Source Details

{
    "source_type": "extension",
    "content_hash": "7516b886fc0b8db98cfa0c0695ab448fed65856531190371bab00151a9408719",
    "submitted_via": "chrome_extension",
    "extension_version": "1.0.18",
    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/08\/t-magazine\/wallace-shawn.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260210&instance_id=170857&nl=the-morning&regi_id=122976029&segment_id=215048&user_id=b25c5730c89e0c73f75709d8f1254337",
    "parsed_content": "AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTIs Wallace Shawn the Only Avant-Garde Artist Who Gets Stopped in Times Square?He\u2019s most commonly recognized for his screen roles as a plotting hit man and an unlikely Lothario, but it\u2019s his work as a playwright that shows more of his true self.Share full articleThe playwright and actor Wallace Shawn, photographed at New York\u2019s Chelsea Square Diner on Dec. 11, 2025.Credit...Sean DonnolaBy Susan DominusPublished Feb. 8, 2026Updated Feb. 9, 2026AFTER I HAD lunch with Wallace Shawn, a lifelong New Yorker, he readily accompanied me across town, although it was a frigid Sunday in December and much of the city\u2019s usual post-snow slush had hardened into ice. Shawn, who\u2019s 82 and famously small in stature, wore a generic black parka and generic black boots. Before leaving the restaurant, he\u2019d shoved onto his mostly bald head a dark gray wool cap, notable only for a few moth holes. He looked, in other words, like any other city native who could expect to travel invisibly through the streets, except that when we reached the theater where I\u00a0was meeting my niece, a ripple of jittery energy instantly traveled down the row of people waiting to\u00a0enter. The two women behind my niece in line nearly jumped when he approached, staring at him in open adoration and amazement. Shawn, who\u2019d already been stopped twice that day by giggly fans, smiled back automatically; such encounters are routine \u2014 pleasant enough but also common enough to have little emotional valence.VideoLunch With Wallace ShawnThe playwright and actor talks about his inspirations at his favorite New York diner, the Chelsea Square, where he regularly orders the fruit salad.CreditCredit...Eleanor SchmittShawn showed up in Times Square that day like a one-man tourist attraction, a symbol of the city\u2019s telegenic renderings on shows like \u201cSex and the City\u201d and \u201cGossip Girl,\u201d both of which have featured him as a romantic savior to glamorous Manhattan women in need of a decent (or, really, any) man. He\u2019s also played a New Yorker in such consummately New York films as Woody Allen\u2019s \u201cManhattan\u201d (1979) \u2014 in which he was also cast as an unlikely Lothario \u2014 and in the film he wrote and starred in with his friend and colleague Andr\u00e9 Gregory, \u201cMy Dinner With Andr\u00e9\u201d (1981), an art house breakout hit in which both men depict versions of themselves as artists. Shawn has earned what he always refers to as a \u201cbourgeois lifestyle\u201d by playing the ultimate funny valentine: his mouth a little weak, his figure less than Greek, all of it superseded by an intelligence and originality that the camera captures at close range.Although the 30th anniversary of the film \u201cClueless\u201d (1995) has revived interest in Shawn\u2019s performance as an avuncular teacher, the part for which Times Square tourists may most likely know him is Vizzini, the Sicilian would-be hit man of \u201cThe\u00a0Princess Bride\u201d (1987). His most famous line, \u201cInconceivable!,\u201d turns up several times in the movie, and Shawn\u2019s wildly varied delivery \u2014 distinctively nasal and lisping one moment, cocky and debonair another \u2014 made it a kind of meme long before the internet would spread it even further. It\u2019s an earworm of an exclamation \u2014 nerdy, beloved, handy. People still shout it at him on the street as he walks by. Even at a Harvard reunion (he attended the school as an undergraduate), teenage children of his classmates called it out as they passed him, something to be reckoned with for someone who once told an interviewer that his goal as a human being, since childhood, was \u201cto be taken seriously.\u201dImageShawn has acted in comedies and dramas, including \u201cClueless\u201d (1995), in which he appears as a teacher to Alicia Silverstone (left) and Stacey Dash\u2019s Cher and Dionne.Credit...Paramount via Capital PicturesShawn, who describes acting as \u201cthis funny thing I\u00a0took on late in life,\u201d considers himself primarily a playwright \u2014 one who has, as he puts it in the introduction to the published version of \u201cMy Dinner With Andr\u00e9,\u201d \u201cgenerously shown on the stage my interior life as a raging beast.\u201d In \u201cOur Late Night\u201d (1975), an urbane party devolves almost immediately into chatty conversations about fornicating and farting; someone vomits loudly offstage, and a man casually tells a woman he\u2019s just met that he\u2019d like to have sex with her, and in what fashion. In 2013, he\u00a0performed, along with the actress Julie Hagerty and others, in his play \u201cGrasses of a Thousand Colors,\u201d in which he envisions a world where a consumable solution to a global food shortage has the disturbing side effect of making humans (even more) obsessed with their genitalia, with other taboos cast aside and recalled as quaint relics of a more uptight time.Shawn\u2019s works often have the feel of profane fairy tales in which humans aren\u2019t so much transformed into animals but revealed as them. His own creative compulsion seems to lie in exposing his characters\u2019 secrets, their shameful, if universal, instinct to root around for pleasure and comfort, whatever the cost \u2014 be it others\u2019 emotional anguish or, on a more global scale, the suffering of the oppressed. Next month, his new play, \u201cWhat We Did Before Our Moth Days,\u201d will open off Broadway at the Greenwich House Theater. Shawn, whose own family was defined by a longstanding secret, continues to explore what\u2019s hidden in \u201cMoth Days\u201d \u2014 but the play represents something of a departure, a move toward material that is more personal, less pungent or political. Gregory, who is directing it at 91, says it\u2019s a play that has a deceptively simple quality. \u201cThe tip of the iceberg is what the audience sees, but the bulk of the iceberg is invisible and underwater,\u201d he says. \u201cSo underneath this play is a lifetime of writing and a lifetime of being involved in the world.\u201dSign up for the T Magazine newsletter. A weekly roundup of T Magazine recommendations, plus insider travel guides, expert beauty advice and the latest stories from our print issues. Get it sent to your inbox.As if in counterpoint, Shawn is also reprising, two days a week at the same theater, his role in the one-person play \u201cThe Fever\u201d (1990), which features a member of the privileged class who comes to feel revulsion at the violence inherent in maintaining the global status quo. \u201c\u2009\u2018The Fever\u2019 is a very harsh, cruel depiction of bourgeois people,\u201d he says. \u201cIn \u2018Moth Days,\u2019 I have a fondness for those people, even a love for them.\u201dFor all his recognition as an important figure in the theater and as a writer (Shawn has published two books that showcase his essays and been honored by PEN for his playwriting), he is perceived by millions of people, and reminded almost on a daily basis, that he will forever be best known for his screen work, some of which he did decades ago over the course of just a few weeks. It\u00a0occurs to me, as we talk over lunch, that it might be alienating for Shawn to have his exterior persona \u2014 the powerful associations people have with the look of his face, the shape of his body \u2014 mean so much to those he regularly encounters, when it\u2019s often because of a piece of work, released years in the past, about which he feels relatively little. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0unbelievably strange!\u201d he says, leaning in across the table. \u201cUnbelievably strange!\u201dImage\u201cManhattan\u201d (1979), opposite Diane Keaton.Credit...United Artists via Capital PicturesTHE STRANGE, THE unsaid, the contrast between our outer and inner selves \u2014 these have been Shawn\u2019s preoccupations since he was a precocious and mildly rebellious child of the Upper East Side. When he was 13, he and a friend went to see the first American production of Eugene O\u2019Neill\u2019s \u201cLong Day\u2019s Journey Into Night\u201d (1956) at the Helen Hayes Theatre. The play, which O\u2019Neill wrote toward the end of his life, is his most autobiographical, the story of family members in pain facing the secrets that made their trajectories both bearable and awful; it\u2019s about sons stumbling in their efforts to build lives beyond the shadow of their outwardly successful father, a man grappling with his own heavy disappointments.The play opened something in Shawn, who didn\u2019t know back in 1956 that he would end up a playwright and actor; he just felt he\u2019d been given a view through a porthole to a universe in which what was real could be expressed and lived, loudly and publicly. \u201cI was thrilled by its truthfulness,\u201d he tells me. \u201cIt stuck with me for the rest of my life. And I\u2019d still swear by that. I felt, \u2018This is true. Everything else is fake. This is really what\u2019s going on.\u2019\u201dShawn announced to his parents that they had to go see the production, which they did \u2014 and then pointed out to them afterward that the family in the play was much like their own. \u201cMy mother said, \u2018What do you mean, dear? I\u2019m not a dope fiend!\u2019\u201d he recalls. \u201cBut yeah, there was a secret in my family.\u201d As he says this, we\u2019re sitting in the back of a restaurant near Lincoln Center, although Shawn asked that I not reveal the place to protect his privacy. \u201cI didn\u2019t know it,\u201d he continues. \u201cI had no idea. But kids always know it at some point. And I know I thought, \u2018This was my family.\u2019 My mother made fun of the idea. My father wasn\u2019t saying anything. He got it. Of course! He thought, \u2018Wallace is picking up something.\u2019\u201dImage\u201cMy Dinner With Andr\u00e9\u201d (1981), co-starring Andr\u00e9 Gregory.Credit...New Yorker Films via Capital PicturesShawn and his brother, Allen, who is five years younger, lived their lives in a state of what could be considered true dramatic irony: They were conducting themselves according to certain premises, the falsity of which everyone around them was well aware. Their father, William Shawn, the second editor of The New Yorker, was married to their mother, a former journalist, Cecille Shawn; but he also had a long relationship with Lillian Ross, a writer for the magazine, and was even raising her adopted child with her. The affair was known to many who worked at The New Yorker; it was known, for most of its duration, to his wife. But their playwright-actor son, who lived at home in his mid-20s, didn\u2019t find out about the relationship, somehow, until some three decades after it started, when he was almost 35, after a friend who assumed that he and his brother knew made mention of it.\u201cA lot of people grow up in families where there\u2019s a secret,\u201d Shawn says. \u201cFewer grow up in families where there\u2019s a secret that a lot of people know but the kids don\u2019t know. That\u2019s more unusual.\u201dUnlike many of his characters, Shawn speaks slowly and with many pauses in the service of sentences that ultimately emerge perfectly formed. He is also polite and courtly and at great pains not to offend, so much so that one fears inadvertently violating whatever code of etiquette is obviously almost sacred to him. So private that he asked me not to reveal what he ate throughout our meetings, he nonetheless has written a play whose broad outlines, and even some poignant details, are flagrantly autobiographical. \u201cMoth Days\u201d \u2014 those fluttery, flyaway moments before death, as one of the characters imagines them \u2014 unfurls the story of a long-running extramarital affair told, in a series of monologues, from the points of view of four people: a father who\u2019s a famous author, played by Josh Hamilton; a son, a philosophizing and wounded searcher played by John Early; a long-suffering mother, played by Maria Dizzia; and a cultured, bookish lover, played by Hope Davis. The pacing is slow, the mood wistful and only gently comedic. The set is minimal, as is the staging, so that the storytelling and self-reflections of the actors alone mesmerize the audience. With empathy for themselves and those who disappoint them, Shawn\u2019s characters ponder the preprogrammed compulsions to fall in and out of love, to be overwhelmed by and then lose all desire, \u201cto use the tiny, pitiful words that the creature uses to point to invisible parts of itself, invisible parts that grow so vast that they turn us inside out and then swallow us up and eat us,\u201d as the son, Tim, puts it. One of the play\u2019s most beautiful passages is not about the pain of heartbreak but about the suffering felt by someone who has fallen out of love \u2014 someone who had no control over its dwindling course but who must inevitably wreak emotional havoc on the blameless formerly beloved as a result. What\u2019s strange about the world, in\u00a0Shawn\u2019s\u00a0work, is how little examined it is for its impossible constrictions, its\u00a0punishing inevitabilities.Image\u201cSex and the City\u201d (2004), next to Sarah Jessica Parker.Credit...HBO\/PhotofestIn conversation, Shawn can be benevolent, even beaming. And yet one senses that although it would be hard to say something that would offend him, it would be easy to ask a question that would. As I delicately try to broach the parallels of the play with his own upbringing, Shawn sounds, if not quite sharp, pointed. \u201cI had no complaints about my parents,\u201d he tells me. His work often suggests he is interested in exploring humans\u2019 worst instincts. But even the most venal characters in his plays often describe their fate, in ways that are almost convincing, as the culmination of factors far beyond their control or awareness. \u201cMoth Days\u201d not only has sympathy for a man seeking love outside a marriage; it also gives dignity and dimensionality to a beautiful woman who might have been betrayed, even shattered, but is nonetheless adored by her son for her strength and brilliance. And it reveals a son \u2014 a\u00a0writer who is no rival to his father, a figure who writes sexually inappropriate children\u2019s stories that have gained a cult following \u2014 who loves both of his parents and judges neither, even as he feels real pain.Much of Shawn\u2019s theater is defiant in one way or another, often refusing the conventions of the form altogether. With little direct interaction among the characters, the performance of \u201cMoth Days\u201d has a stillness that calls on the listener to lean in. \u201cIt really felt like these four characters were in the psychiatrist\u2019s chair,\u201d says Elizabeth LeCompte, 81, a founding member of the Wooster Group, who saw the play in rehearsals. \u201cAnd I was the\u00a0psychiatrist.\u201dUnlike his brother, Allen, who has excavated his family history in three memoirs in which he also details his mental health struggles, Shawn says he has never been in therapy, with the exception of several months in college when a psychology professor he admired offered to provide analysis as if it were a generous extension of his coursework. But he has little interest in exploring the psychological reasons he\u2019s chosen to delve into this material now, at this phase of his life. The actress Kate Valk, 68, another founding member of the Wooster Group, suggested to me that in the later years of one\u2019s life one feels drawn to more personal material, a\u00a0notion Shawn dismisses. \u201cI\u00a0don\u2019t think I could have written that play 25 years ago,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause 25 years ago, there was too much interest in the old New Yorker and Mr. Shawn.\u201d If anything, he adds, he wrote it now simply because he\u2019s a different person, composed of different experiences and reflections, so\u00a0that what he wrote inevitably changed over time in\u00a0ways he couldn\u2019t predict or particularly control.Image\u201cThe Princess Bride\u201d (1987), in costume as Vizzini.Credit...20th Century Fox via Capital PicturesIn his first memoir, \u201cWish I Could Be There\u201d (2007), Allen, the twin of a sister, Mary Shawn, who has autism and was institutionalized, enumerates the various topics, beyond the affair, that were either secrets or unmentionable in the Shawn household: that they were Jewish, and also universally short (Wallace is 5-foot-2); that both parents saw psychiatrists; that they worried about money (their father felt trapped by his job, which he held from 1952 to 1987, but also was loath to ever ask for a raise). Allen, an accomplished composer, turned to music, in which everything is felt but nothing explicitly said, to express himself; his older brother, it seems, chose for his creative outlet a medium that would allow him to say everything that he thought should be said, no matter how shocking or, as some critics have found, morally heavy-handed. \u201cThe World\u2019s a Mess, and It\u2019s All Your Fault,\u201d is the headline of a New York Times review of the 2007 production the New Group did of \u201cThe Fever.\u201dThe actor Ethan Hawke, who had shared a dressing room with Shawn for six months during their run of David Rabe\u2019s \u201cHurlyburly\u201d off Broadway in 2005, was so incensed by the damning review of \u201cThe Fever\u201d that he wrote a (never published) letter to the editor defending Shawn\u2019s play, which Hawke, now 55, said inspired his mother to overhaul her life to start volunteering overseas. \u201cWhat \u2018The Fever\u2019 does for many of us is to articulate and validate the ambivalence we feel about the privileged lives we lead,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThe liberating effect that \u2018The Fever\u2019 had on my mother was to make what she wanted to do seem logical \u2014 not heroic or saintly but logical.\u201dHawke\u2019s comments made me think back on a moment at the theater to which Shawn had accompanied me. Among the many details of his life that he\u2019d asked me not to include was the name of the play I was seeing at that time with my niece, since he had decided to see it as well. His concerns were less about privacy than about a policy of do no harm. What if I mentioned the play, he explained, and then asked him on the record what he\u2019d thought about it? And what if he didn\u2019t like it or didn\u2019t say one way or the other? Some actors\u2019 feelings might be hurt. And what if he did like it? Someone else, some other friend performing in a different play at the same time, might be hurt that he hadn\u2019t found a way to say a few kind words about that performance.Image\u201cGossip Girl\u201d (2008), with his onscreen wife, played by Margaret Colin.Credit...Giovanni Rufino\/The CWAs we stood outside the theater, he delivered the request firmly, smiling gently up at me, but with some implied apology and resignation, as if other people\u2019s feelings were an inconvenience that required effort to manage but that must nonetheless be navigated carefully, much like the icy streets we\u2019d just traversed. At first I thought his request was overly cautious, even neurotic; but when I played it out, I saw that it had a rock-solid logic behind it, the kind that comes only from someone with a rare and complicated gift for empathy, for understanding the deep vulnerabilities of anyone who puts themselves onstage trying to show what it is to be human.BEFORE HE WOULD find his way to writing plays, Shawn first majored in history at Harvard (an institution he despised, as he was sure to tell its alumni magazine), traveled to India to teach English, then studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, fully intending to become a civil servant. \u201cIf you\u2019d met me back then, you\u2019d have thought, \u2018This\u00a0is a very serious person,\u2019\u201d Shawn says, contrasting that first impression with the way he\u2019s so often perceived now \u2014 as the funny guy from the movies. Instead, while still at Oxford, he started writing plays, for no reason other than that he felt compelled to. He began mailing them to figures he admired; eventually, he showed them to the writer and critic Renata Adler, a family friend who felt the plays \u2014 imaginative, literate, at times very witty \u2014 had originality and, as she recently recalled, \u201ca music to them \u2014 a purity.\u201d She introduced him to Gregory, by then a noted avant-garde director, who shared her opinion. Others did not. In 1971, Peter Brook, the experimental-theater director, whom Shawn revered, agreed to read his work, only to offer a short but withering critique that Shawn can quote word for word more than half a century later. \u201cTo make any worthwhile comments about someone\u2019s work, you have to have at least some sympathy with it,\u201d Shawn recites. \u201cBut\u201d \u2014 and here he slows down, as if to savor the feel of the shiv in his creative soul \u2014 \u201cI remained on the outside of your plays.\u201d Those words may still haunt him, but they didn\u2019t sway Gregory (whose self-confidence perhaps surpassed even that of Shawn) from starting to direct and mount his plays, while some of the actors in his group, the Manhattan Project, were arguing with one another over whether to do the\u00a0work.Image\u201cThe Good Wife\u201d (2014), alongside Julianna Margulies.Credit...\u00a9 CBS\/Courtesy of Everett CollectionShawn\u2019s early playwriting career landed him in a\u00a0period of exhausting debt and mindless clerical work, the toll of which he described to the reporter Don Shewey in a 1983 Esquire profile. \u201cThe fact is,\u201d Shawn said back then, \u201cmost of my time is spent racing around trying to answer half of my phone calls, doing half of my errands, paying half of my bills, just desperately trying to keep up with the minimum of life. And I have to fight and kill, I feel, to get any free time to do a little writing of my own. I feel I have to be a monster, a murderer, to get 15 minutes for myself!\u201d Although Shawn\u2019s own financial life would gradually improve in the years following the release of \u201cMy Dinner With Andr\u00e9,\u201d his introductory lines in that movie reflect the contrast between his cosseted early days as a 10-year-old artist in the making, the scion of a literary great, and his sometimes grim life as a working artist: \u201cNow all I think about is money,\u201d his character complains. That he wasn\u2019t more successful as a playwright by his mid-30s came as something of a surprise to Shawn, who\u2019d assumed \u2014 maybe given his upbringing, his education or some innate conviction \u2014 that his work would be widely embraced by that point in his\u00a0career.Shawn occupied an unusual class demographic in New York at the time. Even as he had close friends who shared Thanksgiving with the Kissingers or were thriving in his father\u2019s employ at The New Yorker, he himself was so broke he considered driving a cab, and his girlfriend worked as a waitress. Shawn may have experienced a somewhat hardscrabble life, but he nonetheless was living in a period when an experimental artist could still scrape by in Manhattan \u2014 when the arty productions he and his friends mounted, even with small audiences, still got reviewed by critics at major papers, so that it felt like the work, too, had a legitimate home in the city. His\u00a0writing led him to film and television work after Woody Allen\u2019s casting agent saw him in his first onstage New York performance, at the Public Theater in 1977, in Machiavelli\u2019s \u201cThe Mandrake\u201d (1524). Shawn had translated the script, and played the part of a rambling, comical servant only because the director had an instinct he\u2019d be good. A memorable bit part as Diane Keaton\u2019s sexually gifted ex-husband in \u201cManhattan\u201d resulted in interest from other casting agents, which led to recurring roles on \u201cThe Cosby Show\u201d and \u201cThe Good Wife.\u201dThe work as a character actor, which started in his mid-30s, allowed Shawn to pay off his debt. He says that he and his partner, Deborah Eisenberg, the acclaimed short-story writer, never particularly minded the shabbiness of the humble life they were leading in Chelsea (the neighborhood where they still live). The money he started making as an actor was important mostly because it meant that he never had to choose, he says, between \u201chaving a pleasant bourgeois lifestyle and writing my plays. I\u00a0never had to face any kind of a crisis where anybody said, \u2018You know, the problem with you is the type of plays you write \u2014 couldn\u2019t you possibly write more enjoyable plays? You would be able to lead a bourgeois lifestyle then!\u2019\u201d His role in culture, high and low, is unique, as if an actor like Jane Lynch only did film and television work so she could continue to choreograph well-regarded but little-seen productions of interpretive dance.ImageAmong his own plays produced in New York are \u201cOur Late Night\u201d (1975), featuring Angela Pietropinto and Larry Pine \u2026Credit...Photo by Friedman-Abeles \u00a9 Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing ArtsImage\u2026 \u201cGrasses of a Thousand Colors\u201d (2013), in which Shawn co-starred with, from left, Emily Cass McDonnell, Julie Hagerty and Jennifer Tilly \u2026Credit...Sara Krulwich\/The New York TimesImage\u2026 Shawn\u2019s 1977 translation of Machiavelli\u2019s\u201cThe Mandrake\u201d (1524), which also included Pietropinto, seen here with Corinne Fischer \u2026Credit...Photo by Friedman-Abeles \u00a9 Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing ArtsImage\u2026 and \u201cThe Fever\u201d (1990), the solo show that he\u2019s remounting this month.Credit...Photo by Martha Swope \u00a9 Billy Rose Theatre Division, the New York Public Library for the Performing ArtsIt wasn\u2019t only his educational pedigree and upbringing, of course, that gave Shawn his confidence. Though much of his early work was panned, he was right to think it was worthy of being admired and eventually valued in the canon. \u201cI was wrong until I was 70 or something,\u201d he says. \u201cThen I\u00a0began to feel that more people respected me.\u201d Eisenberg, he adds, will no longer put up with his complaining that he\u2019s underappreciated.And yet even Shawn still has to hustle to make the art he cares about. When some funding for the \u201cMoth Days\u201d production fell through, he used all of his considerable social capital to find actual capital. \u201cI went around asking everyone I knew, \u2018Do you know anyone who has a lot of money?\u2019\u201d he tells me. (Scott Rudin and Barry Diller are producing the show.) Shawn sounds proud that he wasn\u2019t squeamish about the topic of money, as his father had been \u2014 that he\u2019d brought his own power to bear in order to bring this story of\u00a0loving, flawed humans to light.As is typical for Shawn and Gregory, who spent some 15 years rehearsing their adaptation of Henrik Ibsen\u2019s \u201cThe Master Builder,\u201d which became a 2013 film directed by Jonathan Demme, rehearsals happened sporadically over a year and a half, rather than mere weeks. Shawn showed up for all but one of them. Early, 38, says the experience was easily the most meaningful of his career. \u201cThis play has had the effect of making me embarrassed by most of my other performances,\u201d he tells me. \u201cThere\u2019s a difference between memorizing your lines and knowing your lines.\u201dGregory\u2019s talents as a director do not lie in the notes he gives, says Shawn, as there are almost none; his gift is in the exquisite warmth and receptiveness, the aliveness, with which he observes. Early says that Shawn brought the same quality to rehearsals, so much so that the intimacy was almost uncomfortable at times. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re staring face-to-face, making eye contact with the playwright, as you\u2019re performing, as if you\u2019re delivering the performance directly to him,\u201d he says.When Donald Trump was re-elected, Shawn had momentary doubts about the timing of such a personal play. \u201cI wrote this during the Biden era!\u201d he tells me. \u201cAt first I was upset because I thought, \u2018I really would like to have written a play that explicitly cries out against the murderous regime of Trump and the evil that has happened.\u2019 But now I\u2019m feeling, \u2018Well, this gang of people who have clustered around Trump \u2014 and Trump himself \u2014 they\u2019re violently opposed to sympathy for other human beings.\u2019 So to do a play that is, in a way, subtle, and that deals with suffering human beings somewhat compassionately \u2026 it becomes political.\u201d Even the act of putting so much care into a play was, as he perceives it, a rebuke to those in power. \u201cThe whole enterprise of creating an artistic work is of value. I think the way we\u2019re doing it is sort of intelligent. And that makes a statement in this bizarre time we\u2019re living in.\u201dSo much about the world seems not just cruel or senseless but bizarre to Shawn that it doesn\u2019t seem entirely coincidental that \u201cinconceivable\u201d is the word with which he has become so strongly associated. (In fact, the word turns up in one of his lines that he wrote in \u201cMy Dinner With Andr\u00e9\u201d: \u201cIt\u2019s inconceivable that anybody could be having a meaningful life today.\u201d)On a Reddit thread in which Shawn participated in 2022, someone asked if it ever bothered him when fans made jokes to him or just shouted one word out at him as he walked by. \u201cI\u2019m sure they mean well,\u201d Shawn wrote back, \u201cbut nobody likes to be reduced to something smaller than what they really are.\u201d Another\u00a0person on the thread countered that, to him, it\u00a0was far more than a throwaway comedic line; as a lover of Shawn\u2019s work, he saw it as \u201cthat tiny little crack that opens into a world of wonder.\u201dShawn had just seen a Wooster Group production of Richard Foreman\u2019s \u201cSymphony of Rats\u201d last spring when someone in the audience stopped to ask for a photo. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I just can\u2019t do this in the citadel of art,\u201d he demurred; he seemed embarrassed, in front of his fellow avant-garde actors, to be caught in the role of pop-culture celebrity. \u201cHe\u2019s a snob,\u201d LeCompte says lovingly, as if no higher compliment could be given. Nonetheless, Valk urged him to embrace the recognition. \u201cOh, go on,\u201d she told him. \u201cGive the people what they want.\u201dAnd in that moment, at least, he did.A correction was made on\u00a0Feb. 9, 2026:\u00a0An earlier version of this article omitted one of the producers of \u201cWhat We Did Before Our Moth Days.\u201d The show is produced by Scott Rudin and Barry Diller, not solely by Rudin.When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at corrections@nytimes.com.Learn moreSusan Dominus has been a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine since 2011.A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 22, 2026, Page 98 of T Magazine with the headline: The New Yorker. Order Reprints | Today\u2019s Paper | SubscribeSee more on: Wallace ShawnRead 229 commentsShare full articleRelated ContentAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "ai_headline": "Is Wallace Shawn the Only Avant-Garde Artist Who Gets Stopped in Times Square?",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Wallace Shawn Explores Art and Fame in New York",
    "ai_excerpt": "This article explores the life and work of playwright and actor Wallace Shawn, examining his career, his new play, and his relationship with fame. It delves into his personal life, his family history, and his views on art and society.",
    "ai_subject_tags": [
        "Wallace Shawn",
        "Playwright",
        "Actor",
        "Theater",
        "New York City",
        "Avant-Garde",
        "Celebrity",
        "My Dinner With Andr\u00e9"
    ],
    "ai_context_type": "Analysis",
    "ai_context_details": {
        "tone": "analytical",
        "perspective": "neutral",
        "audience": "general",
        "credibility_indicators": [
            "expert_quotes",
            "interviews",
            "historical context"
        ]
    },
    "ai_source_vector": [
        -0.022047948,
        -0.008663368,
        0.019293495,
        -0.09781283,
        0.0013124285,
        -0.02516789,
        0.0105282115,
        0.0048138765,
        -0.0011933325,
        -0.022859463,
        -0.012931413,
        0.015581241,
        -0.013412061,
        -0.010445865,
        0.105279826,
        -0.001991526,
        -0.021575112,
        0.000838906,
        0.030678978,
        -0.01749543,
        0.0029761773,
        -0.015728684,
        -0.01610012,
        -0.012570113,
        0.012560468,
        0.015327405,
        0.018566072,
        -0.0086275255,
        0.033856217,
        0.030277573,
        -0.03101648,
        -0.01132479,
        0.0059250947,
        0.014144892,
        0.027472403,
        0.019029334,
        -0.010752606,
        -0.041285317,
        -0.014673567,
        0.019937037,
        -0.02020142,
        0.020585746,
        -0.011997253,
        0.007492918,
        7.1248054e-5,
        -0.0011566862,
        0.010335491,
        -0.039782766,
        0.011838809,
        0.011106136,
        -0.014162757,
        0.021884492,
        -0.010735457,
        -0.177119,
        -0.013243874,
        0.014341405,
        0.007817568,
        0.016460128,
        0.033215705,
        0.016997563,
        0.013782587,
        0.0026868274,
        -0.012416394,
        -0.0031238722,
        0.017676938,
        -0.0066576744,
        0.029929262,
        0.010494156,
        -0.010744795,
        0.000507502,
        -0.0028357895,
        0.0015552957,
        -0.02083182,
        -0.010561165,
        0.0051960507,
        0.0035060605,
        0.0043747574,
        -0.0066696256,
        0.036365032,
        0.0029987325,
        0.0014854716,
        0.008134868,
        -0.012895348,
        -0.013137031,
        0.028043607,
        -0.015809804,
        -0.0009147875,
        0.008434726,
        0.006043898,
        0.021435598,
        -0.024795607,
        0.038995616,
        0.043598656,
        -0.0071759135,
        -0.01903701,
        -0.0051259925,
        -0.0215524,
        0.040013026,
        -0.0014532227,
        0.0060077,
        0.025412556,
        -0.0045475354,
        -0.0064069596,
        -0.003979126,
        0.00057752494,
        0.010693543,
        0.013518201,
        -0.025730705,
        -0.0021463842,
        0.03396519,
        -0.0061656395,
        0.006777925,
        0.0100378,
        0.007390647,
        0.013844899,
        -0.13075468,
        -0.0023847676,
        0.0066414983,
        -0.020106308,
        0.008615693,
        -0.0037649567,
        -0.008593803,
        0.018110143,
        0.009108048,
        0.002213996,
        0.0061329883,
        -0.009994051,
        0.013749495,
        -0.011946538,
        -0.016934024,
        -0.014975743,
        -0.010128952,
        0.011185468,
        -0.023392653,
        -0.011576148,
        0.024023738,
        -0.005323065,
        -0.01225142,
        0.009095372,
        0.011338213,
        -0.030971939,
        -0.00046363918,
        0.00791072,
        0.03852034,
        0.016016694,
        -0.021640692,
        -0.017264012,
        0.028337318,
        0.01728197,
        0.008515399,
        0.008462421,
        0.0044201612,
        0.0017313291,
        0.01524365,
        0.008893755,
        -0.016813884,
        -0.008873413,
        -0.020255418,
        0.0009944247,
        0.0012704234,
        0.008047266,
        0.009304232,
        0.0016455882,
        0.03452919,
        0.011649098,
        0.035086915,
        0.0023874366,
        0.00035251235,
        0.016127743,
        -0.005476765,
        -0.008737056,
        0.019889193,
        -0.013668804,
        0.019999215,
        -0.00318344,
        0.01000869,
        0.021731578,
        0.016655788,
        -0.027061472,
        0.0016002824,
        0.008796264,
        -0.013485626,
        0.004316424,
        0.009045948,
        0.0062949816,
        0.012045084,
        0.009528772,
        -0.01881639,
        0.01577603,
        -0.0020745944,
        -0.010058007,
        -0.018769141,
        0.011544471,
        0.0126055395,
        -0.0063243634,
        -0.025645547,
        0.0020279104,
        0.0058912914,
        -0.0002562647,
        0.023932492,
        0.020976778,
        -0.007854935,
        0.008517951,
        -0.0023808058,
        -0.0022337083,
        -0.007982323,
        0.016684044,
        0.0014086798,
        0.017121049,
        -0.0023090548,
        -0.014262645,
        0.032475527,
        -0.01937748,
        0.026204107,
        -0.0069354074,
        -0.00025710947,
        -0.02446204,
        -0.008192088,
        -0.0102430675,
        -0.032733362,
        0.0049826293,
        -0.029313562,
        -0.007468712,
        0.012664837,
        -0.007333053,
        -0.03073502,
        0.026400521,
        -0.015693998,
        -0.0038572266,
        -3.714347e-5,
        0.0044455403,
        -0.006330353,
        -0.017498627,
        -0.037204873,
        0.019316308,
        0.003238486,
        0.032561727,
        -0.0012107313,
        -0.0029497703,
        0.03411087,
        -0.005783697,
        -0.020799944,
        0.03769341,
        0.02737236,
        0.029397434,
        -0.0003569654,
        -0.015892444,
        0.00740603,
        0.020147424,
        -0.0065538953,
        -0.023350224,
        0.0047538443,
        0.007518321,
        -0.032208677,
        -0.0010313857,
        0.013851454,
        0.002780973,
        -0.009774099,
        -0.01470388,
        0.00054836064,
        0.017030274,
        -0.017446097,
        0.0056438367,
        0.022293845,
        0.017373666,
        -0.036884595,
        0.010733714,
        0.0011577576,
        -0.020129165,
        -0.018961485,
        -0.0015343328,
        0.002886347,
        -0.04022163,
        -0.005012336,
        0.011543868,
        0.0024758724,
        -0.08024856,
        0.009761557,
        0.014787276,
        -0.0015962915,
        -0.014120051,
        0.017965639,
        0.028595164,
        -0.029002236,
        0.009375514,
        0.010134805,
        -0.011573569,
        0.017921625,
        0.026698688,
        -0.014072098,
        0.02146225,
        0.009856603,
        0.002950608,
        0.006228985,
        0.009287363,
        -0.023936851,
        0.023915833,
        0.020144224,
        -0.00911414,
        -0.009219062,
        0.013153585,
        -0.021794328,
        -0.00086872734,
        0.047514778,
        -0.0023214633,
        -0.026293488,
        -0.01717061,
        -0.039142843,
        -0.00028570785,
        -0.0096698245,
        0.0037258677,
        -0.023785414,
        -0.021233708,
        0.017454231,
        0.022078965,
        -0.027323866,
        0.022366561,
        0.006087594,
        -0.00267507,
        0.019987341,
        -0.0114442445,
        0.0009614174,
        -0.020820405,
        0.0142573975,
        0.0058892313,
        -0.014532329,
        0.011863442,
        0.025123253,
        0.0067558736,
        -0.019156322,
        0.022443268,
        0.010825465,
        0.049625505,
        0.004273171,
        0.007873947,
        -0.0057391105,
        0.008325505,
        -0.0073577166,
        0.027175212,
        -0.007127271,
        -0.009707593,
        0.0033791494,
        -0.015084452,
        -0.04142752,
        -0.0137446895,
        0.0016242677,
        0.018162591,
        -0.010126726,
        -0.0045766397,
        -0.006075832,
        0.012214073,
        -0.007723772,
        0.0047466406,
        -0.016416265,
        0.0041040797,
        0.009232293,
        0.012184523,
        -1.949402e-5,
        -0.03165289,
        -0.013111203,
        0.019578774,
        -0.0148038715,
        -0.002843137,
        -0.017591255,
        0.016185837,
        -0.004551787,
        0.001536379,
        -0.005829738,
        0.006652745,
        -0.013557704,
        0.02163186,
        0.027462335,
        -0.0021796932,
        0.02095927,
        0.0065946453,
        -0.01834411,
        -0.0051393704,
        -0.00044235992,
        0.01800722,
        0.006957981,
        -0.018358083,
        0.02310096,
        -0.018455364,
        0.0014086791,
        -0.0235426,
        0.024137914,
        0.0055001536,
        -0.007665049,
        0.0048978273,
        -0.009971184,
        -0.0015218763,
        0.009059043,
        0.015044834,
        0.021037383,
        0.018466435,
        0.007220736,
        0.026875997,
        0.017228404,
        -0.008196706,
        0.009945674,
        0.004393135,
        -0.0053726286,
        0.024218267,
        -0.0057297493,
        0.014062701,
        0.0059924987,
        0.008704851,
        -0.008707991,
        -0.03360083,
        -0.009133003,
        0.016518895,
        0.004667574,
        0.0013603591,
        0.011587525,
        -0.010341783,
        0.0113065215,
        -0.00096324336,
        -0.024653083,
        0.008344181,
        0.026133075,
        -0.009306808,
        -0.0007842511,
        0.010559392,
        -7.3080824e-5,
        0.033128295,
        0.010562421,
        -0.0074666403,
        -0.018319394,
        0.010423006,
        -0.007914777,
        0.0065167695,
        -0.013448482,
        -0.026196338,
        -0.043452848,
        -0.014077264,
        -0.030027045,
        0.012950306,
        -0.010034053,
        -0.01119392,
        -0.015244771,
        0.005518827,
        0.012466171,
        0.018179704,
        -0.006586031,
        0.002132203,
        -0.015374111,
        0.0038584583,
        -0.015718117,
        -0.031405117,
        0.013708256,
        0.012715467,
        -0.0078023155,
        0.00049871794,
        0.0005144915,
        0.016437322,
        0.013381826,
        -0.005561538,
        -0.018838836,
        -0.0012397002,
        -0.020468973,
        -0.00033227427,
        0.0026570526,
        -0.0016376418,
        0.016035765,
        -0.030435117,
        -0.0013438156,
        0.0022239415,
        -0.009632195,
        0.009254534,
        0.02552731,
        0.0028242457,
        0.021333858,
        -0.028137809,
        0.039983924,
        -0.0075061023,
        0.025371669,
        0.009890333,
        -0.013675526,
        -0.015101299,
        0.0065557323,
        0.011867589,
        -0.0049499003,
        0.0066535673,
        0.008218767,
        0.00046959487,
        0.021867879,
        -0.007880163,
        -0.008197881,
        -0.030001136,
        -0.008540734,
        -0.0017733923,
        0.027483853,
        -0.016334036,
        -0.028158037,
        -0.025999682,
        -0.035879355,
        0.0023329388,
        0.011406787,
        -0.024982804,
        0.0012892904,
        0.004872413,
        0.0007204692,
        0.0020393275,
        0.018891344,
        0.00933161,
        0.019142158,
        -0.01700469,
        -0.010528611,
        0.01867168,
        0.0067268102,
        0.016174695,
        -0.010142351,
        0.009315194,
        0.021110358,
        -0.024189336,
        0.007102047,
        -0.022657834,
        -0.045017004,
        0.0076276762,
        0.0049308008,
        -0.014789851,
        0.003468482,
        -0.004314677,
        -0.001035236,
        -0.012166261,
        0.019292757,
        0.0018556186,
        -0.010999024,
        -0.008861648,
        -0.004842932,
        0.00862674,
        0.010518867,
        -0.0038960644,
        0.00808899,
        -0.008787894,
        -0.01023208,
        0.019262012,
        0.00781072,
        0.006165281,
        0.02027823,
        0.015456546,
        -0.021639345,
        -0.02605145,
        -0.025475439,
        -0.024494365,
        -0.114773445,
        -0.0042982674,
        -0.018381346,
        -0.01845451,
        0.007078386,
        -0.0132773295,
        -0.016688263,
        -0.023995051,
        -0.00939806,
        0.011649097,
        -0.009665569,
        -0.008055473,
        0.0029267638,
        -0.021757774,
        -0.0044029113,
        0.018185297,
        -0.001701505,
        0.011284229,
        -0.019939423,
        -0.027750693,
        0.01223969,
        0.0042028683,
        0.0098913275,
        0.0007992936,
        -0.0020059312,
        -0.01125208,
        -0.003142061,
        -0.013141144,
        -0.0068526003,
        -0.0021705301,
        -0.018032143,
        -0.0056852885,
        0.006400371,
        0.014008623,
        -0.011912101,
        -0.011962769,
        0.0144511005,
        -0.0010722312,
        0.0042819586,
        0.023638511,
        -0.0071900934,
        0.010146918,
        0.016727867,
        -0.03654361,
        0.0059896666,
        0.022669854,
        -0.004727072,
        0.005473208,
        0.015076068,
        -0.008892108,
        -0.036418866,
        0.010026969,
        0.00915359,
        0.029948363,
        -0.017818958,
        -0.020471703,
        -0.0028908863,
        0.0073319874,
        -0.003297084,
        0.02031076,
        0.0042781276,
        0.038548637,
        -0.0007005906,
        0.019255124,
        -0.020777248,
        -0.014454203,
        0.006804877,
        0.024682483,
        -0.011962029,
        0.025500303,
        -0.008916607,
        0.009502456,
        0.015417132,
        -0.0045868205,
        0.003458697,
        -0.0011743682,
        -0.019523973,
        0.016220573,
        0.009240122,
        0.002734769,
        -0.023988402,
        -0.01880663,
        -0.04728003,
        -0.025627669,
        -0.0039450955,
        -0.025265513,
        0.041977376,
        -0.007016206,
        0.0073795062,
        0.025673734,
        0.016666636,
        -0.0066304584,
        -0.022625126,
        -0.009218722,
        0.020421762,
        -0.0060059014,
        0.0096173845,
        -0.02603951,
        0.02252543,
        -0.01965205,
        0.0022814937,
        -0.017176852,
        -0.0035264613,
        0.01095179,
        0.0063138795,
        -0.029686261,
        0.00018112769,
        0.008672729,
        -0.004035631,
        0.008367578,
        0.021140307,
        0.022250962,
        0.024661008,
        -0.15229273,
        -0.0053563835,
        0.0052474244,
        0.018458925,
        -0.0020402647,
        -0.0039646393,
        -0.00055633497,
        -0.006101888,
        0.0030657905,
        -0.0030883367,
        -0.0022642403,
        -0.0033003804,
        -0.009949862,
        0.008880669,
        0.011919492,
        0.14052938,
        -0.01598521,
        0.032793485,
        -0.018959012,
        -0.03071919,
        0.014823166,
        0.0032920863,
        0.01687873,
        -0.0052845734,
        0.004799945,
        0.0077110003,
        0.0031536457,
        -0.008567543,
        -0.0032690219,
        0.024326945,
        0.028127166,
        0.029993454,
        0.0019199906,
        0.007828098,
        0.004874043,
        -0.020321429,
        0.008770353,
        -0.031350013,
        0.02384388,
        -0.016894076,
        0.00010059465,
        0.021136677,
        -0.016281992,
        -0.007000868,
        0.022074005,
        0.0013343007,
        -0.03156123,
        0.014656309,
        0.008891061,
        -0.0028272676,
        -0.0070875273,
        -0.060890567,
        0.0027307058,
        -0.0065982076,
        0.0015308264,
        0.005970037,
        0.0076252543,
        0.014268995,
        0.013624502,
        -0.023245811,
        0.017538076,
        0.00837254,
        -0.010192841,
        0.014841441,
        0.033162087,
        -0.014438666,
        0.012854472,
        0.026354661,
        -0.0108687645,
        0.01155092,
        -0.004936221,
        0.0035322963,
        -0.037597228,
        -0.01139381,
        -0.002231055,
        0.01333304,
        -0.022539046,
        0.013410334,
        0.026501382,
        0.0022278896,
        -0.012132269,
        0.0027487497,
        0.0035840976,
        -0.018704616,
        0.025035227,
        -0.032437928,
        -0.023617864,
        -0.006148079,
        -0.00623303,
        0.010075467,
        0.0006587919,
        0.00955259,
        -0.014026903,
        0.012395178,
        0.00862997,
        -0.017576195,
        0.011132627,
        -0.005854943,
        -0.0074989153,
        0.006594834,
        -0.014769282,
        -0.017097149,
        0.02930875,
        -0.024574116,
        -0.006641643,
        -0.03648822,
        0.010009298,
        0.0074311844,
        0.030854996,
        -0.0072595365
    ],
    "ai_confidence_score": 0.9999999999999999,
    "ai_extraction_metadata": {
        "extracted_at": "2026-02-15T15:07:20.395283Z",
        "ai_model": "gemini-2.0-flash-lite",
        "extraction_method": "automated",
        "content_length": 30432,
        "url": "https:\/\/nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/08\/t-magazine\/wallace-shawn.html",
        "existing_metadata": {
            "author_name": null,
            "published_at": null,
            "domain_name": null,
            "site_name": null,
            "section": null,
            "publisher": null
        }
    }
}

{
    "extracted_at": "2026-02-15T15:07:20.395283Z",
    "ai_model": "gemini-2.0-flash-lite",
    "extraction_method": "automated",
    "content_length": 30432,
    "url": "https:\/\/nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/08\/t-magazine\/wallace-shawn.html",
    "existing_metadata": {
        "author_name": null,
        "published_at": null,
        "domain_name": null,
        "site_name": null,
        "section": null,
        "publisher": null
    }
}