3 Stages of Writing a Play

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By Jen Huszcza

After writing plays for nearly two decades, I have realized that writing a play happens in three stages. Yes, it’s only three stages. Yes, I will tell you what those three stages are.

These three stages might recycle themselves through multiple drafts.

1. I’m on fire! I see it all! I have the vision! I am God! I am King! I am Goddess! This play will be great! This play will stand on the shoulders of previous plays and reach out to future generations! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

2. Okay, let me think about this. What am I saying? What is the setting? What is the space? What are the visuals? What can not be seen? What is the character doing? Who is that character? Who am I? What is my place in the universe? Think. It’s somewhere in the head. Okay, okay, okay, okay?

3. I sooo want to be done with your sorry ass. I can’t write this god damn play anymore. I can’t mentally listen and watch these characters anymore. I have another play idea that will be better. End. End. End. End now.

Mmmfahs

Play,

Lately, as I’ve been contemplating the future, I’ve been thinking about my past. One item that sticks out to me is my MFA.

Yes, I have an MFA. Sometimes, I call it Miffa. Sometimes, I call it Mmmfah. During the stoner years, I called it the Master of Farts. I don’t think of myself as a Master or a Fine Art. I have been tempted to change the F to a more profitable B. Mmmbah? Nah.

I’ve been asked several times through the years if an MFA was worth it? The asker was usually contemplating if he or she should get an MFA. I didn’t like to answer that question because it had the word should in it.

Here’s what I think about the MFA:

It’s an accomplishment, not a guarantee. I busted my ass to get it. I feel a definite fellowship with my fellow writing classmates. We all survived twenty wild months.

Does one have to have an MFA to be a good playwright? Of course not. If you’re a good writer, you’re a good writer. If you’re a bad writer, an MFA won’t help you.

I didn’t get my MFA to make you feel bad for not having an MFA. 

I have an MFA. I keep it rolled up in the cardboard tube in an old metal trunk.

How Directors Can Get Themselves into My Good Graces

Play,

by Jen Huszcza

Hello, I am back for the 16th time blogging for the LAFPI. This is also the last week that I will be blogging for the LAFPI for awhile. I’m taking a break, but don’t worry I have a week of fun planned.

Today, I want to talk about the director/playwright relationship from my point of view as a playwright. I have worked with some great directors as a playwright, performer, and stage direction reader. I have also had the opportunity to witness directors say and do some stupid things.

So today, I am writing about how exactly directors can get themselves into my good graces. By the way, do people say good graces anymore?

So directors, this is how you deal with Playwright Jen:

Chocolates work.

Don’t talk about conflict. That’s sooo high school. Talk about engagement. How do the characters engage each other? How do they engage the audience?

Don’t talk about character growth, character change, character development. Characters are who they are and exist in their moments. Help the actors find their moments. Help the actors look good.

Don’t talk about story. If I wanted to write a story, I would have written story.

Plays don’t have to mean anything. They just have to have a beginning, middle, and end. Plays don’t have to be socially or politically relevant. They don’t have to be funny or sad. They just exist in time.

Don’t whine. Just don’t.

Don’t yell. If you’re yelling, that tells me you’re out of control. I also get annoyed by directorial waves of the arm and smoking indoors.

Don’t use the following adjectives: crazy, wacky, wild, avant garde, strange, weird, and Beckettesque (shivers).

And please don’t call me insane even in fun. I have too much respect for the insane to be in their company.

Don’t change the words unless I say so. I change words. That’s my job.

I will sit in on any rehearsal. Or I won’t. I can’t sit for long periods of time, so I might stand and pace. It doesn’t mean anything.

Use the word mystery. I don’t offer answers or solutions. I like asking questions.

Look for rituals. I like to create rituals. I like to break rituals. Look for patterns and repetitions.

Be meticulous. Be patient. Be prepared.

Make choices.

Think visually and physically.

Finally, play.

RADAR L.A.: Staging the Political as Personal

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By Diane Lefer

A stirring doubleheader of RADAR L.A. productions last night at LATC gave me a lot to think about, including this: I am left wondering if it was coincidence, curators’ choice, or larger cultural influences that gave Los Angeles an international theater and performance festival at which only two plays (of 14 scripted pieces, many involving female artists) were written by women; both women are Latin American; both of their plays look at generational trauma in the aftermath of defining tragedies in their countries; both temper their documentary materials with poetic license as they explore the intimately personal in the political. Whatever. I can thank the forces – occult or otherwise – that brought Mariana Villegas and Lola Arias to town.

image-3For Villegas, in her supertitled 55-minute solo performance Se Rompen Las Olas, the disaster is the Mexico City earthquake of 1985 – evoked through video news clips –  that left tens of thousands dead, discredited the government, and briefly brought together the woman who would be her mother and the man whose absence and abandonment would shake the performer’s life to the core. Villegas holds the stage with a powerfully expressive physicality as when her exuberant and uninhibited dance shifts in an instant to a vision of abuse. At one point, a recorded song asks Where did the earthquake catch you? and goes on to answer dancing with Catalina, shaking the floor so hard, the singer explains, he never noticed the quake. (Can anyone imagine a comparable song in this country citing 9/11?) In Se Rompen Las Olas, these lyrics with their upbeat tune and danceable beat offer a compelling truth of daily life and human desire going on in the midst of catastrophe while Villegas, through her body and her words reminds us that people born in the aftermath of disaster continue to feel the reverberation in their lives.

arias01For Lola Arias, the disaster is the coup in Chile that overthrew the government of Salvador Allende and led to the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The supertitled script of El Año en que Nací (The Year I Was Born) is drawn from the actual lives of the 11 performers all of whom were born (or were infants) at the time of the coup and who seek to understand the roles their parents played during years of repression, violence, prison, and exile. Notably, the performers come from families all across the political spectrum from participants in the armed struggle on the left to the authoritarian paramilitary organization on the right along with those who had political preferences but tried to go along with the status quo. While the opening scenes of the play suggest the new generation’s commonalities, the picture becomes more complex and fractious (and comical) when the players are challenged to line up to show their political stance, their economic position – When it comes to poverty, does having a dirt floor at home trump going hungry? – and their social status as reflected in skin color. Simple yet inventive staging keeps the production lively with tonal shifts and surprise.

Arias, from Argentina, previously created a similar program exploring the post-dictatorship era in her own country and if you’re familiar with Latin American politics, her work shouldn’t be missed. Know nothing about Allende and Pinochet? The production still fascinates. It runs two hours without intermission without ever inducing fidgets.

Final performances of both productions are Sunday, and then they are gone. See the RADAR L.A. schedule here: http://www.redcat.org/festival/radar-la-festival-2013

Villegas and Arias made me think of another Latin American woman at the head of a company that uses documentary material – Claudia Santiago who writes, directs, and performs with Mexico City-based Espejo Mutable. Their most recent production, Náa-Gunaá, looks at the lives of indigenous migrants (including children) from the south of Mexico who are exposed to exploitation and pesticides as they harvest GMO crops in Baja California. The company would love the opportunity to share this work and explore the lives of indigenous migrants from Oaxaca in our own California fields.

logo_radarla_transparent_0_0And a quick shoutout to three additional RADAR L.A. offerings that have women at the helm if not in the playwright’s chair:

Puppet designer extraordinaire Janie Geiser directs Clouded Sulphur.

Franco-Austrian director Giselle Vienne chose to employ simple hand puppets to create the unnerving effect in Jerk, the story of a serial killer.

Theatre Movement Bazaar, with Tina Kronis as director and choreographer, continues its reinterpretation of Chekhov with Track 3.

 

Diane Lefer is a playwright, author, and activist whose collaboration with Hector Aristizábal, Nightwind, has been performed in LA and in 30 other countries around the globe. Also in LA, her work has been presented by Grupo Ta’Yer at the Frida Kahlo Theater, Indie Chi Productions, Playwrights Arena, Three Roses Players, and Triumvirate Pi. She is co-author with Aristizábal of The Blessing Next to the Wound: A story of art, activism, and transformation as well as several anthologized essays about Theater of the Oppressed, and she has worked with theater groups in Colombia and Bolivia. Her works of fiction include the historical novel, The Fiery Alphabet, published this month, and the short story collection, California Transit, which received the Mary McCarthy Prize. Visit www.dianelefer.weebly.com.

Elephant 15

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by Erica Bennett

The best question a director ever asked me was, what animal are you?

I knew my answer before I ever walked on stage; I found my way.

 

What rhythm drives you? Can you hear it?

Is your music fully formed? Or is it a single drum beat?

 

I’ve always been drawn to music from my father’s 45s to Karen Carpenter,

From old time rock ‘n roll to Janis Joplin, balladeers to Queen, Linda Ronstadt to Pink.

 

While I don’t know the language of music, I can articulate how it makes me feel.

When I am sad, it is waves on a moonlit beach. When I am happy, it peals.

 

I am pealing tonight.

High rise

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by Erica Bennett

 

I am Wo sans man

I am the Ater

I read Poe; try

My lips Tick

My bed Rocks

But I split Hairs

 

I’m writing a short play in verse using an non-rhyming 4/3/5/2 metered structure. Yet, last night, my play had no action; it was more a dialogue which was my original intention.

Most of my stuff has internal action; perhaps better suited for another medium? Anyway, I threw in a dagger and some ill-intent, the proverbial kitchen sink. The play is based upon a myth and I’m not far off the mark. In fact, it was actually a good note and relatively easy for me to address; a little polished steel waving around the Christ child should get the blood boiling this holiday season… That’s the hope, anyway. I want this experiment in language of mine to be born and born again.

My friend asked me who is looking out for my work, so when I die, it won’t end up in a dumpster with the rest of my personal belongings. That’s a good question. Are you archiving your stuff? You should.

Magic

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by Erica Bennett

 

It’s Thursday

Already

And I’m late

And it’s October

Already

And it’s New Years

And spring break

And October again

And I am reminded of When Harry Met Sally

“And I’m going to be forty. When? Someday.”

Only I’ve not been forty for forty years

Because I’m eighty

And I’m dead like the rest of ‘em.

But rather than cry

It makes me smile, wonder

Where did the magic come from?

That single second of unreasoning inspiration

Fueled by adrenalin and cigarettes

Maybe sex and coffee, alcohol and emotion

That kept me up all hours of the night

Not wanting it to end

Warding off sleep = death

 

Thank You…

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Written by Nancy Beverly

I decided this morning to make this my last blog for the LAFPI.  I suddenly realized late yesterday I hadn’t read the blog in over a month (okay, my home computer was in the shop for two weeks, which made my personal web surfing minimal).  I’d been religious (spiritual?) about keeping up with everyone’s posts… and now my life is so jam-packed that I unintentionally let the blog drop.  I apologize to those whose posts I didn’t read — I tried to do some speed reading yesterday to catch up but I still didn’t get to all of the entries.  Sigh.

So, I need to let some things go to make room for the new things in my life — mostly they’re connected to my movie, which now has a wonderful director, fabulous D.P., line-producer, co-producer, budget and business plan in place.  And I’ve barely begun — now comes getting investors and actors!

In my final post, I’d like to share with you the link to Shawn Tolleson’s website:

http://entertainmentcareerstrategy.com/

Shawn is a career coach, as well as a film and theatre director, and it’s thanks to her tools that I’ve been able to put this movie (and some of my other projects) together and keep moving forward.  She spoke at Fierce Backbone, my playwrights group, last night and the writers and actors got a lot out of her talk.  If you ever get a chance to hear her or have the time to sign up for one of her seminars, I can’t say enough about the strategies she teaches.

And so, thank you for letting me take up this space every few months to contemplate, to rant, to share… and to feel connected to the wonderful female playwrights of L.A.

 

Stillness…

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by Analyn Revilla

I wanted to write this blog from a quiet place inside of me.  After some reflection and some practice I believe that creativity comes from a quiet place, and the by-product of creativity is a creation.

Most times, I’m too busy with being busy that I’m hardly ever quiet, so there isn’t much creativity happening.  It’s all noise, and that creation isn’t inspiring or useful to others – hardly anyway.

I had been mulling about creativity, creation and stillness in the past few days.  Then I stumbled upon the whole kit and caboodle while preparing dinner last night.  What I had been trying to understand is also something that Bruno experiences as a professional chef.  He has worked for a lot of very good charcutiers.  I asked, what makes one better than aother?  He said, for example, he is different from one his former employers, Thierry, because Thierry was a perfectionist.  Thierry had the ability to invent new products, because he’s not too concerned with productivity.  Meanwhile, Bruno was able to create something new based on parameters he is given by a client.  He admits that he didn’t invent what he’s created, but he’s able to reproduce someone else’s idea.  I followed with the question, why can’t he create something new and original?  He said he’s too busy with being productive.  He needs to have time to be quiet to inspire creativity.

I’ve been wanting to give you something worthy of your time, and I didn’t want to rehash something that has been said before or a cliché about life.  Though I wanted to remind myself that it’s good to just be still, like telling a child who fidgets to “be still.”  Being busy without being rooted to a purpose dissipates energy, and can even lead to an unwanted residue of consequences.  (I should have gone home before I deleted some report configuration from an environment which was firstly an embarrassing mistake, and also created more work in the end.  The only salvation I grant on this occassion is a Miles Davis quote, “Do not fear mistakes – there are none. ”)

Here’s another analogy.  A playwright friend of mine was auditioning actors for a new play.  His comment at the end of the auditions was, “there was too much movement of arms and legs from some of the actors, and less focus on what’s being said.”  I know what he meant, because when a person is embedded into a character there is a sense of stillness in their demeanor.  Less is more.  Like makeup, applying less brings out more of the essence rather than covering it up; and over-amplification of the action takes away from the subtext of the conversation.

On my office wall, across from my desk, is a picture of Martin Luther King from the TIME magazine cover (August 26th to September 2nd 2013 issue).  There is a remarkable stillness in this image.  I wonder what he was thinking, feeling and being.  There’s a stillness there that draws me in closer that I put the words “Role model inspire to aspire” beneath the picture.

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Play It Loud

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by Analyn Revilla

I had driven around and stopped at four other pawn shops around New Orleans, before I found “the guitar”.  It had been sitting in a darkened room of the pawn shop next to a small food stand.  It was, in fact, the food stand that I used as my marker to locate the shop, based on directions from a local.

“the guitar”, covered in dust, was hidden behind other abandoned guitars, but at least it stood upright, and not on its back.  Any weight on it could’ve broken the neck or cracked its body.  The headstock was chipped, the back was falling off and it couldn’t hold the tuning, because the tuning pegs were not its original stock and the strings were gritty with dust and grease.

I looked down the neck of the guitar and did not see any serious bends.  Plus it was really too dark in the shop to study that kind of detail any closer.  I tried to tune the guitar and play a chord.  Imagine plucking a note from an electric guitar plugged to an amp in a large and empty stadium.  Hear the note.  It is true and just keeps on vibrating.  Its call brings your soul to its knees.  I was unnerved by the tone of this old soul.

“How much do you want for this?” I asked the owner.  I got the answer I expected.  Something along the lines that it’s a vintage guitar, and it’s a bargain for $125.  It comes with its own gig bag.  The guitar was worth something as it was an Alvarez and it was fabricated in Japan.  It was an old soul with a worn body.  Its back was falling out and I saw there was some damage to the heel too.  I liked the scorpion sticker on the front, and ghs guitar boomer sticker at the back.

“Ok, I’ll take it.”  My answer, without its haggling down words, made the man pause and probably wonder if he’s really given away a gem.  The gig bag was in better shape than the guitar.

After returning to LA, and having paid an extra $100 for the extra carriage of the guitar I was the owner of a vintage guitar that couldn’t be played.  You can tune it, but it begins to lose its tuning before you can finish a song.  I took it around to a few shops to get an idea of the cost of fixing it, but the answers I got weren’t too promising.  I took it on a trip to Vancouver.  I always need the companionship of a guitar when I’m away from home.  The guy at Bonerattle Music store offered to at least glue the back and change the strings.  I didn’t mind playing an out of tune guitar, as I just needed to hold it.  I could still play a melody on one string; and practice anything with simple creativity.  The guy was surprised by its sound.  “Its got great tone.”  “I know,” I told him, “that’s why I got it and I wanted to save it.”

Then the guitar sat on a gig stand around my apartment unfixed and played not often.  It was like grandpa sitting in his rocking chair, waiting for something, that I wish I knew what for.  Then one day, I found out there was a hobbyist luthier working in the office.  His day job is a technical engineer.  His office is adorned with 3 guitars and a bass he built.  All of these babies were beautiful.  His favorite is a retro-green Strat body with pink knobs.  I told him about my guitar, and he said he’d like to work on it.  Wide-eyed, I said, “Really?”

That was almost a year ago that we had that conversation.  Yesterday morning he handed me the fixed grande dame of the Mississippi.  I cradled it, and couldn’t resist strumming a few favorite chords.   In his words he said it’s the only guitar  he’s worked on that’s “live”.  Then he quickly changed his mind and said, “it is one of two… ”  He figured that “the guitar” has been played a lot by the look of the wear on the fingerboard.  The wear on the headstock looks like the guitar had been pulled out of gig bags often, the kind of guitar you just reach for.  “Imagine,” I said, “Can you imagine the hands that’s touched this guitar.”  “I know,” he enthused.  Our minds raced with stories of its own making.

Last night, while Bruno watched the news, I sat holding the guitar and warming up my fingers and noodling quietly.  At times I would stop and apologize for getting carried away.  He gently told me, it’s okay.  He liked hearing me play.  “I don’t play,” I said.  This morning, after he left for work, I picked up the guitar again.  I started gingerly as my fingers hadn’t played very much lately.  I put the metronome at a slow beat of 40.  The electronic tick tock focused my attention.  After a few minutes of that I moved to chords, then playing songs.  I was enamored with the sound.  This guitar likes to be played loud.  Its tone was so grand and deep – resonating tones and semitones like an aria.  By the time I became I aware of time it was 8:44.  I still hadn’t walked the dog, and I’m supposed to be at work soon.

I laughed at an old reminder a guitar teacher used to tell me.  “Play louder”.  This was the first and only guitar I’ve played which I could play loud.  I found my voice with this guitar.  I dressed for work, happily thinking about an idea – when one day, St. Peter, at the Gate, asks me to play a song to let me pass through into heaven I would have a song to play and I would play it loud enough.