Dot isn’t so much about dementia as it is about how these characters figure out the next stages of their lives. I loved the monologue by Donnie, the son, about how at 40, he wants to wear age-appropriate clothes, but he still feels the pressure to remain in his youth and wear the clothes he wore in his 20s.
Yeah! It’s an examination. These are the questions that I have as a 45-year-old man. I think it is a play for people trying to figure out where they are and what is the next step. I think this marker that I have looming, like death: 40 years old, if you really think about it, it’s like, “Wow, 25 years from now, I’ll be 65!” So you have to examine where you’ve been, where you are now and where you are going.

People in their 20s and 30s aren’t thinking about this stuff, because we’re not supposed to think about this stuff. But at some point, we’re going to have to deal with it. I have friends dealing with their parents with Alzheimer’s, and the way they were handling it—because there was so much pain underneath—it was darkly comedic. One friend of mine was  just exhausted because she’s still dealing with her mother who’s in this state of horrible decline, and she spoke to me on the phone and said, “Oh my God. When this woman dies, I’m going to Paris.” And she said it so flippantly and she’s laughing—she’s exhausted from managing this for years now.

It’s important to have the lens of dark comedy on it. The moment you say dementia, people are like, “Oh!” They don’t want to deal with it; it’s too painful. And I know. I’ve done all this research, and I’m in a puddle crying. And this is from someone on the outside; I can’t even imagine the weight of what my friends have been going through. It breaks my heart, but if I can give them and the viewer some sort of relief in some way and help them find themselves in the play, then I think it’s a great ride we can be on. It can open us all up to what others are going through, but not wear us out.