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And Then Again…

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And then again, maybe it’s a personality thing.

The last time I wrote for this blog, I was saying how I hoped I wouldn’t “say something stupid” in front of a new director I was about to meet – translation: overstep some line between writers and directors.

This director was interested in a full-length of mine. That project hasn’t gotten off the ground yet, but in the mean time I had a ten minute play going into production and I needed a director. I thought it’d be good to see if we worked well together.

It turns out we worked very well together. She happens to be open to collaboration and as we went through rehearsals, she didn’t mind me piping up at all.

Maybe it’s a country thing.

She’s from Finland. Perhaps they do things differently there.

Maybe it’s a no-pre-conceived-notion-about-living-playwrights thing.

She’s used to working with dead playwrights. She doesn’t have rules in her head about how to work with living ones. We did both agree that we shouldn’t simultaneously be talking to the actors.

So all of my worries about overstepping any lines went out the window because there were no lines. There was this joyous person from Finland who wanted to make every moment work and happily welcomed both my script changes and interpretation notes.

Life is good.

The Thought My Soul Appalls

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buddhas celebrate My childhood playmates were Gilbert & Sullivan*.

My family saw shows together. That’s what we did. We saw and       produced shows. We subscribed to ART (American Repertory  Theatre) in Cambridge and The Huntington Theater in Boston. We traveled hours to see the College Light Opera Company and drove back the same night. On vacations, we’d squeeze the Baseball Hall of Fame in between Glimmerglass Operas in Cooperstown.

If Gilbert & Sullivan played within three hours of us, we saw it. We bundled in the car, return trip full of patter songs and arguments on the character interpretation or a set piece. I auditioned for NYU with Pinter and was accepted, mostly because I astonished the Dean with my resume, listing only male roles and whores.

Not finding my voice in New York City, I got my license – didn’t really learn how to drive – and ended up in Los Angeles. List of jobs in roughly chronological order: QA for a lotion and scrub factory, personal assistant, Equity Stage Manager, customer service for adult products while stage managing, staffing assistant, director, staffing supervisor, clutter-clearer, recruiter at a not for profit school for kids with special needs, teaching artist, playwright, artistic associate, producer, bum, outreach chair, representative-at-large, career coach, resume re-vamper, consultant, writer.

I know we all mostly are slashers (actor/writer/producer, for example), but this list just feels ridiculous.

As much as some of those day jobs were hated, they fuel my creative bank. Who doesn’t like a good story about temping in an adult products factory? Seriously. Everyone in LA has the crazy day job story. It’s a rite of passage here, like visiting the Getty for the first time or realizing you can’t get to the 101 south from the 134 west.

In May it all added up, when I started calling myself a Storyteller. The title encompasses all the ways I tell stories: outreach, novel, poem, play, PR, resume, blog, branding – and now, I tell stories all day. It’s pretty cool. Honestly, it’s the only thing I actually know how to do. (Did I mention both my parents are also librarians?)

Now that I love every hour of my work, I hope I won’t lose that connection to completely random people in Los Angeles brought only by the day job. That would be a shame. Most of my stories originated within the hours when worth is measured by a time-clock. At least that’s the story I tell myself when I need a temporary gig.

*in case you want more Gilbert & Sullivan – and who doesn’t? Click here.

The dreaded “M” word – Marketing

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Back in the dark ages, when I was an actor, I spent most of my time marketing myself to get that next job. Pictures, postcards, showcases, it was exhausting.

And now, as a playwright, I spend so much of my limited time sending out plays, writing query letters, sending out – again – postcards, trying to let the world know about my plays. It’s exhausting.

I’d be curious to know your regime. Do you have a website? What do you have on it? Is it useful? Has it led to any productions or readings?

Do you send out postcards for every show? Who do you send them to?

I’m putting together a new postcard right now. I’ve got my pal Arnold (http://www.yelp.com/biz/arnolds-copy-and-printing-studio-city-2) to design one touting my many successes and I’m going to send it out to every theatre in LA and DC. And everywhere I’ve ever submitted. And every regional theatre in the country. But does anyone really read these things or do they go straight to the trash?

Got any other ideas?

www.kittyfelde.com

Skyping your way to a finished play

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Thank God for technology!

I still consider myself an LA playwright, but I spend most of my time these days in Washington DC. My day job keeps me on Capitol Hill. But the move east came at a cost. I lost not only the glorious year-round weather of southern California and my Dodgers and decent Mexican food, I also lost my theatrical community. Most particularly, I lost my writing group.

For more than a decade, I’ve spent every Thursday night with a group of writers under the umbrella of Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles. I’ve watched plays grow and plays die. I’ve seen playwrights blossom and run with their plays. And I’ve seen writers ignore constructive criticism and their plays just sit there. Or worse, get produced and have critics print the same criticism that was voiced with love in the group. I miss that third ear, that deadline of having to produce pages to bring in. Writing is lonely enough. The Lab was my writing home.

So I’ve learned to improvise.

I was lucky enough to be invited to The Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Nebraska twice in the past couple of years. I’ve had two plays read there. But the most valuable part of the experience was meeting other playwrights struggling with the same act two problems, conundrums with directors, and panic about sending out scripts. I found another community. The only problem is that none of us live in the same city.

But then I discovered Skype. Now, every Tuesday night, my Omaha pal Ellen Struve and I have a one hour phone appointment. Every week, we email each other a few pages – a new scene or the rewrite of something we’ve been working on. And for an hour, we discuss the work. Half an hour for her, half an hour for me. I’ve been privileged to watch Ellen’s magical play REQUIRED READING FOR GIRLS grow and mature and take shape. She’s been there to talk me down from the roof when I was ready to hit the delete button and give up. We save time at the end to discuss plays we’ve seen or read – to find out what makes a play sing and shake our heads in wonder at the “hot” plays that do nothing for us. It’s my small theatrical community in cyberspace.

Technologically, we could add half a dozen members or more. And maybe we will when we’re finished with the plays we’re working on right now.

But if you’ve been unsuccessful at finding a playwriting group in your part of town, try a virtual group via Skype. Go see shows and readings to find the playwright whose work speaks to you, the person you could learn something from, the writer who you would trust with your work. Contact them. See if they’re also looking for a theatrical community of writers. And make a weekly appointment for an hour. And write that play.

www.kittyfelde.com

Lessons from a rough production

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For the second night of the production of my Bosnian war crimes play A PATCH OF EARTH, the whole kit and caboodle packed up and moved to the Noyes Museum, a charming art museum in the woods, near the seashore.

The stage was completely different. The museum is built on three levels, with all sorts of odd angles and such. The stage took over the bottom floor, crammed in among the sculptured pieces of art glass. But the compactness of the surroundings brought the audience right into the action, much more intimate than a proscenium stage.

Oh, there was one other new element to the show: a new actor was playing the lead Drazen Erdemovic tonight. On book. And he was terrific.

It wasn’t until after the show that I heard the whole story from the other actors in the show, all of them hungry to explain what happened. I learned the distracted actor of the night before who couldn’t remember any of his lines was no last minute substitution. He was the actor originally cast in the role. Apparently he never learned his lines. And then he disappeared a week before the show opened. Some speculated it was drugs, some suggested he spent those missing days in jail. But the director gave him another shot.

And the cast was furious. They said they felt particularly betrayed because they had poured heart and soul into telling the tale of a war criminal. And they wanted the author to be proud. After the performance the night before, they wanted me to know they could do better.

The morning of the second show, the director fired the lead actor. The assistant director stepped up to the plate, script in hand, and turned in an AMAZING performance. And the rest of the cast sparkled, thrilled to have the opportunity to create that world and make those characters truly come alive.

That amazing production at Richard Stocker College made me realize something important. It wasn’t about me. And “my” play. I remembered why I wanted to write A PATCH OF EARTH. Because a story I heard at the war crimes tribunal so haunted me, it wouldn’t leave me alone. And just using my skills as a radio journalist, I couldn’t get anyone else to care about this story and the questions his case raised. But I could do that through theatre. I wanted this story to affect and change people’s lives. To make them think about the nature and purpose of punishment. And to ask “what would I do if I were in his shoes?” I wanted the war in Yugoslavia to mean something to kids six thousand miles away.

I realized that the rehearsals, the extra curricular research these kids did on their own, the story itself, grabbed them and made them feel important and made them feel they were making a difference, were part of something important. This play changed their lives. And, judging from the audience Q&A, changed some lives out there as well. The play wasn’t about a Tony or an Ovation or a Helen Hayes award. It was about telling a story that changed lives. And in that sense, that particular production was an amazing success.

www.kittyfelde.com

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Watching a production of one of your plays is like revisiting your children.

You spend months, sometimes years, carefully helping a play to grow and mature. And then you set it free, submitting it here, there, and everywhere. If you’re lucky, the play has a production. Or two.

I’ve been very lucky with one of my plays, a courtroom drama called A PATCH OF EARTH. It tells the tale of a war criminal – from the point of view of the perpetrator. It’s a courtroom drama based on a trial I covered at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The play had staged readings from Key West to Carmel and finally premiered in Buffalo, where it won the Maxim Mazumdar New Play Competition. But it’s taken on a life of its own among college students, with productions in Detroit, Pretoria, Costa Mesa, and Sussex. It was published in a collection from the University of Wisconsin Press called “The Theatre of Genocide: Four Plays About Mass Murder in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Armenia.” The most recent production was a couple of weeks ago at the Jersey shore at Richard Stockton College.

I always try to go see the show. The only production I missed was in South Africa and I’m still kicking myself. It’s gratifying to hear how an audience reacts to one of our “children.” This play in particular generates lively debates over the nature of justice and punishment and reconciliation.

But seeing one of our plays is a reminder about the collaborative nature of theatre. And like the good parents that we are to our plays, it’s also a lesson in letting go.

This most recent production at Richard Stocker College was beset by calamity. One of the lead actors was going through chemotherapy. He felt strong enough to rehearse. But during tech rehearsals, he realized he didn’t have the strength to go on. Another actor in the cast was drafted to play two roles.

But that disaster paled compared to the saga of the lead character Drazen Erdemovic. Opening night, the actor played the role with a Bluetooth device in his ear. The director was feeding him lines. Unfortunately, she was so loud, the audience could hear her feeding lines – and then hear the actor spouting something completely different.

I had heard that the original actor had to leave the play – domestic violence, jail, drugs – it was left unclear. So I felt a lot of empathy for the actor who stepped in.

And I felt philosophical.

Watching the play was like watching it for the first time. Lines I never even considered came forth from the mouths of my characters. It was an adventure.

But in that wild performance, I realized that the power of the play wasn’t in the individual words. It was in the story, the characters, their struggles, and their choices. That’s what captivated the audience. And the actors. And even the playwright.

In the talkback session after the play, the audience asked the same questions audiences of this play always ask: what would I do if I were in his situation? What’s a just punishment for a kid who confessed to killing “no more than 70” of the 1200 people shot at that farm outside Srebrenica? Why are his commanding officers still free and unindicted by the Tribunal?

I also witnessed the effect this story had on this troupe of actors. In their bios, they wrote of “the honor” of being part of this “important project” and “doing justice to the story.” What better tribute to the power of what it is we do for very little money and even less recognition?

But there’s more to the story. The next night, the entire production was moved from a college auditorium to a local art museum.

And the production would feature a brand new lead actor in the role of Drazen Erdemovic. That story tomorrow.

Act Two Hell, Part 2

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I hate act two.

Act one is like planning a party, imagining the guests you’ll invite, the food, the decorations, your ensemble you’ll wear. Act two is picking up dirty napkins and loading the dishwasher. It’s no fun.

But I’ve promised my laundry list of tricks to survive act two hell.

1 – Step back. Ask yourself why the heck did you want to write this play in the first place? What did you want to say? Is that what you wrote in the first act? No? Then what did your act one actually say? Is that enough for you to finish? Or would you just as soon abandon it like the last three plays…

2 – Stop. Act two is the place all the seeds you planted in act one are supposed to pay off. The devil whispers that you’ve planted duds and you should pull them out and start over. Do not listen to this voice.

Go back and read act one. Note the gifts you’ve given yourself – the possibilities for payoff in act two, the unexplored qualities of character that sneak out in dialogue, all the clues you left behind for you to find.

3 – Next, ask yourself what you DO know about act two. Write those things down. It’s likely that you know one scene that needs to go in act two. Write that scene.

4 – Give yourself permission to write a really bad scene. The more lousy, the better. Of course, what happens is usually there’s something wonderful buried in that muck. And you can dig it out tomorrow and use it to start that new scene.

5 – Don’t throw anything out. Make a separate file for it. Or stick it at the end of your script. You’ll probably never need it or use it. But it’s nice to know it’s there. A writer’s security blanket.

And one last word of inspiration:

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the
unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

Hans Hofmann (1880-1966)
Abstract expressionist painter

www.kittyfelde.com

Act Two Hell

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I am in act two hell.

You start out with such fire and confidence and vigor. Your characters come alive. They hold your hand and lead you through all the set up scenes, sprinkling potential conflicts like breadcrumbs along the way. The end of act one comes naturally. You feel so good about the piece, you want to schedule a reading, cast your actors, think about where you want it to premiere.

And then it’s time to finish the darned thing.

Act two inspiration is a bit slower. Somehow, the tension seems a little deflated. Like the audience had one glass of wine too many during the intermission. Wake up, playwright! You meander around, hoping for inspiration. And wake up in a cold sweat, convinced that Act one is totally boring, uninspired, stupid. You have the urge to completely tear it apart. Fix it. Tinker with everything.

This is the devil whispering in your ear.

Or, as my Skype writing buddy in Omaha puts it, “Why do plays need second acts anyway? Lazy audience. Why can’t they just work it out themselves?” And at this point in the writing process, you tell yourself, they’ll probably do a helluva lot better than you.

How to escape these many circles of hell? I’ll share my laundry list of tricks tomorrow.

www.kittyfelde.com

Inspiration from the past and now present

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Click here to see Todd Barton's video link.

This week has been a surprise. I’ve written on a blog for the first time.

I’ve been able to write – bits and drabs – about mannequins and costumes.

I wasn’t able to write about character arcs or third act slumps or about the craft of playwriting.

But amidst my own mind babble (shut up with the complaining: no one’s making you write) or inspiration (connecting threads from the past), I let go of some of my dread.

I wanted to share this link from Todd Barton, a friend from my past; he’s a great feminist, composer and artist. Years ago, we collaborated on a great idea for a children’s interactive video game (build your own flying carpet/city with music you create in a keyboard game). It was a great idea…in its time.  But he’s created some inspirational music for theatre that can spark some great ideas and feelings. I asked his permission to post his link here.

Thank you to LA FPI for giving me the nudge to share on this blog. I begin again tomorrow with my writers group.

So here’s to tomorrow.

Masquerades and the Shadow Self

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Halloween is coming. Yes, the chance to dress up in a scratchy plastic mask and run screaming through dark neighborhoods and get free candy.  At least that’s the way I remember it.  But times are different. There used to be hordes of young children, without parents or flashlights or fireproof costumes, roaming the sidewalks experiencing unsupervised tragedies on Halloween.

Halloween was the chance to live out your fantasy of your evil twin, your secret self, your nemesis.

But I had my issues. I had an identical twin sister, and other, cuter siblings, and the wild card – a magical mother who could make any costume come to life. She made costumes for us as skunks, and cows, and Rosie the Maid from the Jetsons, and Pirates, a geisha, and bunnies and a horse that ended up tragically torn in two, and Elvis and a Christmas tree (with presents as feet), and a Black Eyed Susan, (and as my twin sister Susan defiantly explained to everyone “I am not a sunflower”). My mother gave us this idea that we could become anyone – if only with a plastic mask and a bunch of fabric. “Let’s see how this looks,” she would say. This would look like a bunch of fabric bunched up to look like a giant toenail. But somehow, with her imagination and with paint or some trim, or a bunch of buttons, eventually it became a kimono, or a queen’s cape, or a Spanish shawl.

I think this ritual of experiencing other cultures, other costumes, and personas, is a great way to experience the building blocks of theatre. How do you walk in these shoes? What does that wig feel like? That innocence of wanting to become someone else – “What are going to be for Halloween?” What freedom there is in the permission to become someone for a night, a party, a photograph.

Do Zombie’s wear tiaras? I guess I’ll find out this year….