Category Archives: News

A Dream of a Play

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Kitty Felde – January 20, 2011

Have you ever dreamed about writing a fabulous play?  Usually such dreams involve a Tony or a string of productions or actors like Alec Baldwin and Colin Firth fighting to play roles in your work. 

But do we ever dream about the actual WRITING of a play? 

I did.

Of course, I can’t remember most of it.  But even in my sleeping state, I knew that I’d forget 99% of the wonderful plot devices, character development, sparkling dialogue, etc, etc.  So I kept telling myself in my dream to remember one thing.  Just one thing.  And when I woke up, that one thing is all I remembered.  It boiled down to two words: vegetable juggling.  Which actually meant something to me and made its way into a scene I was writing.

It’s the only time I’ve ever had this experience.  How about you?  Have you found a way to tap into your subconscious?  Tips, please!

Act Two Hell, scene two

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Kitty Felde – Martin Luther King Day

Okay.  All that stuff I wrote a few months ago about tips to dig yourself out of Act 2 hell?  It didn’t work for me.  

I was cooking along on a long-delayed rewrite of a play that’s haunted me for more than a decade.  I’d even made it into the middle of Act 2, up to the big climax scene.  And then I fell apart.

I made the mistake of bringing 30 pages to my old writing group when I was in LA this past fall.  Turns out, it was a big mistake – mostly  because I hadn’t yet slogged through the rest of the first draft.  In other words, I hadn’t yet solved act two. 

The notes my old writing buddies gave me were terrific.  And made sense.  Unfortunately, knowing what I’d need to change in the second draft made going on to the end of the first draft seem overwhelming.  I lost heart.  I lacked courage.  Why write lines for characters I knew I’d have to excise in the next draft?  It seemed like a betrayal to those characters.  And if one of those main characters was going to change along the way, who knew if writing a first draft ending was even appropriate anymore?   And on and on and on. 

I know I’m overthinking this.  (A writer overthinking?  Shocked, I tell you.  Shocked!)  But I have come up with Plan B.

So here it is: I started a new play.

I know.  This is dangerous.  It’s like serial dating.  You might never get to the commitment stage…in playwriting terms, I might never get to the end of the first draft.   I’ll just add to my closet full of great ideas that never got finished. 

But I overcame my own warnings and moved ahead.  And I suspect it might work.  In fact, it might even work for you. 

Details tomorrow.

 www.kittyfelde.com

The Wasserstein Prize

News, playwriting

 

 There has been some controversy in the world of women’s playwriting when the Wasserstein Prize recently announced that it had no worthy winner.

 How could that be? How could there be no worthy winner? We must support female writers even when they suck. A petition was signed by over 1400 souls. There were items in the New York Times. Women’s playwriting hasn’t been this fun since the last New York Times article.

 The Prize Committee back-peddled and announced that it would refine its selection process. Eligible playwrights will be asked to resubmit multiple plays. There will be a winner even if they have to invent one.

At this point, I should disclose that I am ineligible for the Wasserstein Prize. Even though I fulfill the no major production requirement, I am not thirty-two years old or younger. A true lady does not reveal her age, but I am most definitely not thirty-two. I was alive when Star Wars (the real Star Wars in which Han shot first) came out.

Am I jealous of my younger, more eligible fellow writers? Of course I am. Who wouldn’t want twenty –five grand in the current economy?

I wish to give my opinion of the whole affair not only as a playwright rolling around in the mud but also as a contest reader who has waded through play submissions with more muck than a death star trash compactor.

It’s okay to not give an award. You don’t have to. Wasserstein Prize Committee, stand by your decision. Stand by the work you did. If there’s no winner, there’s no winner. Don’t ask for additional plays. Part of being a playwright in the world is understanding when a play is ready to show to friends, to put up for criticism, to submit to contests. What will additional plays show you? False starts, rambling or disconnected ideas, first drafts (shivers)?

Now I know there are at least 1400 people out there who disagree with me. That’s fine. But ask yourself, why is a winner so important? Also, if someone had won the Wasserstein, would you remember her name next week?

A contest is a contest. It’s not a social obligation. It’s not something that will save the arts. All this outcry reminds me of dogs fighting for scraps. Besides, now that we’ve established that girls in their twenties can’t write plays, maybe the contest could be opened up to women.

Or maybe, if the Wasserstein Prize wants to support the future women playwrights, they could put the money toward high school performing arts programs. I was in high school when I started writing scripts. In a culture where sports are boosted and arts are cut, the next generation needs all the help it can get.