Ira Glass

So that was the part that was really, you know, compelling.

Exactly.

Exactly.

And a lot of times they were really critical.

He would write, I steadfastly disagree, or something like that.

Or he would write, ah, if he really liked something.

These were archaic roles, like start your play with lots of exposition, which was really in vogue at the time.

So I started mine with a butler whose name I believe was Manson picking up a phone saying stuff like, no, the lady and gentleman are not home right now.

Why at a fancy charity ball?

Yes, he's still drinking too much and she's having an affair with a gardener.

Whom shall I say is calling?

LAUGHTER

I'm not kidding.

By the time I got to college, and I started to actually take writing classes, it was brought to my attention that, you know, stage directions shouldn't be things like, there follows a mighty howling of wind.

And one of the things my teacher, who was not a young man by any means, said was, he was like, sweetheart, we don't use sotto voce anymore to mean he whispers.

We just write whispers.

And he was very critical, so it was very rare that he would write ah!

And there were more ahs in Moss Hart's autobiography, which is called Act I, than I think almost any of the other books that he had written.

Like, I knew what was going on in this book was fun.

It drove him so powerfully, and it seemed to make him so happy.