So, we were eating dinner last Saturday night and I was attempting to make my 82-year-old friend laugh. We were talking politics, free-associating and marveling about how we could still be surprised about the things people do.

I was reading the news aloud from my Smart phone and came upon a story about a nineteen-year-old, unmarried mother who’d been smoking dope in the park with her baby-daddy when they decided they needed more beer.

So, logically, they got into their vehicle and began to drive to the nearest liquor store. On the way, he was arrested on an aggravated DUI. Pissed off, the young mother drove to a friend’s house where she smoked more dope.

She left around midnight and drove off, leaving her five-week-old baby strapped in his car seat on the roof of her vehicle. She got home, realized she’d lost her baby, back-tracked, received a cell phone call from her friends who found him in the middle of a street, miraculously, still in his car seat and totally unharmed.

Of course, good Samaritans had found him first and called 911. So, yes, when the mother arrived at the scene, she was promptly arrested on, yes, wait for it, an aggravated DUI. Of course, this led me to think about Mitt’s Romney’s Irish Setter, Seamus’, family vacation experience, which led me to my idea.

I started writing around midnight. Got to page five and went to bed. Sunday, I wrote another five pages and was happy with my 10-minute play. Monday, I revised the first ten pages and added two. By the end of Tuesday, I had sixteen pages. And Wednesday, I had a nineteen-page one-act and an idea for extending it into a full-length play.

Apparently, it’s funny, although, according to one, not so much. However, after working for more than two years on a psychological drama, after not writing for four months due to work commitments, I am excited about writing again. Especially something that is total escapism.

So, as of last Friday, I had my summer writing schedule all planned out. I had tweaked my summer Google calendar endlessly over the week preceding. I had the research for my next play bookmarked and ready to read. Then, I had this idea. I am posting this today, because I’m writing this weekend. Funny how that happens 🙂

I don’t know about you, but after I “hit” submit, I always reread my blog posts. Invariably, I find a typo or five or some type of formatting issue I somehow missed the first twenty-seven times I tweaked it, but that is neither here nor there.

As I reread yesterday’s post, I was suddenly taken back to ca. 1991 when I lived in a 2^nd floor apartment in Toluca Lake, an aerie-like apartment that overlooked some beautiful trees on Blix Street.

Theater is Not a Democracy

About that time, I auditioned for and became a founding member of a famous acting school’s theater company. We were, as a “group”, attempting to come up with a playbill. Remember the saying, “The theater is not a democracy?”. While that is quite true, it, too, is another story.

Anyway, one day in the heat of the process, after I pitched a short play that I wanted to direct, whose title I cannot remember today, I received a phone call from another actor in the company, who happened to be a regular on a soon-to-be much-loved sitcom.

He proceeded to harangue me about my directing aspirations. “Who did I think I was…?” “Did I know how long he had worked before…” “What made me think I could direct…?” I think I protested, “But I have directing experience.” “Where?” “College and university… But I chose to transition into acting…”

However, his verbal abuse went on and on.  Ultimately, I went to the place where traumatized people go when old wounds are reopened. And his call stayed with me for a long time. Even so, when I heard many years later he was forced to retire due to several terribly vicious and racist public rants, I felt only pity.

And I moved on. In late-May 2012, sitting in the Water Closet director’s chair as a playwright, and being allowed unrestricted access to the actors, became immeasurably important in my continued development of the play.

Several Discoveries

1. After an actor “sing-songed” a line for the second time and after reading the line aloud myself, I realized it was not the actor, but the line of dialogue. I rewrote the line.

2. I did not make it perfectly clear that the military convoy is waiting for them, as “Oma” readies to leave Holland, even through the character mentions they only have an hour to pack. Having that realization gave the actors more to “play” and provided the scene added tension. I will fix that in the next revision.

3. A friend in the audience wrote me she didn’t realize “David” was in the karaoke scene even though he talks about things he must have seen in order to discuss. She had trouble understanding because the actor isn’t physically written into the scene until he walks to “Mary” and “Oma’s” table. I have always seen Water Closet as a piece with no walls, a psychological drama, with limited set pieces and lit areas from which actors enter and exit. However, my friend needs to see “David” in the scene. So, now I am having fun contemplating how to incorporate the character into the top of the scene, perhaps waiting in line to take his turn at the karaoke machine. Next revision…

There were many more examples of how illuminating, important and wonderful the experience was for me, and I think, would be for any playwright preparing a new work.

It was rare and unique to be encouraged to direct an informal reading of Water Closet. I will always remember Eric Eberwein for it and thank him from the bottom of my heart.

I will direct a reading of one of my plays again… Maybe even a production.

Soon, I hope 🙂

Playwright and Orange County Playwrights Alliance director, Eric Eberwein, encouraged me to direct the Orange County Playwrights Alliance “OCPA Studios” informal reading of my play Water Closet at the Hunger Artists on May 26^th. Eric had participated in many a read and discussion over my dining room table as the play developed over the last two years, and apparently, liked what he heard and saw.

Now I have been fortunate upon several occasions over the last two years to hear a different cadre of talented actors bring the roles of “Mary”, “Oma”, “Philip” and “David” to life. However, that I will forever hold a special place in my heart for the last group of actors, does not take away one iota of sincere appreciation and genuine awe for the abilities of the others, and for the directors who brought them together.

Yet, this reading for OCPA Studios was an entirely different experience for me, and it was because I directed it.

This Directing Thing

I accepted Eric’s suggestion to direct and decided early that I had two choices: 1) Totally freak out or, 2) Not freak out, because the facts are, no matter whether I freaked or not, everything works out in the end.

So, I took my road less traveled; I didn’t freak. Rather, as I observed when I couldn’t cast the piece until the week before the reading, I stayed cool. In fact, I never met the highly-recommended actress who played the lead role of “Mary”, until she showed up at my home three days before the reading for the first read-thru.

Wondrously, Actress Jennifer Pearce was exactly who I saw and heard in my head when I wrote the piece, from her natural beauty to the facility in which she modulated her vocal inflections, and to how she was able to work the punctuation I slave over.

I cast and lost and then recast my narrator, Eric Eberwein, as “Philip”, and his performance took me completely by surprise. With only one rehearsal, he was able to nail the character, who is a sort of rangy, likeable rogue, an academic, who everybody likes, but after meeting, feels like they need a shower.

“Oma” was played with great beauty and exceptional emotional power by playwright and actress Lorin Howard. It was an honor to direct her.

I first met Felipe Leon when he read “David” last January at the Fullerton College Playwright’s Festival, where Water Closet received a workshop and staged reading. Felipe had been directed to play the role with a sort of “Rico Suave”-flair. Yet, Felipe had the ability to make a complete about-face once he realized through two rehearsals and discussions that “David” is totally sincere about his love for “Mary’s words”, as the dialogue suggests, but without ambition; a true artist.

This directing thing? I highly recommend it to any playwright developing a new work. I may never go back. But more about that tomorrow…

My play Water Closet was selected by the Orange County Playwrights Alliance “OCPA Studios” for an informal reading at the Hunger Artists Theatre Company on Saturday, May 26, 2012 at 2:00pm. I directed.

Profound

I casually mentioned to the cast, just before the house opened, that my parents would be in the audience. I also told them, while my mother has always been a good audience member at my several productions, I did not know how she would react to Water Closet, because she lived some of the dramatized events that take place in the play.

My mother, bless her heart, did drop a bomb during the Q&A session after the reading. She asked me, “Erica, was that about my mother?” She then gave the most moving anti-war speech I have ever witnessed. And she broke down and cried.

As a playwright, to be in some part the catalyst for such a cathartic experience for anyone, much less the most important woman in my life, fills me with so much emotion it’s hard for me to articulate my thoughts.

That my mother was moved enough to then share a personal story with a group of friends and strangers, something me, her daughter, had never heard before? Yes, it was truly a profound afternoon of theater for me.

April 6, 2012

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April 5, 2012

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A couple clambered up to sit not far behind me at the recent staged reading of Water Closet and revealed not only their disdain for the title of my play, but that they were only in attendance to be “supportive” after having read an early draft. “Supposedly it has been revised,” the lady added. They knew I was in the room, but not my connection to the play.

After overhearing their conversation, I grinned. Suddenly all of my anxiety and fear dissipated, as I realized I had nowhere to go but up. During the course of the reading I listened with love in my heart for my characters and their painful stories. I remembered the words of the artistic director who wrote me to “listen to the words” in his kind effort to alleviate my abject terror. I laughed and glowed, as the student actors discovered fresh moments in front of an audience for the first time. I actually had a great time!

Apparently so did much of the audience. For at the talk back afterward I received lots of wonderful feedback, as well as some questions about its emotional linearity. That couple? They did not talk back. They didn’t offer one word to the discussion. And it’s okay. I am really cool with it. Really 🙂

In November 2011 Water Closet was read inNew York at a Dramatists Guild Friday Night Footlights event by the White Horse Theater Company. It was a wonderful experience both working with Cyndy Marion and her company, and receiving theNew York audience comments. Both were critical in my reshaping of the play in December in preparation for a January 2012 workshop and staged reading by the Fullerton College New Play Festival. The FC workshop included an intense (challenging without being destructive) dramaturgical session with festival Artistic Director William Mittler that caused me to take yet another scalpel to the play in an effort to make my apparently sub-conscious intentions more clearly understood on the printed page.

I am only beginning to realize my first writing of a play is one that I do not necessarily consciously control. – Usually when I sit down in front of my computer to write – after the initial spark of inspiration and contemplation about how I might articulate it – I feel like “I” step aside, open a door into my sub-conscious, and wait to see who walks out and starts expressing themselves. In my meditation I do actually “hear” them (not in a pathological sense), although I do not always understand their intentions upfront. It was recently pointed out to me that my work has a sort of dream logic and is not linearly realistic.

This then is my greatest challenge when it comes to rewriting: How do I make the seemingly illogical connections (dreams) I’ve made in a text accessible (art) to a listening or reading audience, so my play might actually find a production? Fortunately I do enjoy the process of rewriting, although the experience of rewriting is completely different.

I am beginning to research and write a new play, We Don’t Serve White Bread Here. However I do hope to return to the topic of what is the source of imagination, as I am curious to discover if there is a sort of communion among playwrights… Today I stumbled upon Dr. Lance Owens Tolkien lectures; fascinating… I would be curious to know what your mind “feels” as you write, if you would care to comment!

I had never heard her voice before entering the rehearsal room one minute before it started – apparently when cabbing in New York City being able to articulate 8^th Avenue vs. 8^th Street becomes very important during rush hour traffic heading to lower Manhattan when I should have been heading toward Midtown West. Rehearsal starts and we begin to speak. Talking isn’t an issue for me, but listening to her is easy; it is right. She is in command of the ship. I feel safe. We all order a Guinness at O’Lunney’s after the reading. My eyes well up with gratitude. She is the director.

I made the mistake of sharing I wanted to write great roles for actresses of a certain age. I know I meant for actresses like me. She thought I aged her. She is beautiful. Her emotions are raw. I didn’t mean to offend. She is gracious and loving, and her wit acerbic. She’s perfect. She is an actress.

He held back and yet with every beat he gave us more and more and wickedly he drew us in, chewed us up, and made us beg for more. He is an actor.

I wonder why women can’t be angry. What’s the threat? The actress knew to play it. The audience knew not what to make of it. “She is an angry young woman.” Don’t argue I tell myself. “It is your job to perform the dissection and create the place where it is understandable.” I am the playwright not the protagonist; my Mary.

The reading of Water Closet by the White Horse Theater Company at the New York offices of the Dramatists Guild was last Friday night from 7:30 to 9:00pm.

It followed my barely surviving a bicycle rickshaw ride from 42^nd Street to the hotel. Which was followed by a call to a producer at KTLA to confirm my live interview on the Sunday Edition at 8:00pm to promote the Museum of Teaching and Learning’s November 17^th screening of Mendez v. Westminster: Families for Equality at the Old Orange County Courthouse.

However it preceded our landing an hour late on Sunday and being chauffeured by my friends to Sunset and the 101, so I could change clothes in the car on the way. Thank God for the make-up artist.

Anyway, the reading of Water Closet was last Friday night. But then I wrote that already. Please don’t believe my tap dancing around the reading in anyway qualifies it as less than a success. This is merely my way of building suspense. Or writing poorly, depending upon your perspective. I will write this. The reading was so fully realized from direction, casting, to performance that I could actually hear the issues with the play.

There was no time for a talk-back. However the comment cards are coming in. They were all pretty much confused as to why the character of Mary is so angry… After being trained not to include stage directions, I was encouraged to include stage directions, so that I might better create the world of the play. I need transitions, foreshadowing, more exposition, a better spine. Look at entrances and exits.

Guess what I’ll be doing after cooking next Thursday. Is it a coincidence Water Closet begins on Thanksgiving Day?