In the December 13 issue of the New Yorker, there was an interesting article, by John Lahr, on the career of the film director Elia Kazan, in which he gave his reason for leaving acting to become a director (and later, a writer). He said that he found "being an actor... a humiliating profession". This brought to mind something that I had heard, in a completely different context, regarding the early performing days of the jazz giant Charlie Parker and the rough, insulting treatment that he received from older musicians during that time. The point was that the experience of being embarrassed can be a powerful motivator for the learning process. In the case of Parker, if it wasn't public humiliation that motivated him, something certainly did: he became one of the most technically proficient, ground-breaking musical artists in history. And I wonder if there were similar instances in the early career of another technically proficient, ground-breaking artist - this one a playwright from Stratford - who brought depth and empathy to seemingly every part that he wrote. He's still considered the ne plus ultra of actors' writers.