“My grandmother was a very complicated, interesting, interested, curious, self-destructive person. She lived in New York City and knew every museum and just opened my eyes to so much culture and took me to very inappropriate places but also took me to the theater and was really a conduit to so much culture that has had a lifelong impact on me. She definitely took me to see a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit before I was 10. If you know anything about his photography, at least PG-13. At least. She took me to Medea when I was 10. She took me to see rated R movies as a little kid. She just didn't have that filter or that – I mean, as a child, it was very exciting because it was like this person sees me as an equal, as an adult. Now, as a parent myself, I'm kind of like, what was she thinking? This is not okay. But as a kid, it was thrilling.” —Joshua Harmon in conversation with Jared Bowen on WGBH
“My grandmother was sick for about a month, and she asked me to write a play about our family. She said, "I want you to promise me to make it as bitter and vitriolic as possible." In other words, giving me license to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I wanted to honor that promise. I found her really complicated. I probably understand character in part because of how complicated she was. When the pandemic hit and I had nothing to do, it felt like a good time to go through old family letters, to transcribe this recording, and to sit down and see if I could turn all of these things into something dramatic.” —Joshua Harmon in conversation with Alison Stewart on All of It on WNYC
“The title comes from trying to capture something about my childhood, but also something more global about the world. It occurred to me as I was working on it that my sense of my own family and the disintegration of the idea of what it had been was happening at the same time that climate change was really taking hold. I am in my early 40s. I am of a generation that experienced winter in New York differently than people who are new here or have recently been born do now. The play was about looking back at very small, this family, these three people, and very big, and how part of what this play is about is bearing witness and documenting something.” —Joshua Harmon in conversation with Alison Stewart on All of It on WNYC
“Laughter is a way of connecting to the audience. It reengages the audience. It awakens them in a way; people listen better after a laugh.” —Joshua Harmon in conversation with Jared Bowen on WGBH
“There was this Joni Mitchell quote that I really held onto as I was working on this, which was that in order to strike against the nerves of other people, you have to be willing to strike against the nerves of your own life.” —Joshua Harmon, in conversation with Alison Stewart on All of It on WNYC
“It wasn’t until the run at MTC ended that I really thought, “Wow, what did I do?” It isn’t my perspective, but it’s a dramatization of my perspective. So sometimes there’s an example in the play and I chose that from seventeen examples. It’s not a documentary. I’m recreating scenes I wasn’t present for. There are monologues for other characters I wasn’t there for. It is fiction, but the underlying source material is true.” —Joshua Harmon in conversation with Jared Bowen on WGBH