Playwright, Screenwriter and Director Sara Israel was one of our first bloggers here at LA FPI. Blogs by Sara. (https://lafpi.com/author/sara-israel/). She is also a filmmaker. The thing I like most about Sara is her focus on her art. It is intense and contagious; you talk to her you will walk away inspired. We miss her voice on the blog but are so proud of her accomplishment. Congratulations, Sara!
Please support Sara by attending a screening of her award winning film “The Happiest Person in America”.
Marilyn MacCrakin is an award winning playwright and photographer. In 2011, Marilyn’s play, “The Family Tree” was a finalist in the “New Voices Playwriting Contest” for Images Theatre in Sacramento, CA. In 2009, her play, “Dressing Matilda” was produced by the Grand Players in Omaha, NE and went on to win “Best New Play” from the Omaha Arts Council. In 2006, her short play, “Photo Sensitive” was produced at the MET’s Playwright’s Intensive in Kansas City, MO in conjunction with Arthur Kopit. In 2000 her play, “In The Time It Takes To Breathe” won Edward Albee’s Yukon Pacific New Playwriting Award. Several of her plays have been presented at Edward Albee’s Great Plains Theatre Conference and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference. Her other plays include: “The Brethren,” “Baptista,” and “The Sound of Hope.” Marilyn’s photo, “Blackbird’s Singing” won an Award of Merit at the 2013 California Fine Arts Competition and in 2011, two of her photos, “A Cat in Mykonos” and “Island at Emerald Bay” won Merit Awards, also for the California State Fair Fine Arts Competition.
I met Marilyn MacCrakin at the very first Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Nebraska in 2006. It was the very first playwright’s conference that I had ever attended. Attending the conference from 2006 – 2008, we ran into each other each year and have kept in touch encouraging each other and reading each other’s work. On one of my check in emails, Marilyn mentioned giving up on writing – not something I could understand because she is an excellent storyteller. I have admired the way she went into a whole other art form and excels in it… Hoping to get her to change her mind or at least explain why she felt not writing plays anymore was a way to go, I decided to interview her for LA FPI. Maybe if she had to answer questions about that decision she’d rethink it. God forbid that gender parity should play a role in her decision but I wondered how many female writers give up, need extended breaks to rejuvenate themselves, how many reinvent themselves…basically, how do you keep doing art when you seem to be hitting wall after wall after wall?
Robin Byrd: Where are you from? Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Marilyn MacCrakin: I was born and raised in Sacramento, CA. I was a theatre arts major at Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA and I thought I was going to be an actress so I stayed in the Los Angeles area for a while. When that didn’t work out, I moved to Nome, Alaska to work as a DJ in radio. I also became involved with the Nome Arts Council, establishing a Community Theatre there. I lived in Nome for six years, producing and writing plays for a “live theatre starved” audience. In a town of approx. 4,000 people – we sold out every night. The people would bring their entire families – they would dress up and almost act like they were in “church” – very respectful of the arts. It was very rewarding, if it wasn’t for the darkness and the cold weather, I might still be there.
RB: How did you become a playwright? What brought you to theater?
MM: I studied acting and theatre in high school and as I said, I had aspirations of becoming an actress so I majored in Theatre in College. After college, I joined a writing group; I thought I would write novels. In the writing group, we all read from our work out loud and one of my fellow writers said, “I like your story, but you know, most of your book is dialogue.” The light bulb turned on. Of course, I started writing plays immediately and had my actor friends read them all. I thought plays were “just dialogue.” Even though I had acted in many plays, I soon realized I really didn’t know “how to write” a play so I went back to school at California State University, Sacramento to study playwriting.
RB: What is your favorite play of yours? Why?
MM: My favorite play that I have written is “Baptista” – a play I wrote about John the Baptist. I studied everything that was written about John the Baptist because I wanted to make John into a “real” person — a living, breathing, locust-eating zealot who could have been living it up in the temple as a priest (he was in the priestly line and they were treated like “rock stars” in that time) Instead, he retreated to the desert to listen to the voice of God so that he could prepare to take on the most corrupt political party of his time and turn their thinking upside down! I found John to be a revolutionary man. It could be said that he was “up-staged” by Christ (yes, I know this was exactly the plan – and John prepared the way). But therefore, I believe John doesn’t receive enough credit. I’m very proud of the play because it is based on truth yet I’ve weaved my imagination (based on historical writings) into some of the gaps. (Plays are fiction, right?) In any case, it continues to be unproduced because it seems to be too religious for a secular audience and too controversial for a “spiritual” audience.
RB: What is your favorite production of one of your plays? Why?
MM: My play, (really the first play I ever wrote), “The Sound of Hope” which was produced in Nome, Alaska. It just “worked.” It was a play based on a series of monologs which weaved into a story about the brave women of Alaska — about their experiences which had been recounted to me while I lived there. A white missionary woman who was raped in a remote Native village, a Native woman who struggled with alcoholism who sobered up after giving birth to a child with fetal alcohol syndrome – a young Native school teacher whose grandmother had been born on a dogsled in the middle of a blizzard. They were all strong survivors. The play just told their stories – no judgment, no easy “solutions.” I just remember watching the audience as the play was performed – they were fully engaged. It was very rewarding to me.
RB: Do you have a favorite playwright? What about them inspires you and how?
MM: I would say my favorite play is “Last Train to Nibroc” by Arlene Hutton. I saw this play at B Street Theatre in Sacramento, CA. I was enthralled by its pure simplicity, the humor and the unabashed hopefulness that “love conquers all.” I was so inspired, I went home straight away and wrote a complete play in two days. It was a two character play about love. That is where the similarity to Arlene’s wonderful play ended as my play was awful but I wrote it, just the same.
I also admire Edward Albee, Theresa Rebeck, August Wilson, Mercedes Ruhl, Horton Foote, Tom Stoppard and did I say Theresa Rebeck? And the amazing Robin Byrd of course!
RB: You are very kind. Now if that could just catch on. What would you consider the hardest part of being a playwright? How do you feel about the theater community?
MM: I would say the hardest thing about being a playwright would be the fact that most of the time you’re “writing in a vacuum.” It’s hard to find playwriting communities that will “workshop” your work. It seems that most theatres these days are looking for “production” ready plays. I understand that theatre is a business. But I have found that even for a “play reading” series at a theatre or conference– they seem to want the play to be “already perfect.” I can’t seem to find places that want you to submit “almost ready” plays that can be read and critiqued by an audience. With a little tweaking – a lot of my plays could be production ready.
RB: You have mentioned that you don’t really write anymore. What would you say has put a damper or hindrance on your writing? You’ve been produced. You’ve won awards. Knowing your work personally, I can’t imagine you not ever writing another play. I feel your voice as a writer is needed. Is this a break to rejuvenate or have you really given up on your craft? Will you ever come back to playwriting?
MM: I would hope this is just a break from playwriting. In the last couple of years, I have continued to write, continued to submit my plays and although I am very thick-skinned by now, I was amazed by the non-response to my work. There wasn’t any criticism, there weren’t any questions, there was NO RESPONSE. I can take, “I hated it.” Or I would love to hear, “I loved it.” I can sift through the comments of how they think I should re-write it. But NOTHING, I cannot take.
RB: You are also a photographer. What is it about photography that draws you in? Do you think it is a form of storytelling?
MM: Photography is a form of storytelling to me. I was on a trip to Greece several years back, and I had purchased a new Nikon camera. I saw a black cat in Mykonos, (there are many cats in Mykonos) against one of the white stone walls there, so I took the photo. Only later, did I realize that it told a story of a curious cat captured in a perfectly composed picture. Someone said I should enter it into the CA Fine Art Competition at the CA State Fair, so on a lark, I submitted it and it won a Merit Award. I thought it was beginners luck! Since then I have won two other merits awards and now I realize that it’s very difficult to be accepted into this juried competition!
RB: What else do you do to keep your creative juices running? What type of art do you create now other than playwriting and photography? Where do your passions lie?
MM: I have an Etsy shop for my photography and vintage art items. Etsy has a “treasury” component that I find very creatively fulfilling. Basically you find 16 items that you like and put them together into a 16 “frame” work of art. They can be color coordinated or some even tell a story. Of course, I love the story kind. Plus, I find it “promotes” my photography shop and also promotes other artists who I love to support and in turn, most of them reciprocate and include my photos in their treasuries — so it’s a win, win.
I find myself sort of addicted to making story treasuries. It’s a challenge to find Etsy items that match your story. I did one called “Film Noir” – I found a seller who was selling vintage film reels and a bracelet that looked like a piece of film – vintage fashion posters etc. The final effect is like a work of art in itself.
Another unique component to treasury making is that there are “teams” on Etsy who support each other. Most teams are about selling and promoting. Other teams are groups which band together by theme items or art or photography. Some teams support each other like a “support group.” One Etsy member found out that one of her favorite shop owners was going to chemotherapy and started a team to support her. She made encouraging treasuries with inspiring photos and posters etc. She named it the “BRAVE” team. Within weeks the team had grown to 75 members from all over the world, some who have shops with handmade knitted scarfs or necklaces or handmade jewelry, others are photographers like myself. Other members are care-takers of loved ones who have cancer or an illness – some are supporting parents with dementia or they themselves are going through some kind of health or mental or emotional issue. They started “Thursday Night Brave Stories” treasuries – the results are amazing! We all find that a little bit of encouragement goes a long way. I never seen anything like it.
RB:. How have you evolved over the years as an artist? Do you feel that it all comes together in some way – the creative outlets? Do you consider yourself to be somewhat of a renaissance woman?
MM: Well, I listen to my voice and I really try to be true to that inspiration. Early on, I tried to “copy” the way other playwrights write their plays. Now, I write what is true to me. I guess I must say, this “being true to my voice” has not necessarily been successful in getting my plays produced so I wonder how to balance my voice with the desire for my voice to be heard.
RB: When did you find your voice as an artist? Are you still searching for it? Where do you feel it is most clear?
MM: Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I “hear voices.” (yes, I know how that sounds). But I find “characters” from my play that I’m working on. They just start talking and pretty soon I have to get up and take dictation! This happened to me very clearly for my play, “The Family Tree” — a very proper Southern woman was talking to her neighbor about the Mississippi River! It doesn’t always happen that way, but I find this to be the “magical” part of writing.
RB: How do you decide when to move to a different creative outlet or when to give one a rest? How do you know what will fulfill your need to create? Can you discuss your process?
MM: Usually, I will be writing one new play and tweaking another. And if I get stuck then I switch to photography. Photography to me is like “instant gratification.” You take a photo – you edit it – you put it on your website and you immediately (usually) get a response. And for me that response is quite often very positive so it usually gets me through the dry patches in writing.
RB: . Do you ever feel that being a female artist puts you at a disadvantage in any way?
MM: Well, I would like to say “No,” but unfortunately, that wouldn’t be true. For some reason, male playwrights still seem to get produced more often than female playwrights – I think this is slowly changing but it’s too slow. I know there are many professional theatres and conferences that include in their mission to seek out female playwrights, but then I look at the list of plays that they are producing or featuring at the conference and the majority of them are male. I don’t get that because I know other female playwrights are submitting?
RB: How do you battle the negative voice? (insecurity, second guessing)
MM: Well, usually I adapt an “I don’t care what they think” attitude. But then I re-write a play to death to try to “please the elusive someone” – the audience, my critics, my mentors – and the edited play doesn’t work, of course. I think that’s why I’m taking a break so I can quiet the negative voice and just get back to writing what flows out of my voice.
RB:. Do you have a theme that you come back to a lot in your work? How do you decide which medium to use?
MM: I think one theme that reoccurs a lot in my plays is “broken people who find healing or redemption.” I like to focus on positive things that happen in life – even when in reality many, many negative things happen before the final positive outcome.
RB: What are you working on now?
MM: A play called, “The Patina Principle.” I wrote it last year after I had to take my mother to visit an emergency room late at night. The emergency room took on a “support group” type of atmosphere that was amazing to me. People who didn’t know each other at all were bonding together about their illnesses and brokenness and then in a weird coincidence, I ran into my neighbor there who was having a panic attack from a broken relationship (i.e. a broken heart.) I didn’t know that about her and I’m her neighbor! So, I started writing this play to mirror what happened in my life because of it but it isn’t coming out right yet. So I took a break from writing it, so I can return to it with fresh eyes. The last time I tried to take a look at it – it was like it was written in a foreign language so I guess I’m not ready yet!
Bookstores are becoming sparse; books are becoming electronic. I wonder how to reconcile my love of browsing with the lack of things to browse. If it’s not there, they will order it for you, they say with a smile ever so clueless to the fact that it’s the walking through the aisles searching the shelves for treasure that brings joy. I can order it myself and not have to give up the getting mail part in the process – what can I say, I like getting mail…
I rarely come out of a bookstore without a book — this past weekend, I did — too much open space, too much of a lack of that library appeal without the constraints of utter and complete silence. The space caught me off guard; it was bright from the lack of shelves and heavy from the lack of books. I felt grieved in my spirit and had to leave the store. Time is running out and I know one day I will have to go to a library if I want to browse. My favorite spot is going…going…almost gone… Better renew my library card. Bookstores could possibly become plug-in shops to download e-books and my relaxation tool will be obsolete. My days of browsing for hours in my favorite store are numbered but I’m not going out without a fight and a few more books. You never know what you’ll find in a bookstore.
Lucky for me I have more than one bookstore on my radar. I found a book in Samuel French (my other favorite spot) called “Hoosiers in Hollywood” by David L. Smith. This book is filled with over 600 pages of information on Indiana artists dating back to the silent era – a nice bit of history, fun, and encouragement. When I found the book, I was in the middle of a thought about the Midwest and how it is underrepresented in the arts. Guess I was wrong.
The really nice thing about books is being able to hold on to them and catching them on sale – a benefit of browsing. The best part about books is they always inspire the writer in me to write…
For years, I have been carrying around a story not knowing how it should meet the page but knowing that it had to get there somehow. A few months ago, I decided it would be in poetry – carried the pages around with me trying to shake the order and the theme out. No luck.
Then… a play I needed to submit somewhere refused to speak to me and I thought what if I take these notes and make it into a play. Decided on the characters and began to write for three days till “The End”, proofed it, let a few close friends read it and sent it off.
The end result was as intense as the writing of it. It struck me as odd that this story lay dormant for so years then exploded on the page like it did. Out of order on my list of things to write and not in the genre I picked. Dormant for 32 years then the alarm goes off waking me up from the exhausted sleep deprived state working too many hours on my day job has caused. It spilled out in 3 days like nothing I have ever written before. But then that’s the thing about writing each piece should be better than the last. Funny to have a story shut down on you because another one wants the roadway. I almost missed the signal but when I told friends I was not going to be able to finish the play I was working on but had this idea that I might be able to pull off in time, they each said, “go for it, what do you have to lose.”
I said, “I’ll try…”
I guess all you can ever do when you hit a wall is to try something else. Timing is everything. Who knew story notes had alarm systems attached?
When you talk about Wicked, two names come up Winnie Holzman, the book writer and Stephen Schwartz, the composer/lyricist. Winnie spoke at yesterday’s LA FPI Gathering held at Samuel French here in Los Angeles. She spoke about what inspires us or what shuts us down as writers and how to navigate those waters. In order to do so, we must know what inspires us and work toward it and we must know what shuts us down and steer away from it. “Positive Denial” is a process she uses – in positive denial, one does not look at the whole picture. You have to have the blinders on like a runner who is in denial that anyone is there because they are running their race… We have to learn to be our own parent – a parent’s job is to encourage their children to develop their gifts and stay away from things that get them off track.
We also have to know what’s normal for a writer – the amnesia that happens when we begin a new piece, the feelings of being less than adequate for the task at hand, and the failures (projects that don’t seem to get picked or get picked but don’t go anywhere) between the home runs. Writers go through basically the same things regardless of their notoriety.
She talked about her play, Assisted Living, which she wrote with her husband Paul Dooley which looks at the ways in which people change each other without meaning to or knowing that they do. Assisted Living will be playing in New Brunswick, New Jersey at the George Street Playhouse, January 28 – February 23, 2014.
We all found Winnie to be such a lovely, down-to-earth, and powerfully fierce woman.
LAFPI Blogger Robin Byrd has been blogging since day one. Hers is an authentic voice determined to be heard.
1. How did you become a playwright? What brought you to theater?
I guess I sort of evolved into one. I started telling stories at three and a three year old usually acts out a story so it’s theatrical by nature of the storyteller. I had regular story time for my two younger sisters up until I was eight. Even then I was acting out the story using spectacle and character development. Decades later, I joined a very large church and in the orientation, someone said that a way not to get swallowed up is to join one of the groups so I went to a theater group meeting. This theater group would meet every month to discuss what the annual production would be. Nothing seemed to pass the preconceived “Bishop Test”- based on biblical principles and something he – Bishop Blake – would approve of for his congregation. This discussion went on for months. Out of frustration, I suggested we write our own play. I wrote a synopsis which I didn’t know was a synopsis at the time; everyone in the group liked it and the president of the group, the late Stuart Brown, told me to write it. I would bring in pages to the meetings and we would read them and then Stuart would go back to that darn synopsis and say but I don’t see this part and I’d have to keep writing till everything in that synopsis was in the play. Everyone in the group was very helpful with pushing me to write and giving feedback. After the play was completed, we did a workshop production of it. I met Charlayne Woodard, theatre artist extraordinaire and she greeted me like I was a playwright and that is when I knew I was on this theater artist journey. (Funny the things you remember.) Thus, with “In Times Like These (Is He the One?)”, I started writing plays; by the time I wrote the book for the musical “For This Reason (A Love Story), I knew I was a playwright and I could see my voice as a writer introducing itself to me.
2. What is your favorite play of yours? Why?
My favorite play is always the one that I learn something more about craft or my voice as a playwright.
3. What is your favorite production of one of your plays? Why?
“The Day of Small Things” would be it because my family flew out to Los Angeles to see it. My father was too ill to come but he was so proud of me. There was one scene where something went wrong with the lighting queues so the actors had to improvise and walk onto the stage while the lights were up. The scene was right after a funeral. The actors walked slowly onto the stage as if in shock of the events, they had to play their “just before moment” on stage; they walked in a synchronized movement as if to an inaudible dirge. It was magical, performance art at its best, had we been able to run the play longer, I would have asked them to do it again. (Actors – got to love good ones who can commit to their character and are able to react in character without losing a beat.) Moments like these are what make Theater so alive.
4. What play by someone else has moved you the most and why?
There are a few plays for different reasons: “The Zoo Story” by Edward Albee made me take craft really serious; “Body Indian” by Hanay Geiogamah made me contemplate sound as a character; “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry made me look at family dynamics; “A Star Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hole In Heaven” by Judi Ann Mason made me look at family secrets; and “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, taught me to embrace other dimensional storytelling; it’s a memory play and my whole life I’ve dealt with memory in some form. As a child the beginning of most of my sentences was “’Member when…” so when I got to high school and “The Glass Menagerie” was on the reading list, it not only reminded me of the late night PBS filmed plays I loved to watch. It felt strangely familiar. “The Glass Menagerie” bears witness to writing remembered things; it is a testament to what can be done in a play, that boundaries should be lifted like a fourth wall, if it will help to tell the story.
In my work, I deal a lot with memory, flashbacks, visions, and dreams. Writers are normally told to stay away from flashbacks, write what you know, write what you want to know, keep the story forward moving. What I know is flashbacks and pushing forward beyond them so it is inevitable that flashbacks would show up in my work. Perhaps, because I already had a good knack for remembering things, this made me susceptible to flashbacks. I don’t know. What I do know is that as a survivor of rapes (plural intentional), flashbacks ruled my life from the time I was 18 years/7 months/28 days old well into my twenties. Writing is therapy; sometimes you have to make your own closure. My way of dealing with the negative events in my life has been to channel it into my creative work. I like being able to take down the fourth wall – as it were – of the past as it intersects the present, that’s the moment of change for me, a moment of lingering inner impact where new futures can be forged in the flames. It’s like dreaming and opening a door you just walked through only to find it leads somewhere else but doing it on purpose, like throwing jacks several times to get a better layout which will give a better end result.
Tom Wingfield, “The Glass Menagerie” (at least it is my interpretation) hits this intersecting of past and present on more than one occasion; he discusses his wanderings and how un-expectantly he could see his sister beside him in memory and how he tries his best to get away from those recurring moments:
“…Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger – anything that can blow your candles out!”
In his memory she blows them out. But he doesn’t change anything. He doesn’t go back; doesn’t start again. He just stays in his hell. I found that to be so sad. He never found a way out of the perpetual maze. He didn’t know how to dream another dream. I never want to be found not able to dream again…
5. Who is your favorite playwright? Why?
I am not sure I have a favorite. I do go on binges, devouring everything I can by playwrights that catch my eye.
6. How has your writing changed over the years?
I have become more confident in my gift. I know my sound and I try to be as fearless in my plays as I am in my poetry.
7. What type of plays do you write? (Dramas, Comedies, Plays with Music, Musicals, Experimental, Avant-garde …) What draws you to it?
I mostly write dramas but I also tend to have music in my plays, it just happens and I tend to write my own music. I have always loved musicals but have only written one to date with music, in addition to the composer’s music. I wrote a 10-minute comedy on purpose once just to see if I could do it. I tend to have laughter in my plays naturally but I do want to write a full-length gut buster one day. I don’t write experimental or avant-garde plays, that’s not to say I might not try at some point. I don’t care much for the abstract in art, poetry or plays. If I can’t tell what it means, I tend to move on to something else. I do write a lot about the revealing of secrets and the journey from bondage (emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical) to freedom. I think what draws me to the subject matter is the fact that I am a survivor and I want to leave bread crumbs albeit in the form of stories for others to find. I believe my plays take me to the door in the dream over and over again and each time I change the outcome on the other side as long as I can believe what I see in my mind’s eye can come to past.
8. Do you write any other literary forms? How does this affect/enhance your playwriting?
I write poetry. I got the nicest rejection letter once saying how my work was so lyrical which I think is due to my poetry background. I started out wanting to write fiction, one of my monodramas “Me, My Fiddle an’ Momma” started out as a short story. My professor at Indiana University said it was so full of dialogue it felt like a play. Some years later, I took an acting class with Ben Harney (Tony Award winner for the original Dream Girls) and he encouraged me to tweak it so I could perform it. I did. I found out more about writing drama by taking his acting class than I had in any book I read about drama. I’ve studied screenwriting at the American Film Institute in their certificate program and plan to write more screenplays.
9. Why did you become a blogger for LA FPI?
Jennie Webb, one of the co-founders of the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative walked up to me at the second meeting for LA FPI and asked, “How is your life going right now?” Fine, I answered (not if you count everything that was going WRONG but I was in denial so technically, I was fine.) She smiled. “You want to be the blog editor?” Blink. Nod. “Be the blog editor. Yeah? Yeah.” Then she walked away to “herd” someone else to do something else. And I, never having written a blog article in my life, wondered loudly in my head, “What the hell, did I just commit to?” I sent copies of my first article to playwright friends on opposite sides of the continent – one in Sacramento, the other in Brooklyn – to get their opinions, because I was completely unsure of myself. I barely knew what a blog was, let along write one. But it has been the best experience and blogging helps tremendously with writing the essays sometimes asked for in submission packets.
10. What is your favorite blog posting?
I love all the different voices of the ladies who blog; they cover such timely subjects. I am not sure if I have a favorite of my own but I do feel that “Write it Scared” was very instrumental in me putting together a manuscript of poems that dealt with some scary dark places. And, just looking at my level of “going there” enabled me to become more free. In “She, Who Was Called Barren,” I wanted to experiment with creating an event depicting what it is like to survive trauma and how it can be a roller coaster of dark and light moments and what that feels like.
11. Who do you consider an influence where your writing is concerned? And, why?
I have a few influences but I would say Ezekiel, the prophet, mostly. God was always telling him to go do something theatrical to “show” the Israelites what was coming in their future. And, his language is so poetical. He used a lot of symbolism; I like to use symbolism as well and have received many a “rejection” letter commenting on how lyrical my writing is.
12. When did you find your voice as a writer? Are you still searching for it?
I found my voice a long time ago; it was recognizing that I knew my sound that came after I began calling myself a playwright. Because I started telling stories at 3 years old and oral storytelling requires one to have a way of telling, I think that helped me a lot in developing my voice. I like finding new nuances of my voice, that’s exciting to me.
13. Do you have a writing regiment? Can you discuss your process?
“Always be writing…” that is my mantra. I do a lot of internal work first so I turn over stories and moments in my spirit before any one story makes it to the page. I have to live it in some way before it will release authentically even if it’s a snippet of someone else’s story.
14. How do you decide what to write?
It is usually something that I can’t shake.
15. How important is craft to you?
Craft is very important to me. At one point, I had thought that playwriting was not for me because I was not sure how to do it on a level where I could be respectful of the craft it takes to earn the “wright” in playwright.
16. What other areas of theater do you participant in?
I studied acting and have performed one of my pieces as well as my poetry. I also have co-directed one of my plays and made costumes. The reason I came to Los Angeles in the first play was to study fashion design at Otis/Parsons (now Otis College of Design) – to specialize in costume and men’s wear – that didn’t work out so I had to do a paradigm shift which lead me to writing plays.
17. How do you feel about the theater community in Los Angeles?
As an audience member, there is something for everyone. As a playwright, I feel left out. The worst part is when I have submitted something to a theater/company and go to see new work that has elements of what I submitted in someone else’s piece. I would like to think that it’s a coincidence but when people can’t look you in the eye, you know they ciphered from your well. It makes one a little skittish, although, I must say that this has happened to me outside of Los Angeles too; I try to take it as a compliment – a rude one – but one nonetheless.
18. How do you battle the negative voice? (insecurity, second guessing)
A lot of prayer and rehearsing of positive results – a place that I go to remind myself that my gift will make room for me and bring me before great men. I have to know who I am and what my gift is and why it is. There is always a little “buyer’s remorse” but it passes; it usually only turns up in the submission process.
19. Do you have a theme that you come back to a lot in your work?
Family secrets, ghosts and surviving trauma.
20. What are you working on now?
Being more fearless – a play about Race and a book of poetry on loss.
Robin Byrd is an Indiana born playwright and poet residing in Los Angeles. Growing up in Indianapolis (sometimes referred to as the northernmost southern city), attributes to the playwright’s affinity toward southern themes and language in some of her pieces.
Her plays which include The Grass Widow’s Son, Tennessee Songbird (the place where the river bends), The Book of Years,Dream Catcher,The Day of Small Things, For This Reason, In Times Like These (Is He the One?), and, Me, My Fiddle, An’ Momma have been read and produced in Los Angeles as well as read in Nebraska, Maine, North Carolina, and recently in Washington, D.C. Robin has performed Me, My Fiddle, An’ Momma in Los Angeles; the piece was also read at the 1st Annual SWAN Day event in Portland, Maine in March of 2008. Her plays Tennessee Songbird and Dream Catcher have won “Best Concurrent Play Lab Script at the 2008 Great Plains Theatre Conference” and been selected as a semi-finalist for the 2008 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, respectively. Her poetry has been read in venues in Los Angeles and Indiana and has been published in two International Library of Poetry books.
The playwright is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., the Theatre Communications Group, the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, Native Women Writers (at the Autry), and the American Film Institute from which she holds a certificate in screenwriting. For more information on Robin please visit her website at www.ladybyrdcreations.com.
LA FPI Blogger Erica Bennett has been blogging since 2010. Honesty and dedication to the arts are qualities that have shaped Erica’s work but it’s her unique point of view that draws the audience in and keeps them in their seats.
1. How did you become a playwright? What brought you to theater?
I tend to think of it as coming back to theater after most of my lifetime away. I began my academic career in the theater, after seeing a high school musical production and saying to myself, I can sing better than that. I rehearsed in my bedroom, auditioned and was cast in a musical review. Of course, I’m not a great singer. It was at community college that my competitive nature was converted; theatre became my favorite place of worship. And I found my strength in perseverance. I was fortunate enough to study acting with Don Finn, Jose Quintero, Arthur Mendoza, and Stella Adler. I left the theater, as part of a natural progression, to work in dramatic television as a writers assistant. I like to think that’s where I learned how to edit. I finally came home to the theatre thirteen years ago. I was driven there by illness and the force of wondering, what did I truly want to do with the rest of my life. Time is my driving force and my enemy; I feel like I have a clock on my shoulder, always. When I made a decision to write plays, I studied playwriting with Tom Jacobson (UCLA), William Mittler (Fullerton College) and Cecilia Fannon (SCR).
2. What is your favorite play of yours? Why?
My favorite play is the play I am currently writing, Bender. Bender tells the story of a woman who finds her voice once she finally learns how to love herself. I’ve found myself retelling this story in play after play. I like to think, I’m getting better at it with each one.
3. What is your favorite production of one of your plays? Why?
My favorite production is going to be of Love, Divine, my new short play written in verse for the holiday season that is being produced by New Voices at Stage Door Repertory in Anaheim on December 7, 8, 14 and 21, 2013 at 2:00pm. It’s my favorite, because it was such a fun challenge to write and because it’s my first production in six years.
4. What play by someone else has moved you the most and why?
I am moved by most things theatrical. Two years ago, during my first and only trip to New York, I wept through War Horse at the Lincoln Center in the Vivian Beaumont Theatre. I wept for the majesty of it; the puppetry, the humanity, the storytelling.
5. Who is your favorite playwright? Why?
My favorite playwright as an actor was Tennessee Williams. Now? That is a really tough question. I will have to say, under pressure, I am my favorite playwright. Somebody has to be fully in my corner.
6. How has your writing changed over the years?
I have a tendency to be too internal with my stories, to the detriment of actual understanding. I generally need to develop my plays over time and with actors reading around my dining room table. I need to hear the words and talk about their intention as I go. Because I often write, but don’t fully understand why my characters speak. So, hearing the words helps me understand them. I think I work best this way, because I used to be an actor and feel a deep kinship and trust of them. I used to apologize for my process, but it is my process and now I own it. Consequently, I think I’ve become more effective at articulating myself on the page.
7. What type of plays do you write? (Dramas, Comedies, Plays with Music, Musicals, Experimental, Avant-garde …) What draws you to it?
I write plays with musicality. I’m drawn to musical plays because it’s where I feel closest to my center, to the world around me. When listening to music, I often experience a physical sensation, my heart swells, opens up; I experience joy. When I put words to music, it makes the joy even greater.
8. Do you write any other literary forms? How does this affect/enhance your playwriting?
I have tried to write conversational poetry, but am always pulled toward making them theatrical.
9. Why did you become a blogger for LA FPI?
I became a blogger for LA FPI because LA FPI trusted me enough to blog. I take writing posts quite, perhaps too, seriously. Sometimes I am so scared and intimidated that I don’t know what to say. I mean, I get to thinking, who am I to blog? Who cares what I have to say? I get over that thinking by just writing. The first organization that embraced me as a playwright was the Orange County Playwrights Alliance, led by Eric Eberwein, in 2009. I went to LA FPIs first meeting in 2010 representing myself as an Orange County playwright in a sea of Los Angelenos. I will forever be grateful to LA FPI for accepting me.
10. What is your favorite blog posting?
They are all great because every blogger is writing with their heart on their sleeve. I love everybody for putting it out there.
11. Who do you consider an influence where your writing is concerned? And, why?
I used to think, if I wrote like “so-and-so”, I’d be a playwright. So, I modeled my writing after other playwrights, like Williams and Beckett. Now, not so much. I am my biggest influence. My sense of time, the pressure of time in my life and music are my biggest influences.
12. When did you find your voice as a writer? Are you still searching for it?
I think I found my voice as a playwright when I realized that I am writing the same story over and over again but through different characters, and that it’s my story… Once I learn to love myself, I will find my voice… Once I could see that and articulate it, I think I spoke it aloud to Robin Byrd at a Dramatist Guild meeting in L.A., I began to understand what it is I’m actually working toward. Then, I began to face my fears as a person and on the page and love myself and through my characters. Only then did I feel like my writing began to blossom.
13. Do you have a writing regiment? Can you discuss your process?
My writing regiment is to write every spare minute. I have no process but to write. Write and write, as much and as quickly as I can in the time I have available to me.
14. How do you decide what to write?
Usually it’s an inspiration brought out by an image, text or music.
15. How important is craft to you?
Craft, to me, is what allows inspiration to live on a page.
16. What other areas of theater do you participant in?
I have a tendency to want to direct and produce.
17. How do you feel about the theater community in Los Angeles?
I live the life of a cloistered academic librarian who writes (mostly) between academic semesters. I love the idea of the L.A. theater community and hope to participate more in the future.
18. How do you battle the negative voice? (insecurity, second guessing)
I accept it as truth and then it recedes from lack of attention.
19. Do you have a theme that you come back to a lot in your work?
Yes. Love. Forgiveness. Faith.
20. What are you working on now?
Bender, a two-act full-length play with music written by Karen Fix Curry.
Erica Bennett is a playwright and tenured librarian at Fullerton College, where, as Systems Librarian, her primary responsibility is to coordinate the use of technology in the library.
Her short documentary Mendez v. Westminster: Families for Equality has aired on KOCE-TV (PBS) since October 2010. It is centered about her play El Primer Dia de Clases. Her plays Freed and Jolly and Bean were respectively presented in staged readings at the Laguna Beach New Play Festival and Newport Theatre Arts Center in 2009.
In November 2011, after a two-year development process, her play Water Closet was read by the White Horse Theater Company in New York City at the Dramatists Guild of America. The play was workshopped and read by the Fullerton College Playwrights Festival in January 2012. In May 2012, it was selected by the Orange County Playwrights Alliance “OCPA Studios” for a reading at the Hunger Artists Theatre, which she directed.
Her 10-minute play, A Waffle Doesn’t Cure Insomnia, was selected for publication in the Best American Short Plays 2011-2012. A staged reading was directed by Bennett and presented by OCPA’s Discoveries series in December 2012 at the Empire Theatre, home of Theatre Out. The Fullerton College Playwright’s Festival is producing her 10-minute play, Don’t Ever Love Me, as part of its 10 Cent Story Project in January 2013.
Bennett received her B.A. in Theater Arts from California State University, Fullerton, where she studied acting with Donn Finn and Jose Quintero. Upon graduation she moved to Los Angeles where she studied acting with Stella Adler and Arthur Mendoza. She was featured in Benicio Del Toro’s short film Submission. She worked for nearly ten years in dramatic television production on such shows as The Young Riders, Gabriel’s Fire, Under Suspicion and The Big Easy, as a writer’s and development assistant.
Bennett holds a Master of Library & Information Science from UCLA, and is a member of the Society of California Archivists, the Dramatists Guild of America and the Orange County Playwrights Alliance.
“…she was fun and fierce, and we chatted.” Laurel Wetzork
I was running (okay walking swiftly) past Laurel Wetzork – LA FPI Onstage Editor, and Debbie Bolsky – LA FPI Agent Process Co-Captain, after an event at last month’s Dramatists Guild Conference (Having Our Say: Our History, Our Future) when I was introduced to Sarah Tuft by Debbie. Laurel was engrossed in conversation with her. I had interrupted to say, “See y’all back home.” I met a lot of people in Chicago, so many, I had to take notes, but I remember Sarah’s name because I had just used the word “tufts” in a poem:
“…pulling the small tufts from my eyelids trying to leave the lashes in tact…”
I like the word so much, I keep thinking about it. And, I liked Sarah right off when I met her — not just because of her last name. She seemed so open to me and she was really excited about her project coming to Los Angeles. Debbie, Laurel and I asked her to drop us a line about it, so that maybe we (LA FPI Instigators) could show up in clusters. Just received her email today:
And if you’re on FB, please friend me so I can include you for any other shenanigans!! Best wishes, Sarah
110 Stories by Sarah Tuft
ONE NIGHT ONLY!
110 STORIES by Sarah Tuft
Wednesday, September 11, 2013 – 8:00 PM
Nate Holden Performing Arts Center
4718 W Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90016
110 Stories Celebrity Benefit Performance will commemorate the 12th anniversary of the events of Sept 11th 2001.
Sarah Tuft’s play expresses the human side of history, without politics and agenda, giving voice to those who experienced 9/11 directly.Proceeds from the event go to Operation Gratitude.
All schedule permitting, the cast includes: Jon Heder, Ernie Hudson, Ethan Kogan, Anthony Ruivivar, Stelio Savante, Jessica Silvetti and Diane Venora. Directed by Rudolf Buitendach. Lead Producer: StelioSavante, Casting Director: Engine Media Group, Producers: Al Han, Ethan Kogan, Freddy Luis, Anne McCarthy, Kellie Gesell Roy, Jessica Silvetti.Consulting Producer: Michael Greenwald and Playwright Sarah Tuft.
Operation Gratitude is a 501(c)(3), non-profit, volunteer-based organization that annually sends 100,000 care packages filled with snacks, entertainment items and personal letters of appreciation addressed to individually named U.S. Service Members deployed in hostile regions, to their children left behind and to Wounded Warriors recuperating in Transition Units. This charity is supported by First Lady Obama, The Bidens, Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise and many other respected celebrities, athletes and politicians. For more info, please visit their official website at http://www.operationgratitude.com/
Special Note: Our charity Operation Gratitude will be providing tax deductible letters of receipt for everyone who purchases tickets. If you are unable to attend or do not live in LA, you can still purchase tickets/make a donation and you will receive the tax deductible letter from our charity.
COME AND JOIN US, experience firsthand accounts of the events of Sept 11th 2001 with an illustrious cast and together we can raise money for this worthy charity.
The performance starts at 8:00 p.m. with ticket prices ranging from $25 to $55. All ticket purchases and donations are tax-deductible.
This morning ended the 2013 Dramatists Guild Conference “Having Our Say: Our History, Our Future with some very inspiring words from Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Doug Wright (I am my Own Wife); I can only tell you that you need to read it if it is every published or watch the video if one was made because that is what I am going to do. Yes, it is worth listening to over and over again.
I think the consensus in the room was, “I want to write a play now.” Not just write a play but do the research behind it I so much love to do, you know, walking in the “wright” of playwright. I came away knowing that any dumb stuff I need to fix about me so I can squeeze through a door, I can do. I am a dramatist. I don’t have to apologize or feel “less than” in the room with other collaborators collaborating onmyplay… I can look forward to the Dramatists Guild fighting the good fight for us because that is what they do… They make it possible for us to continue “Having Our Say…”
“Taking historical events and turning them into compelling stagecraft can be a huge risk but can also yield huge rewards. John Weidman, former DG president and librettist of Pacific Overtures, Assassin, and Road Show (all with scores by Stephen Sondheim), discusses the processes, pitfalls and challenges of writing about the real world in theatrical terms.” – Writing History
John Weidman has a very interesting interview in the Dramatists Guild’s “In the Room” series. Listen here.
At the Dramatists Guild Conference, Having Our Say: Our History, Our Future, I sat in on a session titled “Writing History” with John Weidman. He told some wonderful stories, discussed “Road Show” and how and why he made the choices he did in writing it the way he did. Additionally, he discussed how he broke down the killers to their commonality in “Assassins” in order to write the piece.
He also gave pointers on what is appropriate when working with historical material:
1. You have an obligation to invent, stimulate, and push
2. You have an obligation not to misrepresent.
If you have to manipulate material so much that you are leaving your source material you want to look at that as a problem/flag alerting you to misrepresentation of the facts. Be careful of diluting actual action. Take a look at what you have to leave out and what you put in.
This session really put me at ease about tackling historical material as a writer.
