The playwright-turned-filmmaker explains how studying "O Brother, Where Art Thou" shaped her vision of classical tragedy in the American South. When the playwright and now film director Aleshea Harris began writing the script for “ Is God Is ,” she was on food stamps; subletting an apartment in North Hollywood; and working multiple jobs, including teaching at California Institute of Arts where she’d gotten her MFA in 2014 and moonlighting as an associate at David’s Bridal. “I was so broke,”