I’ve always wanted to write an opera.  I love opera.  I spent many years going to see operas but never expecting that it was an option for me.  And then I met a composer named Ricky Ian Gordon, who is a genius, and he said, “Would you be interested in collaborating with me?” and I thought, “Great!”  And for two years we read books and we tried to figure out what we were going to do.  And then one day he said, “You know, what I really want to do is an adaptation of your play Intimate Apparel. And I said, “Oh my God! You know, what I really want to do is an adaptation of Intimate Apparel.”  And we just launched into this piece.  It’s interesting, because I wrote Intimate Apparel at a moment right after my mother died, and he began writing the music for Intimate Apparel the moment after his mother died.  So I think there’s something about this collaboration that brings that emotion into the piece. It’s immensely beautiful, and I should knock on wood because I feel embarrassed saying that, but he has done remarkable work, and I feel that it has found its true and perfect form in the opera.