made me very happy. “To go past” with “For Girls of Color.” It is strange. In fact, this season I feel more at home than ever before. I’m starting to admit that the game is taking this long.

And then of course the pandemic meant more delays.

I am stubborn and stubborn. I got it. These actors endured, Mark endured, we all endured. Even during the two-year Covid period, we did not stop working. We thought every day. We communicated our desire to each other every week. So it’s a miracle: the whole band got through two years and we’re back, 25 years later this has moved to Broadway.

You wrote this play as a younger woman and at a time when our culture was less conversational about abuse. Can you write the same way now?

The difference between now and then is that I don’t feel comfortable as a survivor. The game has been a gift to me, because every year it gets a little lighter. It’s getting further and further away, that adolescence and the edge of pain. It pulls back in a certain way. Should I write differently? I don’t think I will. There are some games in my life that come out in two weeks. This is one of them. I sat and did not stop. It just came from my heart. I don’t think you have rewritten games.

How does it feel to watch the same extraordinary actors play the same roles 25 years later?

The layers are incredible. You feel these actors process every moment of their experience. And it makes it deeper and richer. I have no words to express how grateful I am to Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse.