All posts by Robin Byrd

Knowing Your Place and Your Story…

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Most of my life, people have tried to put me in a place.  This place is usually wherever they think I should be based on who they think I am.  In my quest to know myself and to know my voice as a storyteller, I have had to make it a point to stay true to who I know myself to be.  Round pegs don’t fit into square holes; square blocks don’t fit into round holes, nor, do 41-inch hips fit into a size 4 pair of pants.  Tried it.  You might get in them by some miracle but you aren’t getting out of them without a fight or a pair of good cutting shears.  Lost a favorite pair of jeans that way…oh, the memories…I had purchased them when I was stationed in Germany, they were black and had straight legs, and – I digress.  I was stuck in them for two days, thank God for undies that snap.  There is nothing like a jolt of reality to make you pay attention to what happens when things don’t fit which is why one must know one’s own place in this world.  The wrong influence can send you off on a wild goose chase or land you in a pair of pants that you have outgrown.  Growing, in itself, is not a bad thing but ill-fitted clothing can be a hot mess.  Knowing yourself as an artist will help you navigate the waters no matter what changes around you.

Some years ago, I attended a conference where the playwrights were assigned directors to direct the reading of their pieces.  One of the playwrights at the conference got a director who chopped her 20 minute scene up so bad; we weren’t able to give her any feedback on her original scene.  The whole purpose for the playwrights to attend the conference was to hear their work read.  I had to stop the same director from adding lines that did not belong into my 20 minute piece.  I explained to this director that I wanted to hear what I had written; if, after hearing it read, I wanted to change something, it would be my choice.  I knew my piece.  I knew what I had written and why and I wanted to hear it as written; I also knew my rights as a playwright (see Dramatists Guild Bill of Rights http://www.dramatistsguild.com/files/DGBillofRights.pdf) so, I spoke up – not only to the director but also to the conference runners in the “after conference” survey.  The magic that is supposed to happen when a piece has the right director is something to aim for (I’ve had it and oh, the ride is rich and full of surprises, confirmations, and just out and out joyous moments.).  Twenty minutes isn’t a lot of time; it wasn’t a showcase on directing though a reading done well does just that, it was a snippet of a play read for the playwright’s benefit.  From my 20 minutes, I was able to tell that the audience liked my story and wanted to hear more which let me know I was on the right track.  I asked the other playwright why she allowed the director to move things around in her piece (which even with the disjointing of the scene we could tell she was an excellent writer, we just didn’t know what her story was supposed to be about); she said she didn’t know she could stop the director from making changes.  I told her to join the Dramatists Guild www.dramatistsguild.com .  Information is liberating. 

As a playwright, collaboration with other theater artists will enter the process; it is a given.  Part of what makes theater so powerful is the collective gifting of the playwrights, directors, actors, set designers, costumers, lighting and sound techs, etc. who all add to the theater experience.  Just last August, I had a play read in North Carolina.  The group of actors and director who came together to breathe life into my words were so phenomenal.  A character thought to be unnecessary (by panel members) at a previous reading proved to be quite necessary in this one.  The director understood the character.  The director, also, knew how to pull this character out of the actress portraying the character.  The actress knew her craft and knew how to stretch…  Where I was unable to hear the true voice at the previous reading, I was blown away at the second one.  I had suspected that Indigo had something to say and am eternally grateful to the actress, Antonia McCain, who gave Indigo her moments.  I am, also, grateful to the director, Melinda J. Morais, and all of the other actors and actresses who contributed to that reading for list see http://ladybyrdcreations.com/byrd_sightings.  I could hear the harmony building from page to voice, hinting at the stage…

The quest for harmony is an intricate part of what I do when I create.  I try, with each play, to access the artists circle – a place, my place, where all things are equal.  There is neither male nor female in my artists circle – only songs of the soul and rhythms of the spirit – and that circle is sacred.  If I did not know what my place/purpose is, I would never be able to regulate where I should be at any given time.  My journey would be undefined.  I would not know which stories are mine to tell and which ones are for some other writer.  Knowing my place in the artists circle helps me stay focused on keeping the “waste of time factor” out of the equation – out of the place where stories are born…

 

Waiting…

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In 1986, I enlisted into the Army, going through Basic Training at Fort Dix in the dead of winter was a shock to my system to say the least.  “You have three orders soldier:  1. Do as you’re told.  2. Do as you’re told.  3. Do as you’re told.  Stay alert, stay alive!”  An onslaught of training, 4 am wake ups, alerts, and “hurry up and wait” was the norm.  It seemed that we waited forever for everything and when we weren’t waiting, we were training…hard.  Once while waiting in line, I asked a drill sergeant if I could sleep.  “Sure, as long as you remain standing.  Do not lean on the wall.  Do not lean on your buddy.  Stand ‘at ease’ the whole time; you can sleep all you want.”  He laughed and walked away.  I promptly went to sleep standing two inches from the wall in the ‘at ease’ position just about to start snoring when….  “Is she touching the wall.”  “No, she’s about two inches away from it.”  “Is she sleep?”  “She looks sleep.”  “Byrd.  Byrd!  Are you sleep?”  “Yes, drill sergeant.  I was sleep.  You said I could sleep as long as I didn’t touch the wall.”  “How in the ___ are you doing that?”  “I don’t know drill sergeant.”  “Well, wake up.  Looks weird.”  “Yes, drill sergeant.”

Sometimes, waiting looks pretty weird when you have to be ready to move at a moment’s notice and you can’t lay down on the job, when you are training for action behind the scenes, and the dedication it takes to wait is as draining as the training itself.  Catching a quick rejuvenating nap with your boots on takes skill and focus.  Like waiting for transition as a writer, it can take years.  You must be diligent; you cannot lose focus.  Normally, people don’t wait more than a decade to be able to do what they have been doing all along.  Artists, however, wait for as long as it takes.  It’s hard to forget the dream when it makes up the very fiber of your being.  So, you hurry up and meet those deadlines, finish that play, get to that conference, sit in on that workshop, study that master playwright; you hurry so you won’t be lacking and you wait…  You wait on alert status because it’s nearly impossible to put a dream on hold when you can’t go very long without doing that thing you do.

When I wake up in the morning, after my ‘good morning, Lord’, I think about writing.  On my way into work, in the middle of Los Angeles traffic, I think about writing.  I’ve got a cart I drag into the office full of my research, snippets of plays, and books I may need ‘just in case’ — just in case I should get a moment to write during the day, just in case I get that next line for that piece that’s sort of on the back burner but can’t seem to wait it’s turn; all to do with writing, all to do with who I am as an artist.  I am constantly being asked, “What’s in the bag?  What’s in the cart?  Are you a student?”  I’m a writer; I write plays and I don’t give them timeouts for bad behavior, they don’t get vacation, and I don’t have daycare.  Every day is “Go to work with Mommy Day.”

Does it matter to you how many perplexed looks cross the faces of people who ask what it is you do when they find out you haven’t had a production in a while but have just started a new play, again?  Do you become self conscious, or simply, stand at ease?  Because, that is what playwrights do, we write plays, in season and out of season, we write creating worlds peopled with all our good intentions.  There is no rule that says, if we don’t get a production every year we must stop and do something else.  My thought is that one must be ready, be on alert because one day your gift will make room for you and bring you before great men (male/female) and you would want to have a lot to offer.  So, while you are waiting…write….  Build your repertoire…be about the work…  Hone your craft…stay on alert status, the alarm will sound and you will need to have your boots on and laced all the way up…

The Thing About Names…

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When my mother named me, it was not to match my last name. I was the third child and the second daughter. She said I was red all over when I was born but the next morning when she lifted my shirt to examine me again, only my belly was still red. She thought I looked like a robin red breast – the bird; my last name was pure coincidence. I have read that “the robin symbolizes poetry…and finding the personal song of the soul” (All About Symbols – Andrew T. Cummings) among other things.  I‘ve written poetry since I was eight years old and a few songs sung from the soul have found their way into at least two of my plays – not intentional just something that happened. As I examine my work, I find little pieces of me here and there in some form or another – not always recognizable but there… if only in how I approached the piece and why. As a child, I wanted a different name but a different name would make me a different kind of writer. Of course, I realize now the significance of having the name I was given…

I take great care when giving names to my characters the same way my mother took care to make sure my name fit me. Even WOMAN and MAN are names given with care. Usually, after finding names for my characters, their personalities readily reveal themselves. Often, the name even moves the story. Rarely have I been able to start a piece without naming the characters first. Character names are as important to the piece as the story and taking the time to find the right one always helps me to find my way into their worlds…unless they just want to tell me which has happened a few times. Nothing like driving down the street and having a character just start to talk. If I wasn’t a writer, I would think I was crazy – for sure. None of my plays have written the same way the last one did, possibly because I am never the same when I sit down to write them. Each project is a new adventure, a new opportunity to tell the best story I can and to learn how to tell even better stories in the future. It’s exciting, it’s scary; it’s altogether lovely and well worth the ride… It’s the joy of my life to always be writing…

Voice…

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“It’s the sound, the sound, the sound. I dance the sound.” Luigi

On purpose or by accident, there are things we do to the page when writing that are filled with the inner pieces and parts of us, all the subtle nuances of our voice. Learning to trust what is inside is a continual journey as we are always growing and must adjust and bend and stretch to that point that feels right…or not. Sometimes, it just sounds right and is hard to get that sound out of our heads until we get it down on the page. It surfaces like magma on occasion, uncharacteristically us. Do we keep it or discard it? Do we edit it or let it be free? Part of being true to the work, to me, is letting it speak…however, barbaric, refined, agnatic or matrilineal it is. It’s the pieces and parts of things that make the whole so interesting.

Once, while trying to write a play about a woman, the woman refused to speak. She would show up, press her lips together tightly and not say a mumbling word. After a few weeks of this, I tried to trick her by backing into her story. I wanted to find out her secret and why she wasn’t talking. I did her bio, assembled her family, I did their bios, then started writing the backstory. Since the woman wasn’t talking I thought perhaps her grandmother, Mama Lee, would. Mama Lee did speak but only to inform me she was looking at her son, Huron, and that I should look too, if I wanted to know about that sound I was hearing in the background – that chanting… So, I peeped and the sound started coming in louder and clearer…till those first words… It had begun – I was writing a play…Dream Catcher. This play I had never planned to write was teaching me so much about writing… I started settling with that play – settling into my voice. Dream Catcher showed me that as I evolve as a person and writer, how I approach the work also evolves and I don’t have to apologize for the backstory becoming a play. I don’t have to apologize for the subject matter, the characters or the setting. I don’t have to apologize for the spirits. I learned that my tendency to include spirits/memory is not a fluke nor is it a set thing. I learned not to apologize for my style. I learned that not only do I write from the voices that I hear but I write from the sound, the cadence. If Jazz is the cultural cadence then let me dance my dance to its rhythms, to its sounds… Let me have my phrasings and improvisations. Let me birth my pinks and greens and Blues… Let me have my language – my musical conversation – on the page and hopefully, on the stage…

I am still listening for the woman; she shows up every now and then to remind me that she’s gonna tell her story…eventually. In the meantime, I am learning to embrace my whole voice…every wonderful colorful octave…in pitch or not…

Going At It…

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There is a rhythm – an inner rhythm – that bears witness to the deep things that move us… This rhythm keeps us going at it even with all the jolts and pot holes we must endure. It can put us in cruise control and get us there – to that next play that wants to be written. The play, like a baby due to be born, does not consider extenuating circumstances that may be in the way; it is oblivious. It just wants to be born at its appointed time. So, we honker down, raise our collars against the wind and go at it…rocking to our rhythms, keeping time, listening to our inner beats…writing our stories… At times, we must remind ourselves to shake off the lulls and keep pushing against the stones. Other times, we must remind ourselves to go into the meadow to rest a while before that next big PUSH – because we have to push…

I have been told that “crazy” is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. As a playwright, I tend to do just that – I start a play that spends all of me to complete – yet I expect not to be so utterly exhausted each time I type “The End.” I expect to stretch, take a day off then pull out my next project and get started right away. Instead, I am so spent; I have to take a moment. And, I have to be careful to take enough time to really rejuvenate my “self”, depending on the subject matter I was dealing with. I have to understand that “going at it” includes making sure I am squared away and ready for action. I have to exercise my body, relax my mind, and eat good healthy food especially after I’ve pulled marathons at the computer with less than adequate food and stretching breaks. I used to feel guilty about taking that time like there was some invisible code that prohibited rest breaks. I would put myself on rigorous schedules of write, submit, research, write, submit, research, research, write, write, submit – et cetera, et cetera, et cetera… The only time off I would take would be to see a play or read a play. Since I started exercising, my mind is clearer; I sleep better, feel better and even lost a few pounds. Now all I have to work in is just a little more “pamper” time that includes spas and long walks on the beach… There is something about the ebb and flow of the ocean that gives me strength…maybe it’s the rhythm – that whole “going at it” sort of rhythm…

Second Guessing…

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There are times when well after the lid on the mail box has closed and I have driven away from the Post Office that I have a moment of second guessing.  Sometimes, it doesn’t hit me for a few days but it always hits me.  Did I pick the right play to send?  Is it as good a play as I think it is?  So annoying — like having buyer’s remorse.  Took me a while to figure out that that was what I was feeling.  Knowing doesn’t stop my “buyer’s remorse” moment but it does make me chuckle a little.  To offset this, I decided to add a column to my submission log titled “Why did I choose this play to send?”  This will help me five months down the road to remember that each play is chosen for more than just being a match for the theater or contest.  I am planting a forest.  In my quest to get my work out there (into the world), I want it to also cultivate the trees in my forest — trees that are steadily growing even when it seems that no one is watching but me.  I do not want to spend time second guessing my choices; I want to stay focused on my long term plans as a playwright and I want to always be writing…  I have less of a problem with second guessing during the actual writing process once I get started and choose the character names.  Even when the names change/evolve because of the story, second guessing is never an issue.  I am learning to work on those moments of doubt after the play has been completed and shipped off for contact with the outside world.  I am learning to enjoy that part of being a playwright as much as I enjoy writing the play in the first place…

Being a Playwright…being female…

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Welcome to the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative (LAFPI) Blog! My name is Robin Byrd and I am a playwright. I went to the first meeting of the LAFPI because I was curious to see just about how many female playwrights there are living in Los Angeles. I was curious to see the ones I didn’t know – turned out to be everyone in the room. I took the trip up Topanga despite the vague directions to “drive toward the ocean” – very scary to a person who gets lost when tired and after working all week at my day job, I was tired. But I took the chance because I wanted to know, if I followed that winding road up the mountain, would I find a group of women focused on making a difference. I did. Could this be the beginning of change? It is. I am happy to be a part of the movement.

Being a playwright, one tends to spend a lot of time alone — writing. Being female doesn’t change that; the craft is the same. The drive to create is an artist thing – no gender attached. An artist’s perspective is formed by the sum of pieces and parts that make up the artist. The perspective is unique; the created art is universal. I never introduce myself as a female playwright nor have I ever seen or heard a male playwright introduce himself as a male playwright. It should be about the work and the work should speak for itself. I cover women’s issues, men’s issues, human issues – whatever comes up while I’m writing.  I took an all male piece of mine, The Book of Years, to a conference once.  The general consensus of the male audience was surprise at how I got the characters to be so true-to-life.  I listen.  I start with the voices I hear in my head when I write. “First Words”, I call it. No matter how much research or what I write down as a draft synopsis, the first words begin the play and tell me whose play it is even if I started out thinking it belonged to someone else. First words tell me who the character is. If I follow the words I hear diligently, the characters will write themselves – as true or as false as they want to be. Yes, sometimes the characters lie but if I don’t overwrite them, I usually find out why they lied somewhere down the line. Listening is an asset for a writer – not just listening to the world around us as we transpose and re-create/create worlds but also listening to our inner selves as we push against the stones. We must believe in ourselves and continue to write the stories that need to be written no matter how many rejection letters come in the mail. I have a thing I do when I get my ‘R’ letters. I read between the lines. A “No” with a “please keep us in mind” means “keep writing and circle back”. Just getting a rejection letter means the organization cared enough to reply; I will take a rejection letter over no response any day. I have my share of no responses noted in my submission log; on the positive side, a no response could be due to understaffing so there may still be hope that they will get around to reading my submission. What a happy surprise that will be! If the organization just doesn’t respond and I still want to submit, I make a note “tends not to respond” and that keeps me from being irritated. If and when they do respond, it should be good news. Why do I choose to be as positive as I can about rejection? It takes too much energy that I can use for writing not to be positive about it. Don’t get me wrong, there is the occasional wallop that knocks the wind out of me but that’s when I reach out to one of my writer friends and they always help me get back on track. Sometimes, the best remedy is to start a new play…being a playwright…that’s what I do – I write…