Meet The Playwright: Jim Dalglish
I was in downtown New York on the morning of September 11, 2001, setting up for a presentation in a conference room on the 59th floor of the Standard & Poor’s building. All of a sudden all hell broke loose. I looked out the window and saw… well… what we all saw on TV. A huge rip cutting across the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I’m still haunted by the vivid memory of what happened that day - to me, my colleagues and all the people who fled the financial district after the towers collapsed.
What has haunted me most is how that tragedy has affected people’s lives for years afterward. I think we are still grappling with that, the impact of the tragedy not only on a national and international level, but also on a deeply personal level.
With one horrible act of terrorism we have become insecure as a culture. This insecurity has seeped down to the very core of our society – the family. Unsafe explores this insecurity and how one family struggles to overcome tragedy. In the course of the play, I take the audience to some interesting, dangerous, and thrilling places, culminating in a devastating ending that is not without hope.
The play has been germinating for a while. For a long time I think people did not want to see plays about 9/11 and its aftermath, but I believe the world is finally ready for it.
What has haunted me most is how that tragedy has affected people’s lives for years afterward. I think we are still grappling with that, the impact of the tragedy not only on a national and international level, but also on a deeply personal level.
With one horrible act of terrorism we have become insecure as a culture. This insecurity has seeped down to the very core of our society – the family. Unsafe explores this insecurity and how one family struggles to overcome tragedy. In the course of the play, I take the audience to some interesting, dangerous, and thrilling places, culminating in a devastating ending that is not without hope.
The play has been germinating for a while. For a long time I think people did not want to see plays about 9/11 and its aftermath, but I believe the world is finally ready for it.
