About

I got the idea for Pirates from seeing a friend of mine who was undergoing chemotherapy in a scarf and hoop earrings and I just thought – pirate. That was the seed.

Then I was thinking about how tough and resilient this woman was. She was still working. She had lost two of the things that our culture uses to define womanhood – hair and breasts. I wanted to write about that strength – not about breast cancer. Breast cancer was simply the catalyst for displaying that strength.

I tried to do a fair amount of research for the play. As I read the blogs on cancer support web sites, I realized that these women were not terribly depressed as I thought they would be. In fact, there were even a few of them who said that cancer was a blessing in their lives – one that they would not wish on anyone else. The reason being that it was the proverbial wake up call to life. So, given this knowledge and the name of the play, I decided that I wanted the play to be funny as well as serious and to have an upbeat message.