SOURCE: "Marsha Norman," in In Their Own Words: Contemporary American Playwrights, by David Savran, Theatre Communications Group, 1988, pp. 178-192.

In the following conversation, which was held on 9 July 1987 at Norman's home in New York City, Norman discusses her approach to playwriting.

[Savran]: What got you interested in theatre? And what particularly drew you to playwriting?

[Norman]: I was fortunate enough to grow up in a house where television was forbidden and, though radios weren't actually forbidden, they just weren't there. And movies were taboo. So I lived in a world of books, which was wonderful. Mother, quite simply, did not know the dangers of books because she didn't read. So inadvertently she put me in touch with the most dangerous things of all. As well as theatre. She did believe in sending in the four dollars so that I could go to every elementary school event there was...