All posts by Jen Huszcza

Boats

playwriting

 

I have a thing for boats. Some girls are into cars. Some girls are into rock stars. For me, it’s boats. Mind you, I’m not impressed by a zillion dollar floating condo. My preference is more environmentally friendly. 

I like sailboats. I like their lines. I like that they’re quiet. You gotta have skill on a sailboat. You can’t just stand behind the sails and blow into them. I know, I tried. 

What does a sailboat have to do with playwriting? Is a play like a sailboat? 

I don’t see a play as like a sailboat. I see a play as the boat, the wind, the water, the skipper, the crew. The play is all. When I write a play, I don’t just think about the characters, the story, the theatricality. I think about the whole universe of it. 

On a boat, one little change can alter your whole experience. You can fiddle with the jib or the wind shifts, and suddenly you’re going faster or suddenly you’re not moving at all. In a play, one little world, one gesture, one prop or piece of furniture, a color, a detail, any small change, and suddenly it’s a whole new play. It might be going where you want it to go or not, but it definitely will be an interesting ride. 

Abby Sunderland was in the news a lot last week. She was the sixteen year old who attempted to sail around the world solo. She had to abandon her boat, Wild Eyes, after a storm took out the mast and rigging in the Indian Ocean. 

She was sad about leaving her boat behind until the Captain of the fishing boat that took her on said: Is no good to worry about the boat. Is just a boat, you is safe. You should not think about the past. 

A boat is just a boat. A play is just a play. A play happens in the present; then it is over. 

This blog happened this week. Now it’s over. 

See you all in August. 

Jen

There’s Always Something

playwriting

I’m addicted to writing. It’s something I can’t stop doing. 

Through the years, I’ve tried to stop. I’ve said to myself, after this script, I’ll stop, I’ll have said everything I need to say on the page, I’ll put the pen down, exit out of the word document, and I’ll be done with the writing thing, I’ll get a respectable job with good wages and benefits that utilizes more than half my brain, and I’ll settle down and watch Primetime TV at night, and the whole writing thing will be just another story from my young adulthood, and I’ll no longer have strange dreams. 

Period. 

I apologize for that onslaught of commas, gentle reader. 

However, 

Usually as I’m finishing that last script, I get an idea for something else, so I have to write that. I just have to. 

Hi, I’m Jen, and I’m a writing-holic. 

There’s always something more in the pen that’s gotta get out. There’s always something, so I put my brain onto that new thing, that next thing. There’s this idea I have and it’s. . . . . 

There’s always something to write. Even in the times of darkness and misery, there’s always something. 

If my life was a movie, all this writing would be a two-minute montage with pop music playing in the background. However, I find the best writing happens in the stillness and in the silence or when I’m on my feet running. Running. Running.

Are You Not Entertained?

playwriting,

First a quick bit of LA business: The Lakers Won! The Lakers Won! The Lakers Won! 

Okay, moving on. . . 

I love movies. That might seem like a strange thing to say in a playwriting blog, but I gotta go there. I love movies. 

In fact, I became a playwright because of a movie. When I was twelve, I saw The Right Stuff. I thought Chuck Yeager was the coolest dude since Han Solo. When I found out that the guy who played Chuck Yeager was a playwright whose plays were on the shelf at the local library, I started reading and liking it. However, it was years before I actually considered myself a playwright. I had to go through a Corellian smuggler phase. 

I love movies. I’ll watch all kinds of movies. I try not to watch the same movie over and over again, but sometimes I just can’t help it. One movie that I’ve seen more than twice is Gladiator. Yep, Gladiator. I know I’ve just shot my wad of intellectual street cred, but gosh darn it, I like that Gladiator picture. 

Now, yes, there are other movies that I think are better. If you want to watch a good Russell Crowe picture, I recommend LA Confidential. If you want to watch a good Ridley Scott picture, I recommend Black Hawk Down. If you want to watch a good sword and sandal picture, Ben-Hur still rules the nest. 

But still, there’s something about Gladiator that makes me smile. Maybe it’s the sandals. Maybe it’s the good old fashion revenge plot. Maybe it’s muscles and machismo. Maybe it’s the lone female character who manages to be both smart and look good. Maybe it’s all the golden colors. 

Gladiator also has a streak of theatricality running through it for good measure. The gladiators don’t just kill people. They kill in front of the crowd. 

Win the crowd, and you will win your freedom. Proximo, the gladiator producer, tells Maximus, the rising young performance artist. 

How does one win the crowd? In the Gladiator world, it’s not enough to just kill. There should be some excitement. There should be some flare. 

In the film, the excitement comes from quick cutting, great cinematography, some excellent sound editing, and blood, lots of blood. 

But how does one generate excitement on a stage? How does one win the crowd as a playwright? How does one give the audience something they’ve never seen before (to quote Maximus)? 

Plays happen in front of people. What exactly are they watching? Is it enough for them just to see actors speaking articulately? Is there something else? Something more in the physicality and the visual world of the play that can heighten the experience for the audience? 

Should a play always be accessible to the audience? Can a play be hostile to the audience? Can a play be baffling to an audience but still keep them in their seats? 

 Can a play throw a sword into the balcony seats, pace around an arena, and shout, ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? IS THIS NOT WHY YOU ARE HERE?

A Little Miracle

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I have a love hate thing with Musical Theatre. 

I have training in book and lyrics and can talk the craft with the best of them. I still find delight in the movie version of The Sound of Music or a random dance number utilizing jazz hands. 

When I was a little girl, I danced around the living room to the Broadway cast records of Annie  and Evita (they’re kind of the same show). I get choked up during sections of Les Miz (Oh Eponine, why must you die!) and when Bobby sings Being Alive in Company and during the Money song in Cabaret (long story). 

However, when Musical Theatre gets crappy, it gets really crappy. It becomes The Sound of Mucus. It becomes more agonizing than the It’s a Small World ride at Disneyland. It makes me want to crack my knuckles, and I hate cracking my bones. I then have to walk away from Musical Theatre for awhile until something good lures me back. 

Yes, I have a dysfunctional relationship with Musical Theatre. I love it! I hate it! I love it! I hate it! Love! Hate! Love! Hate! 

Gentle reader, I apologize for any musical theatre whiplash that last paragraph might have caused. 

I recently got to work as Associate Producer on the spring musical at the Blank Theatre in Hollywood. The show was See What I Wanna See, Michael John LaChuisa’s chamber opera suggested by the stories of Rynosuke Akutgawa. I had really liked LaChuisa’s Wild Party on Broadway a few years ago, so I was excited about being involved with this production. 

Both acts of See What I Wanna See begin in Medieval Japan with two lovers scheming to kill each other. This is what it feels like to be God! They exclaim in their songs of desire and blood lust. The rest of Act 1 is set in 1951 film noir New York where we the audience hear contradictory accounts of a murder in central park from a thief, a janitor, a psychic, and a married couple. What is the truth? Do we need the truth in our modern world as we lie and scam and cheat to become Gods of our fates. Act 2 is also set in New York in 2002. A priest, questioning his own faith in God, decides to come up with a miracle in a specific time and place. However, lots of people start to believe the lie. This is what it feels like to be God. The priest says. 

This might all sound a bit heady with words like God and truth, but the piece is extremely watch-able and quite moving. 

The music is excellent (technical musical theatre term) and carries a lot of the dramatic weight of See What I Wanna See. LaChuisa is able to connect ideas through musical and lyrical motifs. As an audience, we are listening to a score, not just a collection of songs. Each song fits into the larger whole. 

The Blank production of See What I Wanna See was very cleanly directed. There was no frivolity. No dumbass musical theatre tricks. The set was minimal. Shifting locations were shown through lighting. The five actors knew what they were doing second by second. 

As I sat through See What I Wanna See, I went to my happy musical theatre place. Maybe musicals weren’t so bad after all. Then, during a final dress rehearsal, something more happened. I got the lump in the throat. Yep, I was moved. 

In the second act, the Priest meets an Actress who had heard about the fake miracle. I’ve met this Actress character before in other theatrical works. She’s the poor little pretty girl trying to find fulfillment. She usually sings a really pretty song in a spotlight. My reaction to such a character is usually reflexive gagging. 

However, this Actress has a lot more in her. She might start off as laughable, but as she sings about her life in the Hills, a devastating auto accident, and her desire for something that has worth, she becomes something very truthful. Her song isn’t pretty. It has pain. All she wants a little miracle. She doesn’t want a big one. Just a little one will do. 

So yes, I’m back in love with Musical Theatre, but I know, there’s something out there that will make it all bad for me. Could be. Who knows? It’s only just out of reach down the block on a beach under a tree.

Stage Directions

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I have a good brain for maps. I can navigate well in physical space and especially cities. My sense of direction served me well when I read Joyce’s Ulysses since the movement of the novel is the movement of characters in space. I was able to move around my own mental Dublin with Leopold and Stephen. 

Moving from novel space to stage space, I want to talk about one of my favorite playwriting elements, stage directions. I love stage directions. 

Stage directions describe the stage and the visual world of the play as well as any physicality by the characters. 

My favorite stage directions are at the beginning Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape with the banana business. I like bananas in plays. Beckett is fun. 

Recently, I found myself reading stage directions for a variety of play readings. First one friend asked me to jump in and read, then another friend asked, so I had a chain of play readings. I enjoy reading stage directions. I can indulge my inner actress without actually acting. 

Sometimes, I feel like the Stage Manager in Our Town. I set up the stage simply and efficiently, then I let the play play. I try to dress for the play—not in any big costume way—just to fit in with the play’s universe. 

Unlike the other actors in the reading, I am only there for the reading. When the play is produced, I will not be called. My part will disappear. Knowing this gives my work for the reading a simple kind of specialness. I will do it, then it will be over. Onto the next thing. 

I never thought I would find such specialness in a play reading.

Actor Love

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The photo in my profile was taken by the great actress, Ann Hu, during a rehearsal of my play, The Edwin Forrest Project, for a stage reading at the Blank Theatre in Hollywood. The photo was taken when the actors were on break and I was jotting down ideas for a post-reading rewrite. I love how the pen glows like a lightning bolt. 

I still write a lot of things longhand, and I’m wondering if anyone else does too. My preference is yellow legal pads and cheap ballpoint pens (blue and black). I can write on a computer screen, but I prefer the pen. It’s mightier than the sword. A computer is just mighty. 

One of my happiest places to be is in a rehearsal room. I don’t like to direct because that involves talking, and there are directors who are better than I could ever be. 

So what does the playwright do in a rehearsal room? I am actively watching. I have my eyes on the twelve thousand details that the play sits on. If we were on the Enterprise, the director would be Kirk, and I would be Spock—only we can’t shoot phasers or teleport. Darnit! 

I love watching actors work. I have great respect for actors. It’s a strange line of work. First there is the mass entertainment perception of actors on red carpets and wearing fashion. Imagine being the top doctor or top construction worker and being under that much scrutiny. Second, there’s all the rejection. Sure, as a writer, I know rejection (oh man, do I know it), but it’s my plays. It’s not my physical self. 

But in rehearsal, man, that’s where actors really work. They’re constantly making adjustments—trying to find the character and the performance. And actors are smart. They can take an abstraction, a thought, an idea, and turn it into something physical. I can barely put thoughts on paper sometimes, but actors gotta send ideas through themselves and out to the audience. 

Every actor works differently. Some come in and thrive on lots and lots of direction. Some come in, step on the stage, and they’re in the play. They’re just present in the stage reality. It takes a lot of work to seem like you’re not acting. 

To every actor I’ve ever worked with. You are never forgotten, and I hope you all make tons of money. You have great playwright love from me.

Yes, Sure, Okay, Yes

LAFPI, ,

 

In the last few months, instead of thinking oh no, I can’t do that, no, no, no, I’ve adapted a yes attitude. Yes, yes, sure I can, okay yeah, yes. When the Los Angeles Female Playwrights asked if I could blog for the website, I said yes, sure, okay even though I had no idea how to blog my story as a playwright.

 When I look at the LAFPI logo, my brain sometimes says, LAFF P.I. Then, I remember the opening for Magnum P.I.  and that awesome score and those great helicopter shots of Hawaii and Tom Selleck jumping into his Ferrari. Ahhhhhhh.

 Also, looking at LAFPI, my brain sometimes says, F.P.I. Hi, I’m Special Agent Jen with the F.P.I., and I get to flash a really nifty badge. Then, I remember the opening of Silence of the Lambs when Jodi Foster is running the obstacle course. Running from what? Running to where? Just running.

 But I digress. Back to yes.

 My playwriting career has been a lot of no, no, no you can’t do that, well maybe we could…but no. However, there have been enough yeses through the years to sustain me. I have learned that if I stumble out of the way of myself long enough, more yeses come. Lots of yeses. . .and more and more and more.

 If you look at my playwriting career in purely financial terms, well, its favorite color is red. Then again, after the financial meltdown in which the banks pretended to be crazy artists, my playwriting career is smack dab in the middle of the zeitgeist.

 Actually, I wouldn’t mind a bailout of my own. Three hundred billion would be a little ostentatious. How about three hundred thousand? I’ve got my eye on a really cute pair of pumps.

 But who am I really as a playwright?

 On my favorite guilty pleasure reality competition show, Project Runway, the designer contestants are asked early in the competition to make a dress to show the judges who they are as a designer. Usually, the designers are given one day and three hundred dollars, and they must drape, cut, and sew lightning fast. Go! Go! Go!

 If I made a playwriting dress, it would be full length with clean lines. It would be the color of the ocean. At first glance, it might seem classical, but it will have some twists to it. Maybe it would have hints of animal print or bright colors. It would be symmetrical (no one-shoulder business) and have a razor back. It would probably have a plunging neckline. My playwriting dress is comfortable and sexy and allows for a lot of movement. Worn with confidence, my playwriting dress is a show stopper on the red carpet, and I can walk a really strong walk in it.