Edinburgh blog: Adam Rapp on The Sound Inside

Fifteen years ago I was offered a job as associate chair of the Graduate Dramatic Playwriting Program at Yale. I’d had a few years of varying degrees of success as a playwright in New York City and even though I couldn’t have gotten into the esteemed Ivy League school if I stormed the admissions office with a sword and a bag of gold (my board scores were horrendous), I accepted the job, somewhat boldly.

I’ve always been a bit of a punk. I wasn’t raised like most kids who attend the Ivies. I’m not from money. Perhaps I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder? Surprisingly, it turned out to be a pretty great experience. My nine students were open-minded, intelligent writers. Not all of them were spoiled rich kids. And having to organise my thoughts and articulate my personal opinions about how to write a good play was a great learning experience for me.

New Haven can be a lonely place. Its surrounding communities are economically challenged, even blighted. Homelessness is rampant. Once you pass through the safe ramparts of campus, junkies seemingly are everywhere. That train ride to and from New York can be a lonely experience. I did it three times a week for a year and after viewing a student workshop, I would often walk to New Haven’s Union Station to catch the last train back to the city.

I believe the first germs of the play emerged during these train rides. Something about loneliness. Something about teaching. Something about the atrophy of ambition and losing one’s passion while coasting along, collecting a steady pay check at a world-renowned university. Something about the dichotomy of class in America; how disfiguring that can be, on either side of the line. Something about all those trees on campus losing their leaves. So many leaves handsomely arranged in gigantic heaps each fall.

The Sound Inside runs from 3 to 25 August (with a preview on 28 July) at the Traverse Theatre