Category Archives: LAFPI

Yes, Sure, Okay, Yes

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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.

Study to Show Yourself Approved…

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“Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  2 Timothy 2:15.

The above is one of my favorite scriptures.  I hear it in my head when I am chug-a-lugging along pushing against the stones.  It is a sort of affirmation for me; encouraging me to continue the study of seemingly unconnected things – dirt, music, planets, etc…  I am always reading tidbits here and there about this or that…studying…to release stress or because I run across something that gets my attention.  The information bits always come in handy especially when I need to meet a deadline and don’t have time to research (because the play I just spent all my time researching is not ready to be written so I have to write something else and write it quickly).  I notice that my subconscious will unflinchingly pull a tidbit from the annals of my mind that will fit…perfectly…into whatever I am writing.  I used to think that I had all this useless information in my head and what wasn’t useless was so disconnected that finding what to connect it to would be a serious challenge.  Except…when interpreting dreams, I find the tidbits come in handy.  In dreams, all information is relevant as it can reveal the unknown, all that disconnected information finally serves a purpose.  I believe that is why dream sequences show up in my work; it’s part of who I am as a woman, part of that “write what you know” thing.  I know dreams, flashbacks, and things of the spirit… 

There is a play, Body Indian, by playwright Hanay Geiogamah.  In this play, Geiogamah uses the sound/symbolism of a train; his notes set up the business of the train. 

“6. There should be a loud, rushing sound of a train starting off on a journey to signal to the audience that the play is beginning and Bobby’s entrance can be emphasized by the distant sound of the train.” Hanay Geiogamah

I could hear that train for months after reading the piece; it was haunting… moving…beautiful.  It affected me.  It made me want to create moments like that in my own writing.  As long as I am stretching myself as a writer, I know that eventually I will be where I envision myself.  When I write, I hear sounds in my head sometimes but I had never thought to make the sound a character until I read Body Indian.  Perhaps that is just my response to the piece but the train was a profound presence.  An acting instructor of mine told me that if I could see it so would the audience.  I could see that train as I read; I must admit, I have been devouring Geiogamah’s work ever sense.  How to make the sounds visible — that is the question.

In the night, as I write, I like to listen to music, especially violins. I have begun a play called Fiddler’s Bridge; it is my hope to make the sound visible in this piece.  I am listening — as it finds its way to the page — for the sound of its song…

Those of us, who ride the night winds and the morning breezes, who straddle the fence of crazy and sane, must study…always…at our craft.  Earning the “wright” in playwright through diligence and preparation…unashamed and unapologetic for the feats we attempt.  We are the catalogers of our time and must all play our part in marking his/her/our/story.  We must continually grow as artists so our gardens are full of fresh vegetables and herbs and words…that communicate humanity or if so be inhumanity…

On the Matter of Subject…

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I’d like to think that I am open to write about almost any subject matter.  The journey from a thought to choosing the angle to take and researching any unknowns is never the same with each piece I write – always fascinating but never the same.  What can be the same are the moments before I reach page four — those tense moments when I am feeling like a complete fraud and I’m kicking myself because I had the audacity to think I could write that story that way.  I have started a task and it seems daunting.  Those moments I get a little stuck on rewind and time constraints can make it worse.  There is nothing as intimidating as knowing that the play in your head is the one you need to submit and the deadline is nearing and you haven’t gotten to page four let alone gotten to the middle of page three.  Stopped, right at the top of the page, with an air bubble stuck between the period and the next line.  Those are “playwright quote times” which for some reason, reading blurbs about writing calms me down enough to allow my germinating time to finish up its odds and ends.  I tend to forget that I tell myself I will write two or three pages — just to get started — and then let it germinate a while longer before I really get into it.  I usually remember after I have calmed down.  When writing my last play, I remembered…then forgot…then remembered again.  I felt like I was stuck in that Groundhog Day movie.  I should probably paste a note on my mirror but I probably won’t read it because I’ll be busy trying to get to page four from the “first words.”  And, who knows, Groundhog Day might be a needed part of my germinating process from time to time.  I am so preoccupied with getting past page three that my subconscious is free to organize information and listen to the other voices – the ones with the secrets.  I must admit, I am most intrigued by the secret things…and the layers that cover them.  Traveling into the unknown to find out the “why” and “how” of it all, is worth it every time.  It is during these journeys that I truly find out what the subject matter really is…  By page four, I know from what depth the play is coming and whether or not the subject matter at hand is what I thought it was when I began the piece.  By the end of the first act, I will be able to write a brief outline for the rest of the play and gauge how long it will take to reach the end which may mean submitting it the next year.  I used to think “next year” was so far away but there is so much to do in between now and then, it turns out to be just around the corner…

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…

Don’t Change…

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It’s a funny game, this game of time, writing away the hours to creative and adventurous ends.  I’ve enjoyed spending some of it with you this week as I bounce forth, furiously toiling away at my current list of projects; a rewrite, a new play, a screenplay hot off the treatment treadmill and (finally) into pages, an outline – alright, a dozen – as I try to wrangle the story ideas pounding down my door into some sort of tangible form until I can give them the attention they so deserve…

And I’m a bit tired, a lot excited, 50% amazed, and 100% thankful that I’ve got so much in the creative crock pot and that I keep on going… keep on writing… in the face of all that flies at me.

Because it ain’t easy.

Wait, let me rephrase that- (clearing throat) – Becaaaaauuuuuuse….

IT AIN’T EASY.

Yeah, that looks better.  That looks more accurate.  If I could include thundering drums and brass, a host of angels flapping their mighty wings, and a lusty Sallie Mae recoupment officer cackling at you from under a pile of Visa, Discover, and Mastercard bills, it would be closer to the point, but you get the idea.

Because why?  (say it with me now) It ain’t easy.

And yet we work, and pound away, to birth these stories haunting us, treating us to a mysterious kind of rapture that only artists understand – the drug of the creators; I made this.

And when I stare down upon those beautiful pages, those curvaceous words and fat happy brads… I feel high.

I am a creative junkie!

And I’ve no hope of changing 😉

~Tiffany

Labor Pains

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Ahh, the pains of labor… is there no better comparison for the birthing of a new play?  Late nights, indigestion, dark half-moons hugging your eyes, and a strong, unflinching desire to just get it OUT?!

For what else is writing if not it’s own sort of miracle of creation?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as a single woman who is at that delightful age when all around her is BABIES, I can’t help but wonder when I’ll get to nurse something along that talks back, spits up, and laughs at me on occasion… In the meanwhile, I get to wrestle with invisible creatures with their own amazing power of will… and it never ceases to amaze me how they do it!

What do you mean you’re a puppet?  I don’t know anything about puppets!  I didn’t imagine you a puppet when I sat down to write this thing… Are puppets expensive?

OR

Did you just hit her?  Your own mother?  In the jaw?  What were you thinking?  What does this do to my play?

OR

If you can see your own memories floating around you… I mean, like really see them… physically… then you just raised the price of go-to capital needed to produce this thing.  You need to get a job to start paying for yourself, you imaginative magical trollop!

But it always works out, because it’s this stubborn wonder that gets me going the most.  I really think that it’s these moments of “WHAT the F***” that let me know I’m on to something good… maybe even great.  It’s the muse’s way of saying “Oh, I think we can do better than that.”

And you know what?  No matter the pain, no matter the exasperation, that crafty muse of mine is usually right.

So even when the result is “I was in labor with that play for NINE whole MONTHS, and look at it!  It’s still all over lumps and bruises!”  (sigh)  At least I’ve got a good story to tell… holding the “scrapbook” in hand, proud “parent” to some crazy new world…  getting ready to send it out for all to judge.

I think David Lindsay-Abaire said it best in his forward for Wonder of the World.

Your child might swear too much, or have a funny birthmark, or an odd way of obsessing about the weather, but still he must be sent out into the world, warts and all, to fend for himself.  And you hope he’ll find friends who will love him for who he is.  I hope, dear reader, you become one of those friends to this, my hyperactive, potty-mouthed but loveable child.

Ahh, yes, labor pains, growing pains, so many pains… Indeed!

~Tiffany

The Competitive Spirit

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I had a conversation last summer with Another Female Playwright.  It went a little something like this:

AFP and ME talk about themselves as youngsters.  M(ale)P joins conversation, mentioning that he was one hell of a basketball player.  ME laughs riotously.

ME: I was terrible at sports!

MP: What did you play?

ME: Basketball.  4th grade.  I remember quite clearly the moment I knew I wasn’t going to make the 5th grade team; The biggest girl I had ever seen was thundering towards me – I’m not kidding, I can still see it happening slow motion in my memory bank- and I had the ball.  So there I was, the coach yelling at me, my co-players running amok around me, and this Giantess bearing down on me and I just… passed her the ball.

AFP: What?!  You gave it to the other girl?  The Big one?  From THE OTHER TEAM?

ME: Yup.  I realized in that moment that no ball in a hoop was worth the pain she was going to rain down upon me.   She wanted it, I didn’t.  I’m just not competitive like that.   At all.

MP laughs at this and goes for another beer.  AFP turns to me and says in a voice that reeks of disbelief and nose-wrinkling…

AFP: So if you’re not competitive, then how are you a playwright?

And that my friends, was my slow-motion realization that this woman and I would never be more than casual peers… her in one court and I in the other.

Because the only person I am ever in competition with is myself.

You see, writing is personal business.  We can (and will) all tell the same stories in our own merry ways… what the public, or that literary manager, or some regular Joe with deep pockets and a desire to get in the producing biz thinks of my work is completely independent of what he/she/it thinks of yours.

There is a much repeated, oft lasered-into-paper-weights, saying that goes a little like this:  Surround yourself with successful people and you will find success yourself.

Hard to do when you look on everyone around you as the competition.

Harder still to keep those successful people around you.

~Tiffany

What Would a Man Do?

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A while ago I was talking drinking with a dear friend, bemoaning the seemingly effortless way men “get things done”  We got a lot of laughs guffaws at their expense, coming up with all variety of jokes, but ultimately we both arrived at the same sobering moment of truth.

“They just DO IT!”

And no, no Nike swoosh went flying over our tipsy little heads… we had just struck upon some revelatory moment akin to a lightening bolt striking our now-empty bottle of sweet, sweet wine and refilling it with nectar of the Gods:  Men. Just. Do. It.

Sure, they might still suffer the same insecurities as we, but they don’t sit forever planning and preening and perfecting… they kind of just put on their swagger, strut up to the mountain and say “GIMME!”

And darn it all if that mountain doesn’t give in more often than not.

You see, I don’t think it had occurred to me (before that moment) that I could should just ask for anything.  I had to earn it.  I had to sit down to each and every task with the same dedication I imagined Van Gogh took to “Starry Night” – only, how do I know he wasn’t drunk off his noggin’ and having one hell of a good time painting that swirly masterpiece, before placing it before the masses and proclaiming it “Good.”

Because I had never felt quite empowered enough to march into a room and announce myself a writer, much less a good great Starry Night quality one.

I hadn’t felt bold enough to ask theater company, producer, deep-pocketed pirate, for anything.

Until this little humongous revelation, I had been doing everything like a polite, wait-your-turn little girl.

And I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that this is a little girl’s world.

So I adopted the following mantra (okay, pirated, altered, and then adopted from the Christians):  “What would a man do?”

And then I do it.

Because I have spent enough time apologizing and waiting.

Because this world of interconnectedness is still vastly out of whack.

Because I may be softer in the hips, easier on the eyes, and more prone to giggle than a man, but I sure as hell can write better than a lot of ‘em too– I’ve just got to remember to ask for the things I want, to demand the respect I deserve, and to take the risks necessary to reach these wonderful goals of mine.

And that ain’t ego, people, that’s just the way a man would do it  😉

~Tiffany

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…