Category Archives: playwriting

Two Hundred Grand and Silliness

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This week, I am lucking out on playwright news items. First, it was the Drama Book Shop, then Eve Ensler, then yesterday, a director friend sent me a link to a news item about David Henry Hwang winning a two hundred grand playwriting award. When are you gonna get yours? She asked in a half-joking/half-serious way which I translate as God I hate my day job.

I’m glad someone somewhere is giving playwrights a bucketful of cash. In fact, more people should give playwrights cash. Just give us money. We promise not to spend it on frivolous things like houses.

I just realized that the three news items I dealt with this week were about exhibitionism, rape, and money. How very American.

But enough of current events. I have a blogging plan, and I must follow it. I wanted to talk about a very serious topic, silliness.

Sometimes I’m writing along and singing my song, and I come up with an idea that is just plain silly. Decades of writing have taught me not to fear the silly. If an idea seems silly, I just go with it.

Over the years, I have encountered people who fear the silly. They don’t like silliness. It’s irrational. It’s too childish. Not serious. Everyone knows that theatre should be serious. Who would pay a hundred bucks to see something silly?

As playwrights, we like it when people think we’re smart. We like it when our writing shows off our intelligence and learning. However, we don’t have to be intelligent all the time. We’re not negotiating world peace or finding a cure for a disease. We’re writing plays. We can dive into the irrational.

As a theatre goer, I don’t always want to see logical plays with everything laid out smoothly. Let’s have some fun. Let’s get the folks to laugh so hard they spill red wine on their dry-cleaned shirts.

If you really want to have folks lose control, make them laugh. Pies in the face still work. Walking into walls is still hilarious. Stumbles, prat falls, or an odd farm animal.

The odder and sillier it gets, the more the audience will laugh for more.

 

How Much Is That Playwright In the Window?

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Usually a week before my blog week on LAFPI, I open up the yellow idea folder and start compiling the blog postings. I try to find a nice mix of entertainment, theory, criticism, and stuff that’s happening to me.

Last week, a really nice bloggable topic fell out of the New York Times and into my lap. The article in Saturday’s Times was about the Drama Book Shop having playwrights sit in their front window and work.

Perfect! I thought. I loved the absurdism of it.

Then, I realized that it was a sincere project.

Oh, you’ve got be kidding. I thought.

But the New York Times does not kid.

The project is called Playwright Working (which reminds me of Dead Man Walking), and Playwrights sit for two hours at a time in the window and work or browse facebook or play spider solitaire. Yes, it’s playwriting as reality TV without the TV part.

Am I jealous that these writers get to show the world how they pursue the glamorous art of playwriting? Uhm. No.

I wonder how much performing instead of actual writing the playwrights are doing. In such a situation, I would not be writing. I would be Jen pretending to write. In other words, I would be acting. Why would I want to do that? Acting is even less glamorous than playwriting. You have to put a lot of junk on your face when you act.

The whole reason I became a writer was that I didn’t want to deal with people. If it works for some writers, fine. Personally, I would rather write alone. I can play with my hair.

Hello Again Hello

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Happy Week one hundred and twenty three, LAFPI Blog!!! Woohoo! Has this blog really been up for over two years? I swear, it doesn’t look a day over six months.

When I first started blogging for LAFPI, I figured I would stop when I ran out of ideas. Well, this is my eleventh time blogging here, and I’m still going. I wonder how many times I have to blog in order to get an LAFPI baseball cap.

My playwriting coffee has been percolating nicely. Last month, I traveled to Prescott, Arizona for yet another theatrical extravaganza produced by Tiffany Antone (producer, playwright, fellow LAFPI blogger, and the more I know her, the more I am tempted to put the words, ‘the great’ in front of her name).

My short play, POP, a meditation on the financial crisis told with balloons, was part of an evening of short plays called From the Mouths of Babes. It was great fun returning toPrescott for a second time and seeing folks I hadn’t seen in a year.

POP was directed by Cason Murphy who directed my play last year. Once again, he made a production that was dynamic and exciting. I just sat back and delighted in it. It was a moment in time that happened and then popped like a balloon. Yes, it was good. I was a happy playwright.

Cason also wrote about directing my plays, and you can read his words here.

This week, I plan to put up new posts every day Monday through Friday this week, so check back for more playwriting fun. I promise there will be no posts about how difficult it is to write because it’s August and too darn hot for any of that.

Enjoying the Howl

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Short plays… who loves short plays?  I’ve been working with them a lot lately.  I just wrapped up a female playwrights festival in Prescott (next year’s submission process will open up to LAFPI writers – so stay in touch with us on Facebook), I’m in the middle of developing another short play fest for December, and I’m writing a short play each month this summer for HowlRound.com’s Here and Now Project.

The funny thing is that I used to hate short plays – I didn’t feel like there was ever enough time in a 10 minute play to get the story told.  Maybe it’s because I was trying to say too much, or maybe it’s because I was still a new writer and I didn’t really understand the value of brevity.  Whatever the cause, my aversion to the form has melted away and I am now a major fan… because it’s seriously challenging to write a whole play in 10 minutes!  Much of the time I wind up thinking “What comes next” at the close of ten pages rather than satisfaction and catharsis.  However, I’m finding that when I do strike it right, the sense of accomplishment is delicious.

And when I watched this year’s female playwright’s fest in Prescott – From the Mouths of Babes – I felt such happiness as the completion of the whole… made up of each individual playwright’s part – that I could scarce believe I used to loathe the 10 minute play format.

But maybe what’s most rewarding for me is the producibility of 10 minute plays.  They’re easy to rehearse, easy to stage, and audiences get a kick out of seeing new writers in small doses… almost like a dinner party with lots of appetizers.  I now totally understand why theater companies put out so many calls for short plays – they get to know new writers without committing to an expensive full-length production – something that can be frustrating as a playwright, but makes sense from a company standpoint.

Also, I’ve grown really tired of wrestling with the eternal “WHEN is  SOMEONE going to PRODUCE my plays!?” ennui .  The thing about producing on my own is that I feel like I’m actually doing something other than waiting.  And hopefully it’s satisfying to the other playwrights getting produced as well.

In any case, it’s an interesting way to start the week… reflecting on the magic of short plays and the satisfaction of seeing them on their feet.  Hopefully the  Here and Now Project plays will see some stage life soon too – either way, it’s been great to work on so many 10-minute plays this summer… and it’s left me feeling really good about finishing up the full-length that’s been haunting me for the past several months – it’s a sense of accomplishment that I was sorely missing.

Because it’s really important to remind yourself that you don’t just have to sit around and wait…

Did you hear that?

Stop.  Waiting.  Now.

🙂

Fringing With Form 3: Silken Veils

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the poster we mention in first video

Leila Ghazvani has infectious energy. In the really awesome way.

I met her last May (also at Indy Convergence, which may be a coincidence or just proof at how awesome it is) and was sad to hear she didn’t still live in Los Angeles. She worked until the wee hours, waiting until the very last minute, literally, sometimes prying her work away from hands while staff had to lock the doors.

She explores stories and form with puppets. Don’t be fooled by the puppets that look familiar in this screenshot. She demos how materials and hands alone act out her stories.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a check-in I had with her last Monday on Silken Veils, which she’ll present at the Philly Fringe Festival in September.

Follow her in Facebook and at her website.

Fringing With Form 2: Project 1979

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Another inspiration to me right now is Alice Venessa Bever, who is re-inventing the theatrical experience. Her project Project 1979 is long-form journalism, nostalgia and performance. She’s getting inside the question: How does the way 30somethings grew up affect everyone in the world today?

She began her process at the Indy Convergence last May (where I work as Resident Artist) and has since traveled and broadcast performances/salons throughout Europe. I work with her as the Online Storyteller for each broadcast since Brussels, moderating comments and eliciting questions and conversations through Twitter, Facebook and UStream.

Did I mention there is always Flashdance?

 

 

Here is a check-in we had where I asked her questions over chat and she answered via her UStream.

 

Video streaming by Ustream

Really, follow her @project1979 &  on Facebook. Her last London salon centered around HIV/AIDS, and was very interesting to talk with people around the world while listening to their experiences. It really made me share and consider how HIV/AIDS affected my life.

Some of the questions she asks consistently are:

What inspires you?

When do you remember hearing about HIV/AIDS for the first time?

What is your sense of home?

Join into the conversation!

http://project1979.wordpress.com
http://www.project1979.com

on a pilgrimage and quest

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My transmedia series MYTHistories has its own pilgrimage, from the very first time the idea popped into my head to one of the segments I will finish during a writing date I have tonight with my friend Bree. Here are a few videos that helped shape my revisions while I work-shopped one piece to the MYTHistories puzzle at The Indy Convergence.

I ask people 2 questions:

1. What do you think of when you hear the word pilgrimage?
2. Do you feel like you are on a pilgrimage?

Please comment with your answers below, either typing it or a video response!
Puppeteer Leila Ghazvani responds and has a strange discovery towards the end:

 

Writer Sarah H Moon responds while we prepare for tech:

 

Dancer & Choreographer Sarah Weber Gallo responds while wearing one of her props:

Now it’s your turn:

What do you think of when you hear the word pilgrimage?

Do you feel like you are on any sort of pilgrimage?

 Comment below or send me a link to your own video interview.

Watch more Pilgrimage videos here

End Results…

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Sometimes, things fall through the cracks.  Sometimes the hard journey through the cracks is the best one that can be taken as an artist. Enduring the pull and stretch can be just what is needed to help create a fresh perspective or an authentic moment that can take art to the next level.

 …the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither is bread to the wise nor riches to men of intelligence and understanding nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. [Ecclesiastes 9:11]

Time and chance happens to us all — an equalizer of sorts.   Knowing that, it is a little easier to decide that no matter what we go after, we have the right to expect the end result to take us some place intriguing – some place that will allow us to grow.   We must remember that how we view our world has a lot to do with how we manage in our world.  One can be so wrapped up in the circumstances that the result can be overshadowed.  But end results are like mistakes, everyone makes them; it is not if you will make a mistake but when you make a mistake, it’s how you recover that matters most.

So, the best results can come after the worst experiences as lack luster ones can come after the greatest fanfare.  However they come, one must be aware and celebrate them.  Or, you’ll miss the fact that after days on edge trying to cast your play for a reading, you have the best talkback of your life.  Does the struggle overshadow the win?  It shouldn’t.  Does the win overshadow the struggle?  It should.

I just had a  reading at a festival that was a challenge getting everything in place.  However, the last minute casting got me actors and non actors that really felt my play and discussed it up to an hour after the reading.  And they went deep — both actors and audience members.

I came away feeling that I had conquered the world…  The end result made it all worth it.  I think had there not been a challenge, in this instance, my end result would have been less spectacular…and less exactly what I needed to for my piece.

Mary Steelsmith Goes To Sweden

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When: August 15 – 20, 2012
Where: Riksteatern, Stockholm, Sweden
What: The 9th Women Playwrights International Conference
Why:  From the WPIC website: “The conference will be an opportunity to meet and to create genuine, lasting contacts between women playwrights and other theatre professionals. The conference’s aim is to have a supporting impact on collaboration and to build bridges between people from different parts of the world.”
Who: Women playwrights from around the world, including LA FPI’s own Mary Steelsmith.
Mary’s play Isaac, I am will be featured at WPIC 2012 on Saturday afternoon, August 18, 2012.

Award-winning dramatist Mary Steelsmith and her highly-lauded play Isaac, I am will be featured at the upcoming 2012 Women Playwrights International Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.  It’s a six-day conference with international focus, filled with lectures, workshops, and most of all, performances of works by women. This year’s theme is “The Democratic Stage.” The WPI Conference moves around the world: it’s held every three years in a different city. In 2015, it will be held in Cape Town, South Africa. For more on Women Playwrights International, and to join, visit their website.

107 plays from around the world will be featured at WPIC 2012, and Mary is thrilled: “What an honor it is to have Isaac, I am chosen to be presented at this conference! The opportunity to meet with and learn from so many female dramatists from other countries and cultures is a rare and wonderful one. While it will be an expensive journey, the experience of this conference in beautiful Stockholm will be priceless.” Only fourteen women playwrights from the U.S. were selected to attend. (To see the complete list of selected plays and playwrights, click here.)

Steelsmith’s Isaac, I am is a story of love, life, death and AOL. A winner of the Helford Prize (and she’s only female playwright to win it), Steelsmith also lists productions of Isaac, I am at the Racounteur Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, and most recently, here in Los Angeles at the Women’s Theatre Organization at the University of Southern California.

Steelsmith has won other playwriting awards, including the Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition and the Hewlett-Packard Action Theatre Prize (Singapore).

Would you like to help Mary Steelsmith get to Sweden? On Saturday, July 14, 2012, 2 p.m., there’s a benefit performance of 5 short plays by Steelsmith  at Vidiots Video, 302 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA, 90402. She’s also selling copies of her work on Amazon.

For more info, go to marysteelsmith.com.

A Love Vaccine: Believers by Patricia Milton

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One of my favorite writing subjects is myth and fairy tale adaptation. Robin Byrd, whose new play The Grass Widow’s Son is part of the DC Black Theatre Festival on 6/28/12, kindly blogged here about a talk that I gave on the topic at the Dramatists Guild National Conference last year.

Award-winning Bay Area playwright Patricia Milton has a new comedy opening in August in San Francisco titled Believers. It’s a fairy tale adaptation, and sounds fascinating—about a love vaccine. I interviewed Patricia via e-mail to learn more about her new show and her fairy tale adaptation process.

Q: Please tell us about your new play Believers. What’s it about?

Milton: In a remote pharmaceutical lab, brain researcher Rockwell Wise works to develop a love vaccine so he will never again suffer the pain of heartbreak. His ex-lover Grace Wright shows up to lead his drug development team, bringing her own agenda — her plan to create a love activator. Their maneuvers to achieve their own aims result in unexpected side effects.

Q: A love vaccine. What sparked the idea? How’d you come up with it?

Milton: I read an article in the NY Times about the brain synapses involved in romantic love, and was intrigued by the article’s assertion that if a love vaccine were made, there is already a large market for it. I immediately wanted to write about this: I think it is funny and touching to follow a protagonist whose desperate, heartfelt goal is totally wrong for her or him. I wanted to adapt a fairy tale as a couple’s backstory. I also was eager to explore the notion of pharmaceutical side effects. Brain-altering drugs are a boon for many people, but when their side effects are ignored or concealed, there are tragic results. In a similar way, sometimes our own actions produce unintended consequences that hurt the ones we love.

Q: Sounds like so many people can relate to this play! When did you start it and what’s your development process been like?

Milton: I’ve been working on it for about two years. I developed it in several writers workshops, including at Playwrights Foundation and Central Works writing group. It has had three public readings: at Playwrights Center of San Francisco, Playwrights Revolution, Capital Stage Company, Sacramento, and Wily West Productions, San Francisco. From the last reading, Wily West decided to produce it. As a side note, the Playwrights Revolution reading was directly as a result of Twitter: Stephanie Gularte, artistic director of Capital Stage, read my tweet about the play and asked to read it.

Q: That’s great that social media helped you get a reading. Speaking of readings, what’s their value in terms of a play’s development?

Milton: I learned so much from each reading. Believers is a comedy, so sitting in the middle of the theatre, listening for the laughter, told me a lot about what was working in terms of what was funny. The play explores a complex mash-up of ideas, and has an intricate plot, so I asked a lot of questions in talk-backs to make sure audiences were following the action. There’s still some juicy ambiguity, but the action has become clearer with each rewrite.

Q: Believers is based on a fairy tale. Please tell us about your fairy tale adaptation process.

Milton: Fairy tales are fascinating to me: layered, deep, and speaking directly to the unconscious. Many of the fairy tales we know here in the U.S. have been “Disney-ized,” removing some of the darker elements.  In “The Frog King,” a princess promises to love the Frog King forever and ever if he will rescue her gold ball from a pond. When he delivers the ball, she refuses to keep her promise. Now, many of us know a version where the princess kisses the frog to change him into a prince. But in the fairy story I found, the princess changes him by throwing the frog against a wall!  To me, this version is not about physical violence. It depicts the power of love to completely, often fiercely and uncomfortably, shatter our psyche as it transforms us. I was challenged to figure out how Grace “throws Rocky against the wall” to bring him to his fully realized self. One other aspect of the play is that the frog is both a religious symbol (as in Egypt’s plague) and a fairy tale symbol. I was prompted to explore the apocalyptic side of the frog as well as its fairy tale side.

Q: Any thoughts on writing comedy you can share with us?

Milton: I want to put in a good word for romantic comedies. For centuries, all comedies were romantic comedies. Hollywood, with its frequent use of stale formulas and generic couples, has somewhat tarnished the rom-com. I’m doing my part to reclaim the genre for smart people. I’d like to also make a plug for Wily West: a fantastic production company, employing talented women artists like our director, Sara Staley, Lead Designer Quinn Whitaker, and Executive Producer Laylah Muran de Assereto, as well as many other talented actors and design professionals. Founded by Morgan Ludlow, Wily West Productions produces only local SF Bay Area playwrights.

Q) A female-driven production company? We certainly want to support that. Thanks, Patricia, for all the good information. Congratulations and we can’t wait to hear more about your show.

Wily West Productions presents the world premiere apocalyptic comedy, BELIEVERS, by Patricia Milton, directed by Sara Staley. August 2-25, 2012. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8 p.m. at StageWerx, 466 Valencia Street, between 15th and 16th Streets, San Francisco. For more information: www.wilywestproductions.com