Christopher Shinn: How should playwrights respond to the Trump era?

From drone strikes to punching Nazis, is how we think about violence too conditioned by whether it's our "side" perpetrating it?

By Christopher Shinn

(Photo By Ben Whishaw in Against. Photo: Johan Persson. )

In early November 2016, I was in London to rehearse the first-ever reading of my new play Against. As the play was about violence in America, naturally the conversation turned to Donald Trump. Did I think he could win the election in a few days?

I did not. If Trump did win, I said, it would be the “last gasp” of white resentment in a country whose changing demographics meant doom for the Republican party.