Category Archives: Conference

“Chicago Meet and Greet” hosted by the Chicago League

by Robin Byrd

There was a “Meet and Greet” hosted by the Chicago League; it was a one-hour hit-every-table kind of deal. A wonderful addition to the Dramatists Guild Conference “Having Our Say: Our History, Our Future” this table hopping and it was a great experience.  I am not usually a meet and greet kind of person but I met a lot of people and it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.  Although the first table was really difficult but I missed my flight printing business cards so you best believe I was handing them out.  Then I got the hang of it when I decided to really look at the theaters and find out about them.  I could hear John F. Kennedy in my subconscious saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you — but what you can do for your country”, so it became about the theaters and less about me.  They do some interesting theater in Chicago.

On Sunday, I am going to see Nothing Without A Company’s “Alice” in Lincoln Park.  The audience will travel as a group to each location as the play is performed.  How neat is that?  I only ran into one table where they dealt with Chicago or Illinois writers only.  I met Babes with Blades; and we talked character, fights… At the Clockwise Theatre table, I met a guy from my hometown; they do theater that is diverse and adventurous – literally, culturally, and theatrically.

I met 20% Theatre Company Chicago, a company started like LA FPI in response to the New York study on gender bias.  They are running their 8th Annual Snapshots, A 10-Minute Play Festival now, during the DG Conference August 22-25, 2013 at the Cornservatory (4210 N. Lincoln Ave).

There was Light Opera Works for musical theater; Midwest New Musicals is an arm of Light Opera Works and is run by John Sparks – if his name sounds familiar, it’s because he is the Founding Director of LA’s Academy for New Musical Theatre – small world.

Writers Theatre was there; it’s all about the writer.  Stockyards Theatre Project was there — their mission: “to give volume to the voices of women by creating positive, substantial roles in plays for female performers”.  Underscore Theatre Company was there; they do musicals but will take plays with music as they are interested in the relationship between words and music and how the use of music can underscore a story.

Other theaters with information at the Meet and Greet were:

The Ruckus does such diverse theater, you can tell right off by the type of productions they have in a given season and by the credits.

The Side Project Theatre Company — exploration of the power of hyper-intimate theatre.

TimeLine Theatre Company – deals with plays about history and has two plays by women in its 2013/2014 Season: “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry and “The How and The Why” by Sarah Treem.  (50/50)

Northlight Theatre has two plays by women in it 2013/2014 Season:  “4000 Miles” by Amy Herzog (ranked #1 play in 2012 by New York Times) and “Detroit ’67” by Dominique Morisseau (which I just happened to read recently – an era with stories that need to be told).  (50/50)

Pavement Group is searching for fresh plays, check them out to see if you’re a match…

Pride Films & Plays is looking for well crafted stories, check them out to see if you’ve got something they’re interested in…

Chicago Dramatists has ways for writers outside Chicago to participate.  Check them out.

DreamStreet Theatre Company is a new company looking for family oriented stories.  I talked with the founder who is really interested in doing great theater.  The “times up” call was given in the middle of my conversation so I found myself rushing to get the last bit of information from the remaining tables.

American Blues Theater — (Isn’t that the coolest name?) illuminates the American ideas of freedom, equality, and opportunity… Our hour was up and we were being shooed out the door when I was handed a card, “I didn’t get to talk to you,” she said.  Isn’t that the coolest thing?  Turns out I was just looking at their Blue Ink Playwriting Award submission guidelines…

In all and I may have missed some theaters, I had a really good time meeting the theater reps.

Improvising Your Play with Jeffrey Sweet

by Robin Byrd

I am here in Chicago at the Dramatists Guild Conference “Having Our Say: Our History, Our Future” enjoying every minute of it.  It is really good to see Stephen Schwartz, President, Dramatists Guild, Gary Garrison, Executive Director, Creative Affairs and hoping to see Ralph Sevush, Esq. Executive Director, Business and Legal Affairs, have to make sure I get to one of his sessions  – playwriting without the business side of things can leave one at a loss…  Some of the sessions are live streaming from HowlRound at http://www.livestream.com/newplay where you can watch them several times after the live event.

My first session was with Jeffrey Sweet, playwright, author, teacher, actor, director, improvisation master – I could go on.  I use his books to help me out of fixes when I’m writing.  I met him at the last Dramatists Guild Conference in Virginia.  He is the nicest man, very down to earth and very giving where knowledge of the craft of playwriting and theater is concerned.

Mr. Sweet talked about how improvising came into being – the people in the germination period, the history of it – how storefront theater started and what that had to do with the Marxist son of a millionaire who loved theater.  He discussed how the question “How do you get plays on a stage when no one is writing them?” gave rise to improvisation.  How improvising theater starting from scenarios –Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm uses scenarios.  He ran through the history like a monologue, full of comedy and facts.  He told us to also look at TJ & Dave for improvisation today.

In “Improvising your Play”, Mr. Sweet discussed set up for Improv and the power of the unspoken word.  A writer must know what to leave out. He suggested conveying what the noun is without using the word.  As in, conveying “I love you” without actually saying “I love you.”  He demonstrated with a skit using two playwrights from the audience giving them clear instructions on what their character wanted but what they could not say to the other character.  The Improv turned out to be a nice little scene.  He runs a Summer Improv writing retreat (http://www.artisticnewdirections.org/retreats.html) that uses improvisation techniques to write scripts.  Then he did an exercise with five playwrights from the audience who were told to describe a noun without using the noun.  We got very good descriptions, of a woman who found solace in watching a puppy through the store window, a man whose horse sounded like a woman until the very end, and the description of finding that a vile smell is of poop on the bottom of a shoe.

He also discussed relating something from the past without writing in past tense.  There is a technical way called “historical present” that gives the sense of dramatic action.  You start in the past but switch to present as you go, for instance, writing “I was walking along the side of the road, suddenly; a large truck is coming right at me.  I have a second to get out of the way or I’m toast.  I jump…” (as I understood him).  There is also “high context exposition” which in essence means don’t explain.  Characters who know each other don’t repeat what they already know; this is why the soaps use new characters to rehash old business that everyone else already knows.  He feels the writer should always go to the future tense.

Another way of bringing more to a script is by negotiating over an object.  “Objects between any two characters will give info about the characters.”  Shakespeare uses three objects in King Henry the Sixth, the paper crown, molehill and the handkerchief which create shock in behavior.  In “The Apartment,” the mirror compact does the trick.

Improvising your Play was a very informative session.  A lot of what he discussed is in his books.  Seeing him bring the techniques to life before your eyes is worth experiencing at least once so if you ever get the change to sit in on a Jeffrey Sweet class, please do…

Jeffrey Sweet’s books:

Dramatists Toolkit, The Craft of the Working Playwright

Solving Your Script:  Tools and Techniques for the Playwright

Something Wonderful Right Away: An Oral History of the Second City and the Compass Players

Dramatists Guild National Conference

 

Next week the second Dramatists Guild National Conference will be held in Chicago, IL, August 22 – 25, 2013.  For more information please go to the National Conference information page on the Dramatists Guild website (www.dramatistsguild.com).