By Robert Simonson
03 Mar 2010

Playbill.com: Boys is sort of a double-edged sword. It's done all the time, and that's a great thing for a playwright. But it also overshadows everything else you've ever written. How do you feel about that?
MC: I think what you've just said is the total truth. I've been fortunate to live long enough that my entire body of work that was produced, which is six full-length plays, was published last Christmastime. There's Boys and then there's five more. The one right after Boys was such a disaster and it took me some time to get myself back together after that. The third play was very well received by Walter Kerr of the The New York Times and John Simon at New York Magazine. It got good reviews but it wasn't the kind of play that the public expected of me. It was a memory play of my family called A Breeze from the Gulf. It got good notices and did no business. It never has been revived. I have hopes for it. I also have hopes for a play I wrote about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. I was raised a Catholic and went to Catholic schools all my life. And, alas, I was one of those kids who had an encounter or two with the clergy. And I wrote about it. But I wrote about it too soon. The scandal had not hit, and the reaction to the play was one of outrage. Timing is everything. The Boys in the Band was perfect timing. I couldn't have planned it. Somebody was going to write their version of this play. I got there first just by accident. It's no good to be ahead of your time. You have to be right on the money or else, no dice.