After a few months of home isolation, we asked Connecticut-connected writers where their creative muse was taking them. And what they were doing to keep sane, too. From a dramatic shift in how The Simpsons is produced, to how a Faye Dunaway epic fail led to new inspiration, to Anne Rice’s vampires updated for the coronavirus age, let’s find out how these writers have been creating while sheltering in place.

JACQUES LAMARRE

Playwright

Lamarre lives in Manchester and his plays I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti and The Raging Skilletpremiered at TheaterWorks Hartford and theaters across the country. He also co-writes shows for drag performer Varla Jean Merman.

On viral gardening …

“One thing I’ve been doing to help with anxiety is weeding. I hate gardening but weeds are living things that are destroying other living things. They’re the vegetable version of coronavirus.”

On struggling to write at home …

“I find it harder to write at home, and so what I’ve often done is go somewhere and write intensely for a time. Being home — and still working at my other job — I’m at my computer all day, and if we’re having Zoom chats or whatever at night I usually don’t have the oomph to sit down and stare at the computer for another four hours.”

On pivoting a project …

“But I’ve been talking with Varla Jean (aka Jeffrey Robeson) about this new show that was originally called The Shady Lady. It was about getting away with bad behavior, but we’ve been talking about changing it, not to be about the quarantine, per se, but to make it about that kind of disconnectedness.”

On escapism and social media …

“I think my new writing will lean into writing more escapist stuff. The other thing I’ve been doing is the social media work for Madame the puppet ….

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