by Diane Grant

I’ve been a member of The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights and a vice-chair for a couple of decades now and have benefited from its support, excellent symposiums, and submission opportunities.  I’ve met some wonderful playwrights who have often provided insights into the process of writing and marketing, and who have been, more importantly, lots of fun.

Dan Berkowitz, our co-chair, wrote the following about our new venture.  It’s late notice  – the deadline is February the 28th – but I’m hoping that some of our LAFPIers and bloggers can take advantage of ALAP’s entry into the 2014 Hollywood Fringe. 

For 15 years, The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP) has presented a Fall Reading Festival of members’ plays. This year, instead of a Reading Festival in the fall, we’re going to present a Festival of Member Plays at the 2014 Hollywood Fringe!

Plays must be under 10 minutes in running time.
Plays must be inspired in some way by the theme “Sex, Lies, and Social Media.”
Plays may have been previously produced or published, or they can be brand-new works you write just for the Festival.
Plays will be read blindly by a panel of judges who have no affiliation with ALAP.

If your play is chosen, it will become part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, with five performances between June 9 and 29, at Theatre Asylum’s Elephant Studio.

If your play is chosen, you will be responsible for its production as a component of the overall evening, either by casting and directing it yourself or choosing a director and working with him/her. ALAP will support you and offer guidance if needed; if you’re one of our out-of-the-area members, we will put you in touch with the directors in our Database, and you will have access to the ALAP Actor Database as well.

There is no submission fee, and no fee to participate in the Festival. However, playwrights must be current ALAP members to submit. ALAP membership is open to all. To join, visit the website http://laplaywrights.org/ and click “Join ALAP” in the left-hand navigation column. 

ALAP membership is $45 a year. 

Though ALAP is not a producing organization, it feels that participating in the Hollywood Fringe will give its members another platform from which to launch their work into the big bad world of LA theatre audiences. To this end, ALAP will act as presenters and promoters of the 5 chosen plays – the chosen playwrights will not have to put up any money to participate – which together will (hopefully) create a stunning evening of theatre.

By offering members a chance to self-produce a short play – without having to worry about finding or paying for a venue, or being solely responsible for publicity – we also hope to foster a sense of adventure and self-reliance, and provide an opportunity for members to expand their scope of experience.

Submissions close February 28. The rules and entry form can be found at http://laplaywrights.org/14FestivalEntryForm.pdf or by visiting the ALAP website http://laplaywrights.org/ and scrolling to the bottom of the right-hand column.

Of Sex, Lies, and Social Media, I’m familiar with only two, not saying which ones, so probably won’t be submitting but I hope many of you will be.

by Diane Grant

I was going to go on and on, following my last post, about John Fletcher and The Tamer Tamed, which I borrowed from the library. “Wow,” said the librarian, “he couldn’t come up with a better title than that?” He tried.  It was also called The Woman’s Prize.

Reading it was a revelation. Fletcher was twenty five when he wrote this wild, raunchy feminist piece, which used Shakepeare’s characters and turned his premise upside down. Petruchio the “tamer” is “tamed” by his second wife Maria who is joined by women from town and country in a sex strike, a la Lysistrata, in which chamberpots are prominently featured. Bianca, Kate’s sister, is her avid supporter. What a kick.

Shakespeare couldn’t have been too upset. He and Fletcher co-wrote three plays after The Tamer Tamed in 1611 and Fletcher became the chief dramatist of the The King’s Men when Shakespeare retired.

Well, that’s enough of going on and on.

The point is that I wouldn’t have thought as much about these plays had I not been blogging for the lafpi. And because it’s just after Thanksgiving and near the end of the year, I thought I’d just express my thanks for that opportunity and for all that the lafpi does.

It’s so good to share and to connect with so many, all of us in this same boat. Let’s keep rowing.

By   Diane Grant

This summer, I saw a production of Shakespeare’s The Taming Of The Shrew at Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon.  It was well acted and directed, fast paced, full of movement and meant for fun.

But I felt as if I were being plunged into a cold bath.

My God, I thought, what was that?

I went home to read about the play, written between 1590 and 1594, and soon realized that it would take years (or at least a semester or two) to go through all the literature and the reviews.

It is according to the Folger’s Edition, an “entertaining farce on a topic of eternal interest,” – the battle of the sexes. According to George Bernard Shaw, it’s a play that is ‘altogether disgusting to modern sensibility.’ (Perhaps it wasn’t just modern sensibility that was offended. John Fletcher, a contemporary of Shakespeare, rebutted Shrew saying in his epilogue to The Tamer Tamed that his play was “meant/ To teach both Sexes due equality; And as they stand bound, to love mutually.”)

Ellen Geer, the director of the production at Theatricum, says, “The many years of discussion and scholarly investigation about this dear and loved piece is endless and changes throughout the ages as societies decide what it REALLY means. Yada, yada, yada.”

Sir Laurence Olivier, who played the role Katherine, when he was fifteen, also thought it was a farce.

But could it really be a farce? A farce is something you laugh at.

How can you laugh at the arranged marriage between a man, Petruchio, who marries an angry and unhappy woman for money and who says of his wife, Katherine, “She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house.?” How can you hope that this marriage can be saved when Petruchio deprives his wife of food and sleep, subjects her to public and private humiliation and who on subjugating her, makes a bet with other men about whose wife is the most obedient?

Here Katherine, in her ending monologue, speaks as the tamed shrew and advises women:

KATE: Fie, fie, unknit that threat’ning unkind brow
And dart not scornful glances from those eyes
To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.
It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,
Confounds thy fame as whirlwinds shake fair buds,
And in no sense is meet or amiable.
A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty,
And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee
And for thy maintenance; commits his body
To painful labor both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou li’st warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks, and true obedience–
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace,
Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway,
Whey they are bound to serve, love, and obey.
Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,
Unapt to toil and trouble in the world,
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?
Come, come, you froward and unable worms,
My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown.
But now I see our lances are but straws,
Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,
That seeming to be most which we indeed least are.
Then vail your stomachs, for it is no boot,
And place your hands below your husband’s foot,
In token of which duty, if he please,
My hand is ready, may it do him ease.

In the 1929 movie with Mary Pickford as Katherine and Douglas Fairbanks as Petruchio, as Katherine delivers the ending monologue, she winks toward her sister, Bianca, unseen by Petruchio. Bianca smiles back, an acknowledgment that Katherine has not been tamed at all.

I don’t know. Wink or no, it still makes me feel pretty damned chilly.

By Diane Grant

I recently read this: “Until you start standing up for your work, you can’t expect anyone else to.” It seems obvious but it’s a very tricky statement.

The director is the King or Queen of the rehearsal room and as such has the primary responsibility of bringing the play to life. He or she is involved in all stages of the process, including set design and pre-production and the finished performances. That’s a given.

I’ve directed and know this. I love directing and always get such joy out of working with actors on their feet. I love watching the play evolve, the characters grow, their relationships deepen. I’m energized by the passionate discussions about what things mean and the discoveries that come from them. When everything comes together and the tempo and tone are right, it is hugely satisfying.

What I don’t really know is how the playwright’s role differs. If you are a playwright, privileged to have a production of one of your own plays in a theater in your own community, what is your role in rehearsal? Are you “allowed” to attend rehearsals? If you are in attendance, how do you behave? What is the relationship of the playwright to the director and actors?

Most of the time, producers, directors, and playwrights don’t know the answers to those questions.

The best answers I’ve seen are in the contract from The Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (written in consultation with The Dramatists Guild) that has the following provisions:

The author hereby agrees to:
2.2.1 Perform such services as may be necessary in making revisions of the PLAY;
2.2.2 Assist in the selection of the cast and consult with, assist, and advise the THEATRE, director, scenic, lighting, costume, sound designers, choreographer and/or dance director, stage combat/fight choreographer, and conductor, if any, regarding any problem arising out of the production of the PLAY (if the AUTHOR is available).
2.2.3 Attend rehearsals of the PLAY, as well as previews, and the Official Press Opening, provided he/she is in residence or is available to do so, and provided that, however, the AUTHOR may be excluded from such attendance on showing reasonable cause.

I would also like a provision that stipulates the necessity of initial collaborative discussions between producers, directors and playwright. During that time, if it becomes obvious that the producers’ and/or the director’s interpretation of the tone, style and meaning of the play differ from the playwright’s, the differences can be worked out before the rehearsal process begins.

Without this contract, I’ve gone into productions thinking that I didn’t have a voice. Past experiences convinced me I didn’t. Directors listened to nothing I said. My role was to rewrite and clarify bits of dialogue and stage directions and nothing more. I was shut out often enough that I stopped raising my voice and hand and sat in rehearsals, submerged and silent. In some instances, I developed an almost reactive formation in which I acted against my own instincts and just let things happen.

The ALAP contract provides guidelines for everyone involved and gives playwrights the right to be an equal part of the team. I will not do another production without that contract in hand.

It’s the beginning of standing up for your own work.

by Diane Grant

This season, Theatre Palisades produced Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, from the 1899 play by William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, adapted by Stephen Dietz.

It has been produced many times and the cast, which loved the show, loved Stephen Dietz as well.

I was interested in him, too. According to Wikipedia, he has written 30 plays and adapted 11 others. “How do you do that?” I wondered. Where do you write, in your car? In the bath? While cooking? Running? When do you sleep and eat? Maybe, you don’t sleep. That’s it, you don’t sleep. You can eat and write with the other hand.

I thought, “I’d like to ask him.”

Well, one day, when I was manning the reservation line, a woman phoned and booked 4 tickets for Stephen Dietz. I alerted the producers!

How were we to handle this?

The first thing to do was to get a good house for the night. We’d serve wine and goodies before curtain and at intermission. We’d call the night something special – a celebration of the First Days Of Summer. Everyone got involved. One of the members phoned everyone on the membership list and email blasts were blasted.

When the night came, we were ready. Front of house was manned by a full staff, well prepared with a case of the best red and white (OK, the best red and white that a theater ever serves), abundant Goldfish crackers, nuts and cookies. The cast was animated and had prepared an after show feast for themselves and Mr. Dietz and his friends.

Mr. Dietz and his party arrived and the producer introduced herself to him.

He said, “I’m not a playwright.”

“Not a playwright?” said the producer.

“No, I’m a investment banker.”

“An investment banker?”

“Oh,” his wife said, laughing, “He does this all the time.”

The cast wasn’t told until after the show. Mr. Dietz did stay after to shake hands and say, “Hello,” but some of the cast felt had. And sad. Some even angry. I didn’t feel particularly popular having not asked when booking the reservation, “THE Steven Dietz?”

But the night was lots of fun. We truly did celebrate the first days of summer and brought in a huge audience, well cosseted, who saw a particularly lively performance.

THE Steven Dietz would have been pleased.

   Ellen Geer, Willow Geer, Melora Marshall

by Diane Grant

I work in a box office. It’s my bread and butter job. The problem with it is that it prevents me from seeing as many plays as I would like to. I’m often taking tickets at one theater when the curtain is going up in theaters all over the city.

So, when I do get chance see a production, I want to see something wonderful.

And last Saturday, August the 17th at 4 pm, at Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga, I did. To begin with, being at Theatricum on a beautiful summer afternoon is a pleasure in itself. The grounds immediately charm and relax you (and you need to relax after driving through Topanga Canyon) and sitting on the stairs (bring a pillow) amongst the trees above the wide outdoor stage makes you feel a part of magic about to happen.

The play was The Royal Family by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. Written in 1927, it’s about a family of successful actors, based loosely on the famous Barrymores, and it is an absolute delight, fun for everyone and still relevant, particularly to anyone involved in theater.

Here’s what the director, Susan Angelo, says about the play: “Actors who dedicate their life to the theater are a passionate, unique and rare breed. It is hard to explain to non-theater folks the dedication that compels many actors to sacrifice lifestyle, social life and even family, in pursuit of their dream….Their world may be erratic and egocentric, but only because they seek a deeper understanding of humanity, and through their work, experience a heightened sense of their own.”

What actor or playwright would not feel her heart lift when watching a comedy about the demanding, crazy, lasting joy of life upon the stage, particularly one given such an excellent production?

The Geer family, perhaps not that different from Cavendishes of the play, was well represented by Ellen and Willow Geer and Melora Marshall. All the actors, including Ernestine Phillips and Alan Blumenfeld were delightful.

I don’t know Susan Angelo, the director, but the program says that she has been with Theatricum for many years. What I do know is that she had a cast of eighteen moving across the stage, in and out of doors, up and down the stairs, and along corridors (while fencing); all delivering lines with grace, panache and precision. They kept up the farcical pace, without ever descending into camp or forgetting the humanity of the characters.

The Seedlings program at Theatricum, [email protected], with our own Jennie Webb, who is Playwrights’ Development Director, and John Maidman, the Seedlings producer, is worth checking out, too. I had a play of mine, The Last Of The Daytons, read there a few years ago and it was a very positive and helpful experience.

In the meantime, if you are looking for fun, do go and see The Royal Family.

I had intended to finish this week with a blog about Ann Jellicoe, the English playwright, but she’s written so much, I’m still reading.  Next time.

However, I couldn’t sign off without saying,  “Congrats” and “Break legs,” to everybody participating in the Hollywood Fringe Festival.  May it be a blast!

A long time ago I wrote a play for Redlight Theatre in Toronto, Canada with some terrifically talented actors. The cast members and I were to share royalities. The play was published and we thought the money would come trickling in. Sigh. Not even a trickle.

So, I was bowled over this week to hear that a company in Pickering, Ontario had just produced it! I got a royalty check! But I had a problem. “Where,” I said to myself, “has everybody gone?”

I started looking. And remembering.

The play was originally called What Glorious Times They Had and was changed to Nellie! How The Women Won The Vote. I’m sorry that the title was changed. I think that What Glorious Times tells the story better.

Set in 1914-1916 in Manitoba, Canada, at the headquarters of the Political Equality League, it’s about a group of women dedicated to winning the vote for women, led by a Canadian heroine, Nellie McClung.

She was more than able to lead. A teacher who once taught all eight grades in a rural school, she wrote sixteen novels, was a popular speaker and in twenty years, spoke at over four hundred public meetings, sometimes speaking three times a day. She was the only woman delegate to the League of Nations in 1938. And she had five children.

I researched her work and the suffragist movement for a long time, making notes on 3 by 5 cards and putting them on a corkboard. (This was a while ago, wasn’t it?) When I found a quote from the Elections Act of Canada, “No woman, idiot, lunatic or woman shall vote,” we knew where we were going and were off and running.

Building a play from research and improv is so exciting. It’s frustrating and difficult, too, but when you find a solution to the seemingly insolvable, it makes your day or week or month.

We put things in, threw things out, and had a long, productive rehearsal period. We six actors, four women and two men, amused, played off of and with each other and became a close cohesive group. We created a cast of thousands, (well, dozens) with the help of very talented violinist, who tied all the scenes together. (I still can’t hear Meditation from Thais without thinking of the time.)

Creating the illusion of a factory with three women, some chairs and a violin was tough but it worked and turned out to be one of the best scenes in the show. We also came up with a train, a Pierce Arrow touring car, the Houses of Parliament and more, all connected by an ingenious lighting plot by our great woman techie.

The suffragists were all involved with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, so necessary in a time when the liquor industry was unregulated and domestic violence wasn’t recognized.  My aunt, Edna Fay Grant, who was the Canadian National Secretary of the WCTU, gave me its songbook to use. It had lovely, lively songs, some taken from hymns, easy to harmonize with, and perfect for carrying the theme of the play.

I had a video of one of the earlier versions which Costco turned into a flickering DVD and what came through was the music we made out of the temperance songs, comic songs of the times, a barbershop quartet and a moving rendition of Whispering Hope.

We could play on a proscenium, a thrust or in the round, and when touring, did all of that.  We toured Canada twice with the play, (with slightly different casts) first traveling East to Newfoundland, flying in to St. John’s at the height of winter. (I noticed when we prepared for landing, all the flight attendants were holding their breaths.) We set up in schools and auditoriums and wherever people wanted us to.  And we had fun.

I’ve made contact with three of the players and they are now helping me to track down the other two so I can put the checks in the mail. I’m looking forward to that. It’s a way of saying, “Thanks for the memories.”

Neil Simon is still going strong. Just google the man and you’ll find a list of his plays that are being produced all over the country – Jake’s Women at Wichita State University, London Suites in Cape Charles, Virginia, Sunshine Boys in Tucson, Arizona, Rumors in North Beach, Maryland, and on and on. There’s even an ongoing Neil Simon festival in Cedar City, Utah.

I just saw a production of California Suite, which when it was produced in 1976, got rave reviews. Dan Sullivan of the L.A. Times called it “the funniest writing Neil Simon has done for anybody.” Clive Barnes of the New York Times said, “He tops his own jokes like a pole-vaulter setting records.” A woman, Marilyn Stasis of Cue magazine, called it, “his funniest play in years.”

For the one person in North America who hasn’t seen California Suite, here is a short description. It’s composed of two acts and four scenes (sketches, skits, playlets, vignettes, take your pick) in which four different couples at different times occupy an upscale Beverly Hills hotel suite.

In Visitor from New York, a divorced couple argue over whom their sixteen year old daughter should live with. In Visitors from London, a British actress loses the Academy Award and is afraid that she is losing her gay husband, too. The Visitors from Chicago is a slapstick affair in which two couples fall apart after spending too much time together on a vacation.

Sitting there in the audience, I didn’t really care much about the characters. The dialogue is clever but the characters bicker and bite, try to best one another, and don’t seem grateful for much.

But it was The Visitor from Philadelphia that got me up on my feet.

In it, a man from Philadelphia in town his for nephew’s bar mitzvah wakes up in bed with a hangover and a comatose woman in the bed beside him. He tries to wake her, tries to get her out of bed, and when he discovers that his wife is on the way up to the suite, tries to carry her to the bathroom, deposit her outside in the hall, stuff her in a closet. Finally, he puts her back into the bed and covers her up.

Apart from a few initial groans, the woman says nothing. The man asks her, “Are you all right?” “Are you sick?” and she doesn’t respond.

This “hooker,” “prostitute,” maybe “call girl” – there’s a question about how much she cost – was a GIFT from his brother who was reciprocating for the GIFT he was given on his birthday – his first woman!

The husband explains to his wife. “She was in the room, she was attractive, she was a little tight and she was paid for.”

She was not a little tight by morning. She’d had six margaritas and a bottle of vodka.

After the wife forgives her husband, she lies on the bed. The scene directions say, “The hooker’s arm flops over her… She looks at it with revulsion.”

She says, “Shall we leave a note?” to her husband and they leave shortly, ending the scene.

In my mind, I stood up in the aisle and shouted, “Stop! Ring the curtain back up. Back up. Nobody leave his seat. This is 2013 and I’m going to rewrite!”

The cast and some members of the audience took out their IPads.

“Take this down,” I cried.

MARVIN: She had six margaritas and a bottle of vodka.

MILLIE: Are you kidding me? What the hell’s the matter with you? No wonder the poor girl can’t wake up. She’s dangerously dehydrated and probably has alcohol poisoning! Call 911! Now!

               (Marvin calls 911. Millie pulls the covers back and leans into Bunny.)

Bunny. The hooker does have a name. I’ll give Mr. Simon that.

MILLIE: Don’t you worry, Bunny. We’re calling a doctor. We’re going to take care of you. You’ll be all right.

            (She takes her hand and Bunny gives her a weak smile.)

It wouldn’t be funny, but it would be the right thing to do.

Laura Shamas suggested that this week’s blogger write something about International Women’s Day.  I didn’t know that there was one and went to Wikipedia (where else) to find out something about it.

The entry is complicated and long and not very well written and I’ll have to take more  time to understand the history of the Day, which started in the Soviet Union, and then spread to Eastern European countries and the rest of the world.

In dozens of countries, some of which observe the day as a holiday, women have used IWD to agitate for equal rights in every aspect of a woman’s life –  the right to vote, to hold public office, to end sexual exploitation and employment sex discrimination.  In the Soviet Union, it was also a day in which to thank women for their heroism and selflessness in World War II.

In 1977, the United Nations formally proclaimed March the 8th as International Women’s Day –  a day for women’s rights and world peace.

Shockingly, human trafficking is the second most profitable business enterprise in the world, just behind the Drug Trade and ahead of Arms Sales.  The U.N., which has given each year a slogan, perhaps acknowledging that, calls 2013 a year in which “A Promise is a Promise:  Time for Action to End Violence Against Women.”

Today, the day before IWD, is a good day for women in the U.S..  President Obama just signed a renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which has been extended to cover Native Americans, Immigrants, and Gays.  The renewed law makes it easier to prosecute crimes against women in federal court, and provides such services as domestic abuse hotlines and shelters for battered women.

“All women deserve the right to live free from fear,” Obama said during a signing ceremony at the Interior Department. “That’s what today is about.”

A day for hope.

What if there was an International Men’s Day, I thought to myself?  Would that mean that we had achieved parity?  Turns out there is one.  Founded in Trinidad and Tobago in 1999, to encourage good role models, gender equality, and men’s health, it has now spread to 60 countries.

And that’s a good sign, too.