Category Archives: playwriting

How to Hang Out with Female Playwrights

Playwright, playwriting

Last weekend in Prescott, when I wasn’t watching my own play, soaking in a Jacuzzi, or poking around the local Salvation Army thrift store, I was hanging out with the other women playwrights.

Because what happens in Prescott stays in Prescott, I won’t air all the Dirty Laundry details. However, I did notice some interesting things about this flock of nine playwrights who all happened to be female.

Since members of the other gender might be curious about how to deal with such a gathering of women who write plays, I’ve decided to raise the curtain on female playwrights.

First of all, female playwrights like to shop. Yep, we like the shopping. Now, shopping is not to be confused with buying. Still, I think our presence did good things for the economic index of Prescott.

Second, female playwrights like to drink adult beverages. We might all drink different adult beverages, but we really appreciated drinking adult beverages of quality.

Third, female playwrights complement each other. During performances, there was a lot of tapping and whispering and giggling in the playwright section.

Fourth, female playwrights ask a lot of questions. I like to ask questions in conversation, and I soon realized that I was around people who also asked questions in conversation. At some point, I just started making statements.

So if you are thinking of producing a Women’s Playwriting Festival, just be aware of these four things, and you should do well.

And on that bombshell, I come to end of another playwright blogging week. Good night!

No Such Thing As Failure

playwriting

As I strive to create a warm and fuzzy wuzzy theatre, I try to keep it all in the positive.

However, I find it very difficult to keep in the positive even though I live in three hundred days of sunshine and seventy degrees. Still the torture chamber of darkness and despair in my brain sometimes surfaces at inopportune times. 

Recently I was having lunch with an actress friend. She’s one of those actresses that writers dream about. She’s smart and talented. Anyway, she told me about an acting workshop she took which wasn’t really a fit for her. She went in with the best of intentions but the facilitator turned out to be an asshole. It happens.

After she told her tale of woe, she felt bad for how it all worked out. She felt like she had failed in some way. At that moment, I had a career epiphany.

My friend had not failed. There’s no such thing as failure in the theatre. It just didn’t work out. Because it just didn’t work out, you can’t really say anything majorly bad about the experience. It just didn’t work out, then move on to the next thing and the thing after that.

Tomorrow, the fuzzy wuzziness continues with Dirty Laundry. It’s not just about socks anymore.

Feedback is not just about speakers

Home, playwriting

Hello again

I just got back yesterday from Prescott, Arizona where my short play, Rinse, was produced at a women’s playwriting festival called Dirty Laundry put together by the great Tiffany Antone.  I will talk about Dirty Laundry a little later this week. In the meantime, you can also check out the Little Black Dress website to learn more about it.

Today’s subject is feedback.

I am a genius, and I like to be praised.

 Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I will talk about feedback.

We live in a time when we are surrounded by dramatic writing. Film reviews talk about a weak third act. TV watchers blog about character arch. Everyone knows about conflict, conflict, conflict!

I think it’s cool that everyone knows how a basic story works and can rationally explain emotional catharsis. It makes me freer to break from convention to draw in an audience and reach dramatic completion.

I don’t mind feedback. I’ll either use or not. I don’t mind dumb feedback because it reflects more on the relative intelligence of the feedbacker rather than the work itself.

Recently a friend praised the feedback I give to other writers. He went on and on about how precise and articulate my comments were. He praised my intelligence. Since I am a genius and like to be praised, I let him go on and on.

 This also led me to think about feedback. How can feedback be intelligent?

Wayyyy back in the late 90s, I was part of the Womens Project Playwrights Lab in New York. We had a specific way of handling feedback, and I adapted it as my own. It was a method developed by someone outside of the Lab, and if anyone could tell me whose method this is, I will happily give credit where credit is due.

The writer presents the work. Then, there is only praise. I liked this and I liked that. It should be specific. After the praise, the second part of the feedback is questions. Who, what, where, when, why? Most criticism of work in development is in the form of a question anyway, so it makes sense. Instead of saying that makes no sense, the feedbacker asks why. Usually the question part of feedback takes a long time because it leads to discussion. The third and final part of the feedback involves general comments. Since most of the criticisms become questions, the third part is usually quick. Someone might want to really specify a point. Someone might want to return to an area worthy of praise. Since comments are intended to be conclusive, it forces the feedbackers to be specific.

I still try to use this form when giving feedback. Intelligent feedback is not about my intelligence. It’s about the work.

How can one become a more intelligent feedbacker? I would say read a lot and watch a lot, so new forms and ideas are not so strange.

How can a writer receive intelligent feedback? Well, unfortunately, you can’t control other people’s minds (I’ve tried, it doesn’t work). I show early drafts to people I trust. Then, I have the next ring of people who read the piece once it’s gone a little further.

For the plays, I also have actors I trust. I can learn a lot about a character from five minutes with a smart actor. By the way, smart actors are geniuses and like praise too.

Go-Go-Gadget Brain

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I drove home from rehearsal last night, my brain firing off lists like nobody’s business – Program, DVD, Certificates, Monk’s, Forks, Fruit, Sound, Tech (!), Blog, Blog, Blog…

So I got home and stuffed my mouth with a ChocoTaco and set down to tidy up a few things on that list before my lids revolted and permanently shut down for the night, in the hopes that I could get a handle on it all somehow…

What is it that drives me to continually engineer means to be busy?  I look around at my “Civilian” friends who have their evenings free to eat at the table, watch t.v. and help the kids with their homework and I think “Am I just crazy?”

Or is it part of the artist’s path that s/he may not be satisfied until her/his work is out there… in the world… making some kind of imprint…

I woke up this morning after dreams about tornados and long, treacherous hallways (thank you subconscious) with that list-making brain already back in full gear, and noticed -forming at the bottom of that list – were fresh thoughts about the next big “What if…” project.

Umm, I might be obsessed.

Which may be why I’m so tired.

See, I started LittleBlackDressINK out of my frustration with waiting… it felt like, as a playwright, I was always waiting for a reading, or a production – and (to be honest) although readings are fun, I’ve had about all of them I can cheer about and now just experience them as the observational meet and greets they mostly are – for very rarely does it seem the reading is being held to weigh in on possible production.  (If you haven’t read Outrageous Fortune yet, they talk extensively about the realities of what many of us call “Development Hell” and it’s seriously fascinating to hear from both other playwrights AND theatre companies on this subject)

Which isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy readings – I do, I do.  I just attend them with my writing ears on and little expectation beyond some new business cards in my pocket and rewrites on my mind.

Meanwhile, I’m hungry for stage time.

So it seemed the obvious step to carve some out for myself.

Yet… the hat-juggling of working a “real” job, plus producing/directing a show, plus the numerous other projects I have running simultaneously (I’m in the midst of managing some theatrical marketing for an upcoming event and I edit two other blogs) does make me wonder when I’ll tire of this circus life and…

…Settle down?

(shiver)

Doesn’t it manifest a “Throw in the Towel” type vibe when you read that?

But will I ever be able to truly support myself on my writing alone?

Will I ever be able to truly be satisfied with a teaching gig and some writing time in the summer?

Will things change when I finally tie my wagon to another’s and start popping out tots of my own?

Or am I too hard wired for motion?  Too geared for hurdle-jumping, to ever truly slow down to a snails pace, and get back to just “Waiting”?

It’s probabaly all a little too much to be thinking about at the moment- I’ve got a mountain of things to check off that list today and scant time for little else – but still, it lingers…

It lingers along with loud dreams of the next “What if?”

~Tiffany Antone

Words, words; rolling…

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Someone once said to me – well, alright, actually it’s been said to me many a time but I remember quite clearly at least the first time I heard it – that I write “with a lot of rhythm.”  At the time I think I nodded dumbly, and tried to feel good about what seemed to be a compliment but was something I hadn’t really thought all that much about as I wrote… it seemed strange to receive a compliment on something that I had no awareness of.

They were right of course… as I listened to the actors digging into and discovering the play, there was an amazing sense of rhythm and musicality to the language of the piece, and now I realize that the rhythm of a word or a combination of words has a lot to do with whether or not I’ll use it/them (or opt for silence) in my work.

Word selection, it would seem, has become as as serious for me as selecting the right wine, your child’s name, or which freeway to take during rush hour…

In other words, I take it pretty damn serious, but I also try to maintain a healthy sense of humor.

Because I have yet to meet an actor who hasn’t had to (on occasion) rearrange some portion of my text to suit his/her mouth.

Now, I used to act, and so I understand that sometimes getting your brain to remember a line that has been composed in such a way as to feel as comfortable in your mouth as a cheese grater, can be damn near impossible.  I understand that sometimes an actor winds up spitting out the subtext of a line or some mutant hybrid instead of the original…

And as a playwright who understands actors but who is still a pretty persnickety wordsmith, I’ve learned to pick my battles on which lines are truly crucial to the rhythm of the thing and which can survive a few… abuses.

But I still wonder if, although they are treating the play with much reverence and care, an actor realizes the value of the words themselves (and their order) to the playwright… or if it is only I that see them as a magical, swelling, and lyrical recipe that must be said in the correct order and pairings, lest they loose their power and cast (instead) only a murkish sort-of spell…

And now I’m in the unique position of directing my own play for the Dirty Laundry fest, and I’m battling with myself on the merit of nit-picking vs. focusing on the cohesive whole…

That said, when I find myself bristling and silently screaming inside at some liberty taken with my text, I take a breath and gently task the actor with getting it right, even if we have to work the beat several times or break down the text line by line to get their brains to accept it as written rather than letting them put it in their own words.  It’s avery interesting internal battle indeed to juggle egos (theirs and mine) with productivity and specificity.

And it’s taught me a lot about balancing expectations with function as well.

However, just because it might be fun to compare notes, here are my top three pet peeves in the line department:

  • Don’t start every line with “Look” or “But” or “Well”… This is an actor trick that I DESPISE…  Either they get stuck and need a second to recall the line,  or they don’t quite understand the transition that brought them there so they add a beat of their own wordage to “help” themselves with, and if left unchecked it turns the whole thing into a play about humming and hawing.
  • Don’t reduce poetry to “comfortable” language…  Sometimes an actor will come across a more complex line than they themselves would use and instead of mastering it, they alter it to suit their tongues.  “I left to fetch flowers” becomes “I went to get flowers” and I sit there and bemoan the lost mood of the line and silently curse the actor for their clumsy murder of my alliterative text, even though the same basic point has been made.  To me, the care I take in selecting my words mean the difference between craftsmanship and an “anyone can write a play” vibe.  There is very little in my characters mouths that I didn’t put there carefully and with specific intent.
  • Don’t blast through beats.  I use a lot of beats in my plays.  I hate when actors (or directors) try to fly through them – even if a director decides a “Beat” need not be illustrated on stage with time, they risk missing important shifts in power, emotion, intent, thought, etc. if they don’t take the time to ask “Why is the playwright adding a beat here between these lines?  What happens for the characters in this moment?”

~Tiffany

White Fluffies and Butterflies…

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Butterfly on weed by marilyn958

When you go to script readings, do you comment?  And when and if you comment, do you tell the truth or do you give white fluffies and smile for the imaginary camera?  Are you concerned that the director may find out who you are and put you on a list? 

On the flip side, when it’s your turn to receive comments for a script that you have written, do you want white fluffies or the truth?  How difficult or easy is it for you to see through the fog of fluff?  Does your inner radar sound off?  Do you, as storyteller, know the story you are trying to tell?  Do comments assist or hinder you in your process?

I personally hate white fluffies.  I tend not to give them.  Okay, I don’t give them.  I don’t want anyone giving them to me either; just tell me straight out.  The thing about comments is that it is ultimately up to the writer whether or not they want to incorporate them or not anyway.  But, it’s a lot easier to wade through the information if there are no fluff balls crowding constructive comments.  I think that as fellow artists, if we give a comment it should be an honest one.

I went to see a new play where the playwright participated in a talkback after the production .  The audience did not give white fluffies; they gave something worse, convoluted and somewhat idiotic rants and rails that could never help the playwright.  I hope the playwright was able to let it roll off his back like water on an oiled surface.  So brave, he was, to sit there and take questions, so vulnerable; unsure of the work maybe because it materialized in a radical new way this time, unsure, like a new playwright just trying out craft.  I could feel his butterflies in the room fluttering about…  It made me wonder if the they ever go away – the butterflies — when we send the children out into the world to play… 

Careful, watch out for the fluffies…

*Art by Marilyn MacCrakin, a California playwright and photographer. http://marilyn958.deviantart.com/

New Ideas

playwriting

I deleted about four posts before I finished them. Not just because they weren’t decent, but because my heart wasn’t in them. They were about old projects; right now even a story less than a month old seems too old to me. That may be a result of the theatre gorging I did last month.

I want to write new ideas, I want to flesh out the ideas gathering literal cobwebs in my files. So as much as my love and dedication to current projects has not faltered, I must look forward.

I have this idea:

for a collaborative project that can be multi-platform and change perception.

for writing fantasy and sharing a world with other writers without fearing work will be stolen.

to change people’s ideas about Planned Parenthood through theatre.

a storytelling thread that I tried out on the Hollywood Fringe Festival Cabaret Stage and would like to try again.

this character who exists entirely on Twitter.

a theory about a Town Crier.

There. Now I have to write them.

Day Two: Playwrights in Mind: A National Conversation – part four

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Publishing seminar with Abbie Van Nostrand of Samuel French, Deborah Hartnett of MTI, Music Theatre International, and Ron Pullins of Focus Publishing

Selection:
Focus: He has a list in mind what he wants to do and is interested in the changing theatre scene – acting, directing. “We sell people, not books.”  Doesn’t publish plays…except the dead ones. 

MTI: Publishes plays from Broadway, off-Broadway, sometimes a show in the Midwest.  Junior program, deliver “musical in a box.”  High school and middle school kids can keep the scripts.  Like to have a range of things for customers: large and small musicals.  They have almost 400 shows in the catalogue. 

French: publish and license straight and musical plays.  45K titles either archived or in print.  The last 4-5 years, seeking keeping authors happy, but looking for emerging and early career playwright.  Stats: Look at what theatres are doing, playing it safe.  Theatres are closing, cutting back on seasons, those that are doing the best are playing it safe.  They’re pushing their authors, finding the right theatre for the right show.  They’re pulling back on acquisitions.  They’re still actively seeing everything in NY, going to Humana, they get agent author submission, and website queries.  Check the website for updates.  But the reality is that the parameters are shrinking.

Day One: Playwrights in Mind: A National Conversation – Part Three

Playwright, playwriting,

Christopher Durang – no surprise – was very funny.  He spun great stories about his career and offered a few words of advice.

He says he was influenced by sitcoms of the 1950’s and ‘60’s because of their quick pace.  He didn’t want to write the overly realistic style of plays of the era.  He wrote his first play at age 8: his own version of the episode about Lucy having a baby.   At age 12 or 13, he decided to write the book and lyrics for a musical called “Banned in Boston” with the hit song “I Love Money.”  But he was too shy to tell anyone at the school.  His mother told the head of the drama club at Delbarton High School about the musical.  and they put it on when he was in eighth grade.  He went to an all-boys school.  So he got to audition girls from the nearby Catholic school.

His high school college guidance counselor didn’t recommend a single Catholic school, but did suggest lots of high brow places.  Told him schools wanted individuals.  “You’ve written plays,” he said, ” that’s unusual.”   His mother’s divorce lawyer suggested he also apply to Harvard.  He was so surprised to be accepted, he went there.  He wrote a musical and Al Franken was in it.  It was called the “Greatest Musical Ever Sung.”  It told the story of the gospels in musical comedy terms.  Songs included “Everything’s Coming Up Moses.”  “The Dove that Done Me Wrong” – sung by the Blessed Mother.  They couldn’t get 12 apostles, so they went with 9 and included some women.  Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore both saw the show.  It ran two weekends and got a good review.  But there started to be letters saying “this show is offensive to Catholics.”  An English professor wrote back saying, “haven’t you heard of satire?”  One critic said Durang was “Pigs trampling in the sanctuary.”  He used the critique in his application to Yale.

Durang has a few bits of advice: the best drama comes from writing about your stuff,  what you know, not what pleases anybody.  It’s important not to just hold onto one play.  Be prolific.  His rules for avoiding writers block: write at least 5 days a week; at least 2-3 hours; and you’re not allowed to quit if you don’t like what you’ve written.  If you’ve written act one and stuck, get a reading.  You start thinking about actors and casting and you have a deadline to finish act two for the upcoming reading.

Day One: Playwrights in Mind: A National Conversation – Part Two

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Snuck out of Jeffrey Sweet’s seminar and dropped in on Juanita Rockwell’s: “Elsewhere: The Fulbright and Other Journeys.”  She participated in what’s called the Fulbright “Specialist Program.”  Lots of tips in no particular order:

Instead of a one year or three month program, Rockwell was given the option of going overseas for a shorter period of time: two to six weeks.  Her posting was in San Jose, Costa Rica.  She knew a little Spanish, but worked on it before going.  While in country, she had theatre rehearsals in the morning, and two afternoons a week, she went up to the university in the mountains and taught class and met with students.  “A fantastic experience!”

For the Specialist Program, you have to be invited.  You’re put on the roster for five years – meaning you may get a call sometime in that five years to go somewhere to do something.  Or not.  It’s better to create your own opportunity.  If you know someone who teaches in a university in another country, ask if there are exchange possibilities.  She had colleagues in Costa Rica who taught there, and through their institution, invited her to come.  Fulbright is talking about perhaps allowing a theatre (rather than a university) make the invitation.  Frame the invitation from the institution so that it can only be you. 

Qualifications: It used to be required that you have a PhD or terminal degree (MBA), but now it’s expanding to include “professional equivalency.”  Get fancy people to make recommendations. 

US Studies is an area to look at: ie, contemporary American theatre.  Any area of American culture would fit under this category.  There are also humanities categories, or propose using contemporary American culture (ie: theatre) to teach English.  What is it in your background that you can frame towards what they’re asking for.

The Fulbright officers are very helpful. 

On language: in Western Europe: if you can’t speak the language, it ain’t gonna happen.  No one’s sending you to Paris if you don’t speak French.  But many countries have languages few folks speak and often they want English speakers to work with their students.  Sometimes the posting will say “language helpful but not required.”  Do take the language course before you go. 

Here’s a resource: Theatre without Borders – a website where you can make connections to feed into other programs to get you abroad.

How to get started: go to the website.  Search for areas of interest.  Look at how many Fulbrights are being offered in that country.  Check out the “new” section for countries that have added a slew of new postings.  Or look for the countries you’re dying to go to.  Look at what’s available and see if you fit the qualifications.  Look for those that look for “all disciplines.”  Or “arts.”  Sometimes they say “drama” or “playwriting” or “theatre.”  Sometimes.