Category Archives: playwriting

Advice for Aspiring Playwrights

Play, playwriting,

By Jen Huszcza

Recently, the LA Times reported about a meeting between a young novelist and Philip Roth in a deli. The novelist, John Tapper, had passed on his first novel to Roth and was looking for advice and inspiration.

Roth reportedly said:

Really, it’s an awful field. Just torture. Awful. You write and write and you have to throw almost all of it away because it’s not any good. I would say stop now.

Likewise, I would say to folks who dream of being playwrights, stop. If you gotta do it because of some fire in your belly or blinding light in your brain, well, you’re doomed. If you throw crap out into the world, you’ll feel like a sellout. If you work hard on something with all the best intentions, you will probably be ahead of your time.

Whatever you do, you will probably despise some aspect of your work or yourself. Sure, there’s drinking, drugs, facebook, and therapy, but none of those will put the words on the page for you.

Sure you might love language or love the theatre or love cinema. But at some point, you will hate all that, and you’ll only be left with yourself. And you’ll wonder, why the hell didn’t I become a rocket scientist? I had the grades. 

Still, the writing continues. It has to continue because you have no choice. You have to finish one play because there is something in it that will help you write the next play. You have to finish another play because you promised it to an actor friend of yours who is super talented. You have to think about that next play because it’s a thought that’s interesting. Then, when that is done, then you can stop. Of course, unless, something else has to be written.

Brown, Blue and Elemental Love

Female Artists, Interview, LAFPI, Performing Arts, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Theatre, viral content, Women

Women on the Fringe!
LA FPI Video Blog featuring female playwrights @ the Hollywood Fringe Festival

LA FPI Video Blog Brown

Fire: The rapid oxidation of a material. The exothermic chemical process of combustion. The release of heat, energy, light and various other reactive products.

Meghan Brown’s disposition is reflected in her clear blue, kind eyes much like the sky reflects the ocean. During our interview, Brown’s self-knowledge is as apparent as her self-confidence, which translates into the ability to be vulnerable. A self-aware artist who also has the ability to embrace her vulnerability is what ultimately distinguishes the average from the extraordinary creative being. 

Brown’s ability to create an extraordinary netherworld is a testament to her old soul.  The Fire Room is a well versed, visually poetic confession of grasping at true love beyond the grave.  Here ghostly protagonists navigate through combusting emotions as the narrator and her silent chorus bear witness to the release of love’s undeniable heat.

In graduate school, I studied award-winning films in a specific manner because I was sure it would help me become a better screenwriter. First, I would watch the film as anyone would; second, I would watch with the filmmaker’s commentary; and third, watch with the sound off because, after all, film is behavior. Due to its visual ardency, if you had to, you could watch the Fire Room with the sound off.

Playwright Meghan Brown and the Fugitive Kind make a great team. Enjoy the video.

 

Poeisis, Blindsided and Women on the Fringe!

Female Artists, Fringe Festival, Interview, LAFPI, News, Performance, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Theatre, viral content, Women

Women on the Fringe!
LA FPI Video Blog featuring female playwrights @ the Hollywood Fringe Festival

In ancient Greece the playwright was poeisis: the act of making plays and the root of the modern word, poetry. It is said that poïetic (Greek for creative, meaning productive or formative) work reconciles thought with matter and time, and person with the world (Wikipedia).

The Hollywood Fringe harkens back to the 5th century’s annual Athenian competitions where notables such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes established theatrical forms, which modern playwrights still rely upon. A lot has changed since these male playwrights, with their all male cast and crew, occupied the festivals of ancient Greece. With the hopes of uniting its colonies and allies, Athenian politicos exported the “festival” to help promote a common cultural identity. Today, LA FPI promotes “Women on the Fringe!,” with the hopes of uniting and supporting women playwrights.

Thought, matter, time, person, world – words poetics in their own right – remind me of my first interviewee, Jeannette Rizzi, and her one-woman show Blindsided. Jeannette is all heart. She kindly met me outside of the Hudson Theatre to assist me with parking. She warmly introduced me to her all male crew (some things never change), and eased into rehearsal as my camera rolled

Aspectabund and luminous, Jeannette graciously reveals her-story and altruistic nature in thought, word and stage presence. Throughout, she holds a mirror-like inner-strength reflecting confidence coupled with gratitude, attributes only those who practice self-love can embrace, as her comedic foothold sets the tone.

Thought, matter, time, person, world—inspiring, comedic, altruistic, confidant, gracious and self-love, these words resonated within me as I left the theatre. Blindsided is a gift of truth and beauty from writer and performer, Jeannette Rizzi. Enjoy the video.

Verisimilitude

LAFPI, Playwright, playwriting, , , , , , ,

by Guest Blogger Dee Jae Cox

Dee Jae Cox
Dee Jae Cox

I am by nature an optimist.  I love to laugh and I don’t hold on to grudges.  I am sincerely hoping that is the key to my longevity and will compensate for the lack of physical exercise.  But as a Playwright and theatrical Director and Producer, I have also had my rose colored glasses ripped off of my face a time or two.   I try and see the glass as half full, rather than half empty.  But imagine that glass as less than a quarter full.  Imagine two equal sized water glasses, one that is 80% full and the second that is only 20% full.  Stand them side-by-side and visually take in that image.  That will give you a picture of gender parity in American theatre in 2013… or rather the lack thereof.

The Hollywood Fringe Festival is always a good jumping off point for discussions on gender parity in Los Angeles theatre.  The number of female participants is usually inflated because of the self-production element, which in all honesty, self-production is something I would encourage any woman with the skills and means, to consider at any time of the year.  DIY!   That is what motivated my Cofounder Michele Weiss and I, to found The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Project, in 2007. I’m a Playwright and I understand the challenges that we face and I wanted to find a way to help more women get their work on to the stage, though all too soon realized that our efforts were only a small step in addressing an overwhelming need.

A playwright tells a story based on their unique perspective, which really does differ between men and women.  As female playwrights, of course we can create male characters.  And no doubt male playwrights can create female characters. But we’re talking about one simple thing.  Truth.   I had a cherished mentor and writing instructor who taught me the word, verisimilitude, the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability.  He used to say that it was essential that a play possessed verisimilitude.

There is a serious lack of verisimilitude in American theatre, when eighty percent of the plays that are produced are written by and about men.  The absence of gender parity is a crisis and has not progressed in the past century; so waiting for it to catch up to the times is not going to happen on its own.  Not only are women’s perspectives and voices denied, but also the trickle down effect of this discriminatory practice is insidious and seeps into the pours of how we produce theatre.  The dysfunction is reflected in the lack of protagonist and leading roles for actresses. It is reflected in the low percentage of female directors, stage crew and it most certainly impacts the number of stories about women or even stories from a woman’s perspective. When the majority of critics who review plays are male, it slants the reporting, the reviews and even the amount of media coverage and awards that women receive.

Perhaps we’ve been indoctrinated that if we get on our feminist soapboxes and demand equality, we are just being downright rude. Theatre is not just entertainment, it is an ageless reflection of our communities, our culture and our lives.  If that reflection has historically lacked gender parity and truth, do we simply acquiesce to the status quo? Or do we find the courage to undertake the mission of creating equality in the art that we value so greatly?  As Producers of theatre, we can not be willing to sacrifice verisimilitude or to deny our right to expect it.

 

“I’m forming a new ad hoc committee in Los Angeles to explore fresh ways to solve the gender parity issue in theatre. Join me on July 20, 1-4 p.m., at the next LA FPI Gathering at Samuel French Bookshop, to learn the details and become part of it.”

 

Dee Jae Cox is CoFounder and Artistic Director of The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Project (www.lawomenstheatreproject.org).   

www.deejaecox.com    |    https://twitter.com/Deejae1

 

Because Plays Take Time

Play, Playwright, playwriting,

 by Guest Blogger Amy Tofte

Amy Toft
Amy Tofte

My play—originally called The Rules of Affection—started with a vague idea of a relationship involving an addict. I did a lot of research about addiction, including talking to any kind of addict willing to speak to me. I eventually finished a draft but didn’t feel it was complete enough to do anything with it. So off it went to the back burner as other projects took priority.

A year or two later I went to graduate school at CalArts for playwriting. I was writing even more new projects, exploring different forms of story-telling and meeting new artists, including dozens of wonderful actors. In my final year of school I connected with two actors—we decided we wanted to work on something together. I pulled out my addiction script.

I had been through a major break-up, dated (mostly unsuccessfully) for a couple years, and tackled a few personal dilemmas. I had more perspective and more life under my belt. I also had a new, more appropriate, title for my play about addiction: FleshEatingTiger. I wasn’t just a different human being, I was now a better writer.

The actors and I met regularly. We read at the table, worked on our feet, tried some staging with bare bones props. I re-wrote and re-arranged scenes. I wrote new scenes. We eventually shared the work as a workshop performance for our fellow students. People talked to us about the play. More re-writes, more rehearsals and we took a revised version of the show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Then another revision which we performed at the Hollywood Fringe in 2012. Professional reviews, audiences, more feedback from fellow artists.

Early this year we were invited to perform the most recent (and final version) of FleshEatingTiger at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica. The script has had even more re-writes, including a new scene or two. We have a terrific new director and an outstanding team of designers. Each member of the team brings more insight and growth to our final script.

It’s been about two and a half years since the very first table read of the first draft. In so many ways, it’s still the same exact story. But it has also changed so much. What we will present June 21st and 22nd is the culmination of months of work combined with time away to process and germinate ideas. We are all very proud of the show and I am happy with where the script has ended up.

It takes collaboration. It takes revision. It takes time.

 

TigerHighways2013-1

FleshEatingTiger Release

http://amytofte.wordpress.com/

 

HIGHWAYS LINK:  http://highwaysperformance.org/highways/event/flesheatingtiger-written-by-amy-tofte-directed-by-vincent-paterson/

Musical, Musical – Let’s write a Musical!

playwriting, , , ,

In addition to teaching, working my day job, and directing/co-producing a new play fest, I am currently dramaturging a new musical.

It’s a musical that I’ve also been asked to direct.

It’s a musical which needed quite a hefty revision, but was wrapped in such an intensely messy process that even the title “Dramaturg” was unfamiliar to those drafting the darn thing.

I’d like to talk about what a wonder this little play is for surviving such a rapid conception and wild birth.

The play began as a book.  It was a sweet children’s book about animals clashing up against reckless humans.  The book has the most darling chapter titles, interesting characters,  an earnest quality that compels readers to turn the page – and it’s message is simple but important: We’re all part of this great big world, so we’d better take better care of it together.  

The book’s author was a first-time published author who had never written a play, yet he was asked to turn his book into one with the promise of a production if he did so.  He was paired up with a playwright to mentor him a little, and he set to work.

Meanwhile, the producer determined that the play should be a musical and invited a local composer to draft the music.

As the play moved along, the producer hired a director who then brought in and hired two local musicians (who had never worked on a musical before)  to draft music for the play – which created some obvious discord with the original composer.

At this point, there were a handful of passionate people up to their elbows in New Play Craziness, without a dramaturg on board or even the guidance of anyone who had created a new musical before.

And the calendar was looming heavy in the not-so-distance.

This band of determined creatives made it to production – they made it through actors jumping ship, the director adding her own rewrites to the script, and the never-before-playwright stepping into a pair of producer’s shoes even though he’d never done theatre before.

And yet, the play went up!  Audiences applauded – and everyone involved sat back after the final curtain and wiped their brows with relief – awash in the miraculous nature of the theatre.  For no matter the project, no matter the crunch, theatre (most of the time) happens.

Fast forward to this summer, where I’ve been tapped to remount the show and help fine-tune the play that no one had time to fine-tune last summer.

The artists are nervous – shell-shock from last summer’s Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma’am process, and the playwright is tired of getting feedback he doesn’t understand how to implement.

So I asked him for the original book.  I read the book.  And I found the play that he was trying to write was right there on its pages.

I’m working with him now to put more of his own book into the play.  I’m also working to correct the misconceptions he had been working under:

  • The playwright had been told that family theatre couldn’t be longer than an hour, because children can’t sit still longer than 60 minutes.    This is a fallacy – children can become engrossed in a compelling story and sit for hours.  I’ve seen children in audiences enraptured by the show on stage – shows that ran 90 minutes and longer.  The key is quality.  Kids don’t want to be talked down to or cheated – they’ll call you on the moments that aren’t gripping or genuinely funny/interesting, that don’t serve the play, or that are too wordy/not active enough. They’re honest thus the ultimate audience challenge, but if you write from a “What’s going to grab their attention?’ perspective, you don’t have to obsess about whether it’s 60 pages or 100.  And you certainly shouldn’t be excising parts of your successful book to meet page length “requirements”  instead of editing due to dramatic relevance.
  • The playwright was not in communication with the composers on the music, so he had no idea what the songs were going be like, nor how much time they would add to the play.  The musicians never got a copy of the book, so they were writing music based on the play’s skeleton – a skeleton intentionally lacking the meat of the book because of the above well-meaning, but inaccurate, advice on page length.  The playwright and musicians should have been working together.  And in an ideal situation, the playwright himself would have been the one to select his composer – not have them handed to him to know only from a distance.  Thankfully, everyone seems to have gotten along and to feel good about the partnership – but the holes in communication led to these first-time composers attempting to write music to a first-time playwright’s script without anyone on hand to help clarify the process/structure of writing a musical and to guide them all towards a solid and compelling script/score.
  • The Director does NOT get to rewrite your script.  Ever.  Unfortunately, the time constraints on the promised/scheduled performance last year led to a general surrender of the script to “the director’s vision”.  When I stepped on board this summer, I was dismayed to find out that the playwright felt a lack of ownership of his own material.  I understand that last summer’s director was trying to make the play work – a play that wasn’t ready for production but “had” to go on regardless – but it breaks my playwright heart to know he thought that last summer’s experience was the norm and that he did not want to put his playwright hat back on because of it.   I’m currently doing my best to give him the specific notes he asked for (this playwright admittedly doesn’t use the same playwright language I use, and has told me to be as specific as possible) with complete frankness that HE is the final say on any suggested script changes.  I’ve also made it very clear that the changes I’m suggesting are 90% straight out of his book – so that I’m mostly just asking him to bring over the delightful characterizations and dialogue present in the book.  My hope is that the nature of this summer’s revision process will leave him happier about the script and happier about being a playwright.
  • The composers were not given any lessons in musical theater or how to structure their songs.  They’ve created some lovely music for the play in spite of this, and it’s been wonderful to work with them on adding in some musical staples such as an “I want” song for our main character, a more thematically impactful closing number, and presenting the problems/world of our play in an opening number that gets our audience excited to be there.  I’ve ultimately asked them to draft 3 new numbers and to look at pairing down/tweaking some of the others, and they’re well on their way to making them all awesome.
  • Last summer’s show did not have a musical director.  The composers who were also the musicians were also the musical directors.  Yikes!  Talk about spread thin.  Actors need a dedicated musical director to help them understand the music and sing it to the best of their ability.   Musicians need a musical director to bridge the musician/actor divide.  The Musical Director is there to support the singers and the musicians – and having one on board now is making every musical step a little easier.  As I am dramaturging the play and music, our musical director is helping to do the same with the score and structure of that score.  It’s awesome.

I know that this may not be the most gripping of blog posts, but it’s a big part of what’s been on my creative plate lately and I’m sure it’s not the only project undergoing bumps due to a lack of dramaturgical support.   There is a lot of room for collaborative creationism in the larger circles of theatrical professionals, but in the smaller outer rings a few too many inexperienced chefs in the kitchen can lead to much heartburn and grief.

The people involved in this particular small-town-project really want to have a great show (and I’m confident they will)!  But it’s been frustrating to see how frustrating the process was for them last year, and the relevance of their experiences might impact someone else out there who is determinedly working on a new play sans dramaturgical support – in which case, I say this: Do yourself a favor and get the support!  Writing is one thing, but writing in a pressure cooker of impending production and too many cooks is entirely another.  Don’t let just anyone lead you along the road to production – passion and dedication are 50% of the equation, but know-how, skill, and time make up the rest.  If you’ve got the location and you’ve got the money, don’t short change yourself on the material or the people helping you to birth it.

And don’t lose sight of your role and rights as playwright, composer, or lyrcisist. If you have questions about what those rights are, visit the Dramatists Guild website.

~Tiffany Antone

Little White Rabbit

playwriting, , , ,

I can’t help but feel a tad harried these days.  I’m directing/producing a new play festival this week (www.TheatricsTheatre.org), prepping to teach a teen summer workshop that begins next week, dramaturging & directing a new play that goes into rehearsals in two weeks with performances at the end of July, and gearing up to move to Texas one day after that show closes.

Woof.

No wonder “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important… EVERYTHING” keeps running through my head.

Which has me thinking about my tendency towards overload – I am overloaded.  A lot. – and what needs to be done about it.

I think it comes down to the delicate and sometimes vicious dance I have to do in order to pay the bills/feed my soul/maintain some semblance of ‘I’m making progress’ in my internal mantra.   I’ve got three practically-full-time jobs, yet only one of them actually pays the bills.  The other two feed my soul and sometimes buy me dinner or printer paper.  Yet I can’t stop any one of them without suffering some kind of potential (worst case scenario) outcome: becoming homeless, losing my mind, or killing my soul off one administrative gig at a time.

So I try to do it all.  And with each new tree-ring I acquire, I wonder more and more at how long I can honestly continue to “BE ALL THINGS!”  (which we all know isn’t really possible to begin with)

I have a friend who is getting ready to start up her own theater company in a thus-far company-less town in AZ.  She is a talented director, actress, and playwright – and I’ve no doubt she will rock this new theatre company like a boss.  But as I was listening to her layout her plans to pay her artists, I felt a cold creeping nagging feeling come over me – “How are you going to pay artists and stay afloat?  How can a company in its infancy expect to make enough money to make money for its artists?”  and  “What does it say about me that my first reaction is balls-out skepticism?”

I think it’s time for me to move out of the Land of the Creative-But-Financially Stumped, and I’m not ashamed to say that I will probably need some help vacating the shanty I’ve got held together with fly paper.  I’ve never taken a business class, I don’t know the first thing about getting an LLC, but I think I’m going to have to do both in order to carve out a more comfortable artistic niche for myself  – something that doesn’t include money-panic on a daily basis or absolute calendar overload – something that is actually IN the field I love and have studied/practiced at so tirelessly these past years.

Which is all to say that I’m looking forward to the impending move.  I’ve had a number of creative successes in Prescott – and I’m so honored to have been a part of the artistic scene here.  But I’m damned excited to start fresh somewhere else.  And no, I’m not returning to LA (thanks for hoping) – and yes, I know how we all feel about Texas –  but a fresh start is like a blank page: chock full of possibilities!

 

~Tiffany Antone

white rabbit

A fine romance, my friends this is

LAFPI, playwriting, Uncategorized, , ,

Sinatra sings “A Fine Romance”

Romance.

It’s everywhere. Or is it?

I’m looking for your thoughts on the genre of romantic comedy.

I’ve written a number of romantic plays. They usually involve broken relationships being put back together – or not. But as I look back at those plays, I find they’re all period pieces: 1870’s San Francisco, 1950’s New York, late ‘50’s Los Angeles. I’m now working on a romantic comedy set in present day Washington, DC. And I’m stuck.

In this cynical town, in our ironic age, I put on my Carrie Bradshaw hat and ask: “is there still such a thing as modern romance?”

Name your favorite rom/com – “Philadelphia Story,” “The Lady Eve,” “Roman Holiday” – all of an earlier era. Most current films in the rom/com genre are snarky. Or artificial and insincere. Or dark, like “Silver Linings Playbook.” But the success of that Oscar nominated film reflects an audience’s craving for real romantic comedies.

Which brings me to my current dilemma.

After slogging through “serious” plays, I decided I needed a break. I wanted to write something fun and romantic. It’s tougher than it looks.

Boy meets girl. That’s easy. They’re opposites in some ways. The verbal sparks fly. There’s some physical attraction, but because of their professional relationship, nothing happens. So how do you push them to that next level, both sexually and romantically? How do they tell that other person that they’re interested? How do you break down the physical walls? How does a modern couple admit they’re in love without it ringing hollow?

My writing pal Ellen says we’re afraid of writing true sentiment. Maybe we are. I cringe as I write self-described “sappy” scenes. (Ah, that horrid interior critic!) I’m embarrassed by my own work. Not because it’s bad writing, but because it’s mushy. And I haven’t even gotten to the tougher challenge: writing the physical stuff. Even my premise starts sounding stupid: “Pride and Prejudice” set on Capitol Hill.

I believe in romance. Certainly I lucked out and found a guy who likes to dance and laugh and remembers our anniversary. So I guess I’ve seen modern day romance in action. I know it’s out there.

So why is it so hard to make it work on the page?

What do you think? Is there such a thing as modern romance? How does it work for you on the page? Hints? Suggestions?

Riding the Red Eye…

LAFPI, Playwright, playwriting, , , , ,

Saturday, I took the Red Eye home to see my mother.  My sisters were not sure what was going on with her – one minute she was fine, the next she was disoriented and feverish.  I could hear nurses in the background, uneasiness in my sister’s voice and when I finally got to say hello to my mother she made absolutely no sense at all.  By the third call, I was looking online for a cheap flight – with all my almost points, that miraculously expire before I can use them, I was left to the mercy of Priceline and not much choice. So, I flew in for Mother’s Day, surprising my mother who was up and dressed – for a while.  By 6:30 pm we were on our way to the hospital where we stayed till about 2 am the next day when we put her in a room.  Getting Mother somewhat situated, thankful to the doctors and nurses at Methodist for connecting dots, ruling out, and genuinely caring, I was able to think about keeping the flight plan to return to LA.  Before my mother went to her room, she told me I looked like a “thug” with my scarf on my head, my leather jacket and the way I was standing, which made everyone laugh. To that she exclaimed she didn’t know I was so short.  More laughter.  She was “in” again.  She told me to come back later and stay longer.

I got to see nieces and nephews, all my sisters, the new baby and the green of Indiana.  Concrete filled Los Angeles seemed like a prison sentence and I was out on parole.  Air without exhaust fumes – who knew?  The speed limit is 55 mph on the highway, there are about four of them, a few overlap – 465 circles the city.  Go either way, you’ll get there eventually.  Not a lot of traffic – none if you compare it to the 405.

Spent the night (wee hours of the morning till my flight back to LA on Monday) talking with one of my sisters; got to see her new grandson.  Got to have some White Castle burgers, wish I had gotten to go to the (farmers) Market.  Sleep deprived, I drove off into the sunlight, promptly missed my exits had to turnaround three times, turned into incoming traffic, had to drive over the center divider because I couldn’t back up.  A miracle, I got to the airport on time and safe.

The whole three days of travel, I kept getting “that would make a good play” thoughts in response to something I saw or heard.  I had a chore staying present to visit with family while waiting on results of tests for my mother.  But, I’m a writer so I am aware of story even when I am preoccupied.  Story can be triggered by anything – the visual, sounds, emotions…

My mother always asks me what I am working on.  She gets real excited when I say I am researching things.  She has every confidence in my gift.  My regret is that she wasn’t well enough and there wasn’t enough “in” time for me to read her some poetry.

I found story on my journey, none of which will pass the “b” test but if I, as playwright – because I am female, am not only limited by the male dominated theater-world but also by the female constituency because of the content of my work, who gains?  Art should not be held under dictatorship.  I have a distinct voice and my stories are universal in scope.  I am a playwright, I am of color and I am a woman and I tell damn good stories.  I face racism daily – in America – and must shake it off like sand continually.  Truth be told, when I send out my work, I don’t think I may not get picked because I am a female, I think “I hope they don’t ask for a picture then they will know I am of color”.  I have to decide whether or not to send a play that would be considered too ethnic.  I have to say on conference submissions whether or not the characters have to be played by ethnic actors which in some cases can limit or put one out of the running altogether.  I count yellow/brown/red faces on theater company rosters to see if my work will even be looked at in the first place.  I had an actress read a page from one of my works who was shocked when I told her I wrote it for a blond-haired blue-eyed woman, just like her.  She liked the universal story but had assumed the character was written as a woman of color because I am a woman of color.

I want to tell my stories as I find them, how I hear and see them and be able to take them straight through to the next level based on their substance and craft, not my lack of a dick and my failing of the “b” test no matter how many times I take it.

As a habit, I write through the night, so in a sense, I am always riding the Red Eye…

How To Make Theatre Contagious

Audience, Playwright, playwriting, viral content, , ,

A Guest Post by Laura A. Shamas

With so many entertainment options available now, the question is: How can we encourage interest in theatre so it will thrive in the twenty-first century?

Recently, I read a bestselling book Contagious: Why Things Catch On. It’s written by Jonah Berger, a professor of marketing at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Although Contagious is written as a marketing primer, I was struck by how much of it was applicable to theatre and to the arts in general.

It’s hard to determine what makes things popular today. Berger writes that it’s not merely the quality, the pricing, or the advertising of the projects/products that catch on. He reports that although we spend a great deal of time online, only 7% of word-of-mouth happens via Internet-related channels: “We tend to overestimate online word-of-mouth because it’s easier to see.” Social media may display the interests and activities we’ve chosen to share, so the record is available at a glance, but the activities we have offline are just as important and are just as influential. Most of us do not have the time to respond to every update or tweet. When Berger polled his college students, he found that less than 10% of their friends responded to a message they’d posted online. He reminds us “that Facebook and Twitter are technologies, not strategies.”

So what does work? Berger has found six principles that make things “go wide.” Berger describes the anatomy of virality, although not all components are necessary for each and every case of a popular share. These ideas are easily remembered in the acronym “STEPPS”:

1) Social Currency.
2) Triggers.
3) Emotion.
4) Public.
5) Practical Value.
6) Stories.

1) SOCIAL CURRENCY. Do you know insider info that makes you seem cool? Can you share something that you know will be considered “remarkable” or unique? If so, you will share it; it’s human nature. Berger underscores that we find it “pleasurable” to talk about our interests and attitudes. This makes us “look good,” Berger says; it gives us social stature.

Breaking patterns that others have come to expect also gives us social currency, like doing something in a novel, unexpected way. Leveraging game mechanics (by allowing others to see how well we do in a points system, as with airline miles or Foursquare) is another way to gain currency because games motivate us via “social comparison.” We measure our scores next to our friends’ tallies.

Making people feel like “insiders” also boosts their social currency; this is done by giving scarce, unique, exclusive offers to customers or clients.

Berger’s thoughts on social currency made me think about current theatre practices. Theatres have long used “special pre-show receptions,” a chance to preview a show, or even an opportunity to attend certain rehearsals to give subscribers “insider” cachet, such as in Arena Stage’s Theater 101 class.

But what more could we, as theater professionals, do to promote “remarkability” and innovation? Mixed Blood Theatre’s egalitarian Radical Hospitality is a recent idea that breaks previous patterns related to how theater is “sold” to an audience. Or how about doing a play in one’s living room for only twelve people at a time? What else can be done that’s surprising to change the ways in which theater is experienced today?

What can a specific play do that is “remarkable,” completely surprising, or new?

2) TRIGGERS. Daily, we each share about 16 or more opinions about an organization, product, or service, Berger says. That’s a lot of “word-of-mouth.” Why do we do it? Timing is everything.

Something in the environment “triggers” our need to share. Did you know the sales of Mars bars escalated during the 1997 NASA Pathfinder’s mission? Or that Rebecca Black’s 2011 hit song “Friday” always got more YouTube hits on that actual day of the week than any other? These are examples of “triggers” that resonate in our everyday lives.

Berger explains that even negative reviews can be positive for business, if the reviews introduce a project’s existence by giving it press.

If you want to lay the groundwork for triggers for your product, you can “grow its habitat,” according to Berger, “by creating new links to stimuli in the environment.”  This can be done by directing attention to related messages or associated ideas in your project’s arena. The more often you can make a project come to mind, the better.

In this chapter, Berger notes that movie theaters depend on immediate word-of-mouth, as weekly box office reports convey.

But it is also true that ongoing word-of-mouth or “repeat business” helps to drive entertainment sales. So I wonder: How do we “grow a habitat” for theatre? Is it related to the DNA (or identity) of a specific theater or should it always be more play-specific? Or both? How do you grow a habitat for a new play? What are the environmental “triggers” needed? What is the relationship between the cultural zeitgeist and the community in terms of “triggers” that may need to be seeded and tended?

3) EMOTION. Theatre artists already know this axiom: “When we care, we share.” But Berger attaches a component to emotion that goes beyond empathy/sympathy: awe. This was my favorite part of Berger’s book, as he discusses our love of mystery and “the experience of confronting something greater than yourself” which enlarges one’s own “point of reference.”

This section reminded me of works in depth psychology, where awe is seen as part of the numinous or “mysterium tremendum,” the transcendent spiritual force that both attracts and repels.

Berger cites Albert Einstein’s idea that the mysterious is the power of “all true art and science.” I’ve been in “awe” in the theater many times: in awe of excellence of artistry and aesthetics, in awe at the brilliance of execution, in awe of the communal act of artists joined together onstage to produce drama. Berger’s emphasis on the importance of “awe” as an emotion really rang true for me as an artist. Yes, awe-inspiring projects catch on!

We feel affinity for those with whom we’ve shared emotions and secrets, but also with those who make us laugh, according to Berger. If you can crack me up—well, now we’re connected.

The science of “physiological arousal,” an active state in which we’re ready to move or react as needed, is at the core of why emotion matters in virality. Berger uses the image of “kindling a fire” as a metaphor to express emotion as a marketing force. He also reports that exercise (jogging, walking) promotes more emotional sharing.

In theatre, we’ve long known that emotion is what drives human beings. Berger’s exercise discussion made me think of interactive theater like Sleep No More. There’s always a lot of well-deserved buzz about shows that require the audience to move. Does walking around or being physically active while viewing a show contribute to the audience’s desire to spread the word post-show?

4) PUBLIC. Is your project publically visible? We imitate the behavior of others. Can we observe other people supporting your project? Berger reports that we mimic the behavior of others because it provides information about how to live: “social proof.” If others are eating at that restaurant, it must be good. (I wonder if it’s also related to the idea of crowd-sourcing.)

Where do most people put their theatre tickets? Away, in pockets, purses. One idea that Berger suggests directly about theatre is intriguing: “…if theater companies and minor league teams could use buttons or stickers as the ‘ticket,’ instead, ‘tickets’ would be much more publicly observable.”

Berger also explores the concept of “behavioral residue,” something that lasts after the experience. That made me reflect further: certainly, shirts and swag promoting a show should be categorized as part of this.

5) PRACTICAL VALUE. Berger calls this component “news you can use.” Is your project part of a money-saving “deal”? Is there valuable information to impart? Can it help get a discount? Berger suggests that the precept of “practical value” may be the easiest to apply.

To apply “Practical Value” to theatre-making: we certainly award discounted tickets for Student or Early Rush, or preview sales. There’s a financial “deal” aspect to that, as producers have known for a long time.

But is there another way to explore the concept of “practical value”? Can we make the case for the necessity for the arts (art, music, theater, dance, literature)? Can we show it’s not practical to live without them? Is there a way to impart to twenty-first century audiences that art is “fit for action,” as the etymology of “practical” shows?

6) STORIES. Berger begins this final chapter by relaying the story of Odysseus and the Trojan Horse, a Greek myth that has been retold for thousands of years. It has a message; it’s a good narrative. Berger then uses that myth as a metaphor for the function of story relatable to products and brands: a good story may contain valuable information more entertainingly told, and thus, is more memorable, more sustainable.

Berger believes that a product should construct a “carrier narrative” shell that will get people talking, like the Trojan Horse itself. He also cautions that this narrative should be embedded to the plot, so that it’s directly related to the product—not tangential.

The element of story is easy to connect to theatre-making. Writers certainly know something about “story as vessel” for information, since we often struggle with how to artfully hide exposition in a good tale. We know about the value of story, whether for a one-person show or an ensemble.

But what is the story of a specific project? Often, we limit promotional narratives to the bios of the creators, or an issue that brought the creative team to the project. What if you can create “the story” of a play in performance in order to attract an audience, as a meta-narrative? Should the show have its own origin story?

Berger ends Contagious with an epilogue and a checklist, and the good news that you don’t need a big budget to apply these steps to make your project “go viral.”

As we seek audiences for our art, perhaps some of Berger’s ideas can point the way towards imagining a more “contagious” future for theatre artists and audiences.

Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger, published by Simon and Schuster, New York, 2013.

To see author Jonah Berger discuss Contagious: Why Things Catch On and each aspect in detail, click here.

Laura A. Shamas is a co-founder of LA FPI and currently volunteers as an Outreach Agent.