Some recent events:

Someone in my writers’ group brought in sections of his full-length play over the past few months whose set-up is this: in the future, old people will be eliminated because they are no longer of use to society. It’s satirical, it’s biting, it’s funny. And after a few scenes, it wasn’t my cup of tea. My mom, a widow, has had a rough few years (read between the lines: so have I). I had to move her first into assisted living and then six months later into a nursing home. In Florida. That would be the Florida that’s waaaaay far away from California, where I reside.

Many of the other writers and actors in attendance laughed all the way through but it just was salt in the wound for me. The writer did rewrite it (some of his changes seemed sparked by an observation I made about the passive wife in the piece, “So similarly, perhaps the Nazi wives had some thoughts about what their husbands were doing…”), and that provided better arguments for the other side, for which I give him major credit. But I still passed on going to see the full read-through and sent him an email explaining the situation with my mom.

Then a few weeks ago, another writer in our group brought in a short play set after the Civil War wherein a very graphic rape and murder were described. By the end, I had no idea what I was supposed to take away from the play, or what the characters learned or how they had an arc. In my comments, I gave the writer props for holding my attention the entire time, but I wondered for what purpose.

It’s true we can all write whatever we darn well want. I wouldn’t want anybody, even a fellow writer, telling me what or what not to write. But do we consider how much we might lose the audience with our subject matter or approach? Or do we just say frack the audience, I don’t care what they think or feel, I’m doing this for me.

I tend to come down on the side of WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER, me and the audience. I have a journey I want them to witness, to understand to some degree.

I think those two guys in my group care about what the audience response is, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a writers group where feedback is a part of the process. But they can’t tailor their work for just me, because my taste isn’t their taste. It’s an interesting line to walk.

And then there was this event:

Some friends and acquaintances went to see the movie The Kids Are All Right. I saw angry email subject lines from some of them and chose not to open those emails so I could see the movie with fresh eyes. But one of my closest friends walked out of the movie. I was stunned. Then I went to see it, and I and the friends who went with me that afternoon, loved it. So I was even more stunned. Yeah, all of the adult characters have major flaws and make bad choices. But they all learn something by the end. That to me makes an interesting journey and good drama. But perhaps my friend reacted for a deep reason I don’t understand (we haven’t talked about the movie yet). Maybe the movie hit her the way the play about snuffing out the elderly hit me.

Here’s to walking the fine line of getting an audience to go with you on the trip and staying true to your vision all at the same time.

I was fortunate enough to have a meeting last Saturday with a director who is interested in a full-length play of mine. We’re not quite sure what we’re going to do with it after a private reading, but high hopes and artistic dreams were in the air as we chatted over iced tea at Aroma in Studio City.

Before the meeting I said to myself something along the lines of “Don’t say anything stupid.” Or words to that effect.

By stupid, I meant I hoped I wouldn’t cross a line that playwrights probably shouldn’t cross. I don’t do it often (I’ve been at this for a looooooong time) but now and then in the fervor of a moment, I’ve said something that I regretted afterwards.

A year ago I said a couple of those type of things to a woman who was directing a staged reading of my play in a festival. She was very intelligent, had a lot of experience, had just gotten her Masters from a nice school back East – but she was a good 20 years younger than I am.

And at one point I pulled the age card. I swore I wouldn’t do it, but I got so testy I did. We were discussing stage directions and scenic design, and my script had descriptions she thought weren’t necessary. I said in L.A., with our small theatres on micro budgets, I don’t want them to think they have to re-create the Taj Mahal to do my script. So in this particular script, I had stated that the hospital, E.R., restaurant and car could be all be done with two chairs. The main set of the living room could be more fully-realized. She thought I was telling the director and stage designer what to do.

It’s a fine line. It’s a collaborative art. The stage directions aren’t written in stone. If someone has the money to do more elaborate sets than what I suggest, have at it.

But in the moment I didn’t say those things with the calm and reason that I normally have or I’m exhibiting here in this blog. I got testy and loud and pulled the age card, explaining that she didn’t have the experience that I had with small theatres in L.A. We don’t have the budgets that nice grad schools have.

And then the following week, if that altercation wasn’t fun enough, I really lost it when the producer of the festival thought my show was going to run WAY OVER our time slot allowed. This was because the “run-through” she witnessed was actually a “work through” of Act I, with a million starts and stops. Neither the producer nor the director had any concept of how long my play would run. They even suggested we do only one act for the festival because there wasn’t time for both acts. I explained to them the whole thing would run 90 minutes, without all the starts and stops. But I didn’t explain it in a nice tone of voice. I was a red-faced apoplectic cartoon character with smoke coming out of my ears and fire coming out of my mouth.

I wish I had remained calm. As it turned out, my play ran 90 minutes and I was vindicated, but I still wished I hadn’t lost my temper.

But no one’s perfect. And that’s the moral of today’s blog. The young director wasn’t, the producer wasn’t, and I wasn’t. I’m working on forgiving everyone involved, myself included.

And I’m hoping I will carry these lessons – stay calm, remember no one’s perfect (least of all me) – in my next venture.

Several years ago when I worked at Actors Theatre of Louisville, I heard this story about a play from the previous year’s Humana Festival:

ATL was producing Lee Blessing’s Oldtimers Game, which revolved around America’s favorite pastime. In their promo materials, the publicity department said the theme of Blessing’s play was baseball. The literary manager telling me this story chuckled mightily and emphasized with oldtimer’s knowledge, “Baseball is NOT a theme.”

The publicity folks were not strong at dramaturgy but they did get butts in the seats, God bless them.

Back when I was in school, we used to say the theme is the “message” of the play… something like, “Crime doesn’t pay,” or “True love wins out,” or “There’s no place like home.”

A couple of years ago I found a book (just by trolling through playwriting books on Amazon dot com, for Pete’s sake) that gave me a new perspective, a new lease on my writing life, a way of taking theme to another level.

Buzz McLaughlin’s book The Playwright’s Process, the gem I stumbled upon, says that a good dramatic premise (a phrase he got from Lajos Egri) has an active verb that links two parts. The dramatic premise of Death of a Salesman could be, “Looking for fulfillment in worldly success leads to disillusionment.” For The Crucible it could be, “Honor and integrity conquer sin and evil,” Buzz says.

Other fabulous verb choices besides “leads to” and “conquer” include “destroys” “defies” and defeats.” Theme is a lovely idea but it’s, well, static. The cool thing about ACTION VERBS is you get something leading to something else and that gives the play forward movement. Hallelujah! We’re goin’ somewhere! And things will be different when we get there! We will not be listening to endless clever dialogue spinning its wheels!

As writers, we can use this tool to UNIFY our plays when they want to wander like happy puppies sniffing flowers down every pretty garden path.

May your plays have not just activity but action, not just plot but story, and a compelling dramatic premise to hold us in our seats until the very end – when we want to jump up and applaud you mightily.

And now back to work. Gotta see if I can get the next scenes in my new play Community to unify around the dramatic premise I’ve been using.

Went to a lively theatrical event a few weeks ago. Zany characters, fun songs, lots of running around on stage by the crazy folk, provocative costumes, funny bits of business and snappy lines. A cavalcade of fun and hijinks.

And yet… after awhile… I was bored. I sat there thinking back to a lesson my playwriting teacher in grad school had taught us. Action is a character going after something, a goal. Activity is physical bits of business. Without the former, the latter gets tedious after awhile.

For better or worse, I think we’re hard-wired as a species to pay attention to goals. Maybe it comes from the days of having to find food on a daily basis. We want and need that meal and by golly, we’re on full alert to get that to happen. Extrapolating then, in a story where a character wants something, we empathize and get on board, wanting their goal right along with them.

Action movies can be particularly annoying when it comes to jamming loads of activity into the story (car chases, gunfights, martial arts flying kicks) and losing sight of that goal thing. Certainly the emotional connection the audience should have to that goal gets lost in the pyrotechnics. Our eyes and ears are dazzled by all of the activity (as were mine at that theatrical event), but our hearts and brains are left on the sidelines pleading, “Um, excuse me… why are we all here? What does the main character want? And why should I care?”

Ever have a moment when a lightning bolt of advice about writing makes you stop in your tracks and say YES, so helpful, thank you, bless you, have a piece of chocolate.

Had one of those when I opened up my latest Written By, the Writers’ Guild magazine.  Even though it’s a publication geared towards TV and movie writing, the advice in it knows no bounds.

Here it is:  a little cartoon from a book entitled 101 Things I learned in Film School has two stick figures (stick figures!), one is the bad guy, the other is a cop.  The cop says, “Police!  Halt or I’ll shoot!”  The bad guy says, “You caught me!  But you’ll never take me alive!”  That panel is labeled PLOT.  Then in cartoon panel #2, the cop says, “Hmm… if I shoot him, maybe I’m the bad guy…” and the bad guy, who is climbing out the window says, “Why do I always run from my problems?”  This panel is labeled STORY.  “Whamo!” said my brain. 

This cartoon reminds me of a tidbit from Lajos Egri in his book The Art of Dramatic Writing, as he compared these two sentences, “The king died” and “The king died… and the queen died of grief.”  The latter pulls us in and takes us inside a character and her story.

Now leave this blog, grab your latest script (and some chocolate because everything goes better with chocolate), and see what you can do with this newfound clarity.