Tag Archives: Tiffany Antone

Playwriting Stall

playwriting, , , , ,

By Tiffany Antone

Eight years ago, I was excitedly sitting in on my first graduate classes as an MFA playwright.  E.I.G.H.T. Whole. Years.  Ago.

I didn’t know what the future would bring – I just knew my Muse was alight with passionate glee.

Oh, and I also knew that I had three years to write “something awesome” because after graduation, The Real World (and Sallie Mae) would come crashing down around me with all of its grubby demands.  Demands like “You better pay for that education!” along with other necessities such as gas, food, somewhere to live – you know, the basics.

Well, the basics plus student loan and credit card debt.

(sigh)

But I read an article today in the Huffington Post that has me re-evaluating the way I’ve been handling The Real World since graduation.  The article was titled “Where You Should Be vs. Where You Are”.  I clicked on over to check it out because, like many an artist, I am constantly compelled to compare my actual career trajectory to the one I think I should be on by now.  Also, like any good perfectionist, I like to read up on all the ways I’m not yet meeting my fullest potential so that I can berate myself about it later.

Which is, of course, exactly what the article’s author, Emily Bennington, is telling us not to do.

Emily tells us that she had her “Just what the heck is wrong with my constantly unsatisfied self?!” moment when her son told her how sad she was making him, what with all her yelling and irritation – you see, her shortage of patience with her self had dribbled over and onto her family as well.

I don’t yet have kids to hold a mirror in front of my face, though – so I suppose it means I have to find a way to hold one up by myself.

I’ve always been a fairly positive “You can do anything if you put your mind to it!” kind of person.  It’s why I work so hard to improve my own short-comings: If I’m doing my best, I will get as far as my best can get me, right?  But I how can I be doing my best, when I’m constantly picking myself apart in search of said shortcomings?  Don’t you, at some point, start to peck into your own self-confidence with all that drive to improve?

Well, somewhere along the way, I got so bummed out by the constant self-analysis of my own “slow” trajectory as an artist that I froze – mid-takeoff – in abject panic.

Because the business of theatre eludes me.

When I’m wearing my Playwright hat, I sit in a room and type and type and type and TYPE.  Then I send it out to play contests and theatre companies, and I wait.  I wait and wait and WAIT.  Sometimes the response is “Hey, we like this!  We are going to give it to actors and invite people to hear your words!” and sometimes it’s “Hey, we like this!  You should keep writing!” And, of course, sometimes it’s crickets.

That’s the nature of the business for a playwright, right?

I mean, is that really all we can do?

So about two years ago, I took a hiatus from all the pitching and mailing and waiting, and instead began producing small play festivals in a small town in AZ.  I expanded my producer skills, learned that I was not actually afraid of directing (and that I, in fact, actually enjoy the high-stress immediacy of it), and dedicated myself to creating other theatre opportunities to feed my creative soul.

And I enjoyed it.  I really did.

But I never escaped the feeling of heartbreak and ineffectiveness of a writer whose plays weren’t getting produced, nor the guilt-ridden dissatisfaction with myself for neglecting to write.

I’m not good at feeling powerless.

But I’m realizing that part of my “problem” is that I turned the mystery and frustration of my playwriting career’s seeming lack of progression into a mentally insurmountable hurdle.  I sat down and stared at that hurdle for a while, kicked some stones its way, and decided to go left instead.

Only, left has really just been this other trail alongside the one I disembarked, and I’ve been looking over my shoulder the whole way.  It’s like walking along a length of wall guarding the palace you built.  And I put up more wall with every blessed step.

You’d think knocking down a metaphorical wall would be super easy…

But I don’t know how to knock it down except to maybe stop counting up the things I “don’t have” and just get on with my bad self.  So…

Okay.

I don’t have money.  Who does?  I’ve really got to move on from this one.  I’ve got to stop lusting after “things” and realize – at this juncture especially – how much simpler my life will be when I stop tallying up how much money I’m NOT making and all the things I CAN’T do with an empty wallet.  Instead, I’ve got to figure out how much I need to earn in order to create space and time in my life to focus on all these words needing to be put down on paper.  I repeat:  It’s. Time. To. Move. On.

But then what am I going to do to make that money?  A small amount of money is still an amount.  Just because I stop hating how small my sack of coin is doesn’t solve where I’m going to get the coin from in the first place?   I mean, I really hate working desk jobs!  And I don’t know how to get a teaching gig, and, and, and…  Holy cow!  How can a person display so much ingenuity on occasion and yet find herself stuck again and again on others?  I just moved to Waco – there’s time to explore and get creative and get serious about this desire I have – this strong instinct towards saving my own sanity – and to carve out a pleasing paying gig.  Instead of bitching about not knowing where to find those elusive university teaching gigs, how about creating my own opportunities to teach and write?  (Massive DUH thought bubble)  I need to focus on figuring out how much I really need to earn to survive – and then make it happen.  There is no reason not to feel confident in this.  Move.  On.

Okay, but the saddest bit of truth here is that I don’t feel happy when I look at my plays anymore because I just see the unmet potential.  WAAAAAHHHHH (crumbles into a mess of ugly, fat, tears of disappointment)  Ummm… Gross.  That’s just gross.  And sad.  And it just feeds my guilt about not writing, thus making the whole ugly thing worse.  This will go away when I stop being angry at my plays for not being scooped up by producers after I’ve sent them out into the world.  I need to forgive myself for not even really knowing how to get my plays to the people doing the producing.  I need to forgive my plays for not getting a big production yet.  But I also need to celebrate my plays who have had productions or very nearly.  I need to tally up the pats on my back instead of just the unmet hopes.  And I need to just write more damn plays – to get the machine working again instead of cursing my rusty hinges for being “ineffectual”.  In essence, I need to knock.  It.  Off.

And write.

And move on.

Because here’s what I’ve realized:  When I’m honest with myself, I can see just how much energy I’ve spent these past few years developing other great theatre skills at the cost of neglecting my own passion for the written word.  I love writing, and I love teaching – and that’s where I need to put my energy.  I did learn that I also, strangely enough, love producing and enjoy directing… but I can’t be a whole (or healthy) artist if the part I most readily identify with – my playwright self – has been put in the corner for the crime of not traveling up the Playwright Ladder fast enough.

It is time for me to stop comparing myself against all the things I haven’t yet done… it’s time to find joy in where I am now, and that it is MUCH harder to put into practice than I’d like to admit.

But that’s where I’m at, right now.  And I’m going to celebrate it.

 

Interview with Playwright Tiffany Antone

Interview, LAFPI, Playwright,

Tiffany Antone evades questioning:

Tiffany Antone
LA FPI Blogger Tiffany Antone is one of the six bloggers to kick off the LA FPI Blog back in 2010. Direct, bold and innovative, Tiffany not only creates with words on the page; she creates venues for art to happen.

1.  How did you become a playwright?  What brought you to theater?    I grew up an actress – I was always auditioning, performing, and staying in the theatre till the last possible second.  I moved to LA in 1998 to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts… but I wasn’t the most amazing actress ever, and I hated auditioning.  I decided to apply to UCLA in pursuit of my Bachelor’s Degree.  I took a playwriting class in my first year and fell in LOVE.  I had always written, but this was the first time I had written a play – it felt like exactly what I should be doing.

2.  What is your favorite play of yours?  Why?  My favorite self-penned play is Ana and the Closet.  The play is incredibly fantastical and (I think) poetic.  I’ve been fortunate enough to see several readings of the play (including an AMAZING reading at the Kennedy Center), but it hasn’t yet been produced.  I think it’s to do with the fact that there are a number of “theatrical” moments in the play requesting multimedia projections, flying people, and a black river that writhes on stage beneath a crumbling ledge… (I know, I know… I’m not asking for much, am I?)  But even though it’s a wild show, it has it’s heart a very moving story about traversing the abyss of deep loss. I look forward to the day a director envisions bringing these moments to life with Bunraku artists in charge of the magic… Theatre is nothing if not inventive.

4.  What play by someone else has moved you the most and why?  Argh!  I hate these types of questions because they limit the field so narrowly… Okay, I’l pick three – how about that?  Three of my favorite plays are: Sarah Ruhl’s Euridice (HOLY COW – the lyrical nature of the script and the you-would-think-impossibly-contradictory-succinctness, the fantastic staging… oh, I was in love with the first read!), Anything by Albee or O’Neill (the men are story genies!), and I’m going to list two final plays in tandem because I LOVE how they are – in principle – both family dramas, and yet each ignite into something much more perverse, combustible, and ultimately delightful on stage:  August Osage County by  Tracy Letts, and The Pain and the Itch by Bruce Norris.

Yeah, yeah… I know – that was way more than three (sigh) but I tried!

5.  Who is your favorite playwright?  Why?  Can’t pick just one… just can’t!  But top honors on my bookshelf go to Martin McDonough, Sarah Ruhl, David Lindsay-Abaire, Suzan Lori Parks, and of course the great Albee, Shephard, O’Neill & Williams.

7.  What type of plays do you write?  (Dramas, Comedies, Plays with Music, Musicals, Experimental, Avant-garde …)  What draws you to it?  This is always a hard question for me to answer, because I don’t just work in one medium or style.  I have written fantastical plays, “sci-fi” plays, and kitchen-sink dramas, and – I’m currently working on my first absurdist piece. The thing that draws me to write is the world, and the “how” of its writing is dependent on the story I’m trying to tell.  My only “rule” when it comes to drafting a script is does it pass the “Who gives a shit?” test.  If I have an idea and I ask myself (honestly) “Who is going to give a shit about this play/screenplay?” and the answer is “Probably nobody” then I don’t waste my time developing it – I just scribble the idea down in my little notebook and turn the page.  That way, I’m not cluttering my calendar with brutal work on material that would probably be better off written as a poem that will sit in the back of my desk drawer – because if I’m the only audience for something, it’s probably not going to be a very good play.  If I feel an audience exists for the story in my head/heart, then I set to figuring out it’s mood, style, and shape and start writing.

8.  Do you write any other literary forms?  How does this affect/enhance your playwriting?  I am also a screenwriter, which terrified me when I first sat to developing the skill-set for it.  I think working in both mediums makes me a better assessor of story, and enables me to create/inhabit very different worlds. And if I ever sell a screenplay, I’ll be a much happier playwright 🙂

9.  Why did you become a blogger for LA FPI?  I jumped on board because there are so many layers to gender parity in theater – why not start delving into/and/writing about them?  I love the sense of togetherness LAFPI supports! 

13. Do you have a writing regiment?  Can you discuss your process?   Snacks.  I have to have snacks in every nook of my desk.  I also have to be careful with my “other” life, meaning Tiffany Who Pays the Bills must not work so much that Tiffany Who Writes gets buried in exhaustion.

16. What other areas of theater do you participant in?   I find myself doing a lot of producing lately, and teaching acting/production/writing.  It’s good to be comfortable in all of these areas (especially since some of them actually PAY a girl), and I’ll probably continue to work in these areas as they provide a different brand of satisfaction – that of realization (vs. the incompleteness of a play un-produced).  Writing is definitely my “Ahhhh” place, but I don’t think I’ll ever be of a mind to stop my other theatrical endeavors… I like wearing more than one theatre hat.

For blog articles written by Tiffany Antone please go to https://lafpi.com/author/tiffanyantone/.  Tiffany’s first blog article is titled “It Takes a Village” dated May 16, 2010.

Tiffany’s Bio

Tiffany is proud to have received her MFA in Playwriting from UCLA’s prestigious school of Theater, Film, and Television, where she also completed her BA in Theater.  She also holds her A.A in acting from The American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Tiffany was a 2008 Hawthornden Fellow, which included a writing residency in Scotland, and a 2009 Sherwood Award Finalist with Center Theatre Group.  Tiffany has received the Tim Robbins Award for plays of social importance, James Pendelton Foundation Prize, Hal Kanter Award in Comedy Writing, Dini Ostrov Stage Spirit Award in Playwriting, the Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme Scholarship, and the Florence Theil Herrscher Award.

Her plays have been read and/or performed in Los Angeles, New York, D.C. and Minneapolis.  Her plays Twigs and Bone and Ana and the Closet were both Jerome Finalists and O’Neil semi-finalists for 2009 and 2010.  Ana and the Closet was also presented at The Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage Festival in 2009.  Her play In the Company of Jane Doe was a Princess Grace semi-finalist in 2006, a winner of the New Plays on Campus series with The Playwrights’ Center, and winner of the 2008 New Works for Young Women contest with the University of Tulsa.  In the Company of Jane Doe premiered in January 2010 at The Powerhouse Theatre (LA Theatre Ensemble). Tiffany’s play The Good Book was a winner of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway play festival and is available through Samuel French publishing.

Other plays include The Low Tide Gang, Ham Brown’s House (Princess Grace Semi-Finalist, 2008), Little Phoenix, Stalled, My Pet George, and From the Rubble. Screenplays include The Sisters Roberts and A Disappearing Woman (Golden Brad Finalist 2009).

Tiffany currently lives and teaches in AZ and runs Little Black Dress INK, a producing org for female playwrights.  You can read more about Tiffany at www.TiffanyAntone.com or on her blog www.AwdsAndEnds.com.

Tiffany acts as an LA FPI Graphics Consultant.

Most Unsuccessful Playwright Ever

playwriting, , ,

Yep, right here. Most unsuccessful playwright ever. And I hate superlatives.

Hello Lafpiers,

It’s my blog week here on LAFPI. So I had a whole big comic riff planned for my Monday post. I had planned to talk about how I had absolutely nothing happening in my playwriting world and how I was now aiming for a lack of success instead of success and how once I realized that I became a happier person even though to desire a lack of success instead of success is very un-American.

Then last week I got an email from Tiffany Antone. Darn you, Tiffanyyyyyy!

Tiffany is producing an evening of plays about pets, and I had sent her some monologues which I had totally forgotten about. Anyway, she’s putting my monologues in her pet play evening and would I be interested in writing another monologue?

Of course I wrote another monologue. So now, I have something theatrical happening and I can no longer be the most unsuccessful playwright ever. I’m bummed. I’m seriously bummed.

Meanwhile, on the cover of the most recent LA Weekly was a drawing of William Shakespeare with a laptop and the headline: Why Be a Playwright in LA? Inside, Steven Leigh Morris wrote a very engaging profile of four Los Angeles based playwrights. The article can be found here.

Personally, I’ve never been very good at being a playwright. I can’t figure out the secret handshake, and my wardrobe is all wrong. I just like to write plays that are crazy, sexy, cool.

But I could relate to the LA part of the headline. I’ve been looking around LA and asking myself why am I here? Sure there’s a great acting pool, but great actors can be found all over the world. Sure seventy degree February days are nice, but so is rain. Why am I in LA? I don’t have a witty answer for that one. I just know it’s April 2013, and I’m still in LA.

But. . .But. . .But

Playwright, playwriting,

Last month, Tiffany Antone put her writing heart on her sleeve on this blog. She kept coming back to the phrase but I’m not writing full length plays as she talked about everything she was doing—and she does some great stuff.

I totally understood her pain. She was going through the Buts. Yes, I have the buts too. I might be writing away and kicking ass on a new play,  but. . .but. . .but. I might have sat through a really successful production of a short play I wrote, but. . .but. . .but.

The Buts have caused me to start smoking (which creates real butts, hahahaha), drink too much, and curl up into a little ball with my eyes tightly closed and my fists clenched.

How do you fight the Buts? I do not recommend smoking, drinking too much, or curling up into a little ball. I fight the Buts by doing yoga (skipping the little ball part), sailing, and just plain getting on with it.

Sometimes, you just gotta get on with it and say, okay, what next? Actually, that might be a good phrase to counter punch the Buts. What next? Also what can I do now?

And Tiffany, don’t worry about them full length plays. According to Wikipedia, Chekhov wrote less than ten full length plays. Less than ten. Okay, so he was a prolific short story writer. Okay, so five of those plays are considered classics. Okay, so he was also a doctor. Okay, so he died young. Still, he did the work. Remember it’s quality not quantity. Insert inspirational quote here.

It’s your time now. What are you going to do with it?

Hello Again Hello

playwriting, ,

 

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.

Totally Worth It!

LAFPI, , , , , , ,

I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut of for the past four months and I’ve felt the pinch in a number of areas – sleep(!), diet, patience, nerves, peace and balance – but the details of the “then” aren’t as important to the posting of the now… the great happy “Ahhhh” I’m reveling in tonight, as it all finally wrapped up.

I get to sleep in tomorrow and the only thing I HAVE to do after I drag myself from bed is add up receipts and get my oil changed.

Two things.

I only have to do two things tomorrow.

I can’t wait.

And I’m heading into this much-needed day of repose after a hugely successful final performance at the summer camp.  These kids knocked it out of the park!  Not only did they jump head first into Viewpoints, Suzuki, and the myriad other techniques and challenges we presented them with, but they also soaked up every moment with joy.  They trusted each other, listened to one another, and they created a completely original theatre piece as an ensemble that was terrifically moving.

My partner and I were ecstatic, watching from the light booth, as proud as we could be, absolutely bursting at the seams with pride.

I feel good.

I feel so good.

I’m so grateful to the kids for invigorating me, for reminding me why I do what I do, and for showing me the magic that can happen when actors listen, trust, and explore together.

It was inspiring.

So after I catch up on sleep, eating, and yoga, I’m going to get right back to writing… the muse is awake and happy.  Working with new artists has proven again just how much I love teaching, how important it is to share our passion with the future, and how wonderful we can be when we work together.

Enjoying the Howl

playwriting, , , ,

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.

🙂

A Tingling Sojourn

LAFPI, playwriting, , , , ,

It’s the end of my blogging week, and I want to talk (finally) a bit about time…  How we spend so much of it waiting, making excuses, rushing around from unimportant (in the scheme of things) task to unimportant task – how we put so many wonderful moments on the backburner because it’s not vital to our day-to-day existences…

We’ve got to stop that nonsense.

Cason and I spent our final “Jane Doe in NY!” vacation day puttering around Park Slope – there was a wonderful street fair with plenty of good food and excellent knick-knack browsing to be had.  The weather was gorgeous.

And the art was everywhere.

I need to stop getting sucked into my “Oh-my-God-I’m-so-Broke!” panic and remember to make more art.

I need to write more plays.

When I moved back to AZ (almost 2 years ago now – yikes!) it was never with the intention to stay as long as I have.  I was unemployed, beat down, and depressed as all get out about my “Why can’t I just EMERGE ALREADY” Emerging-Playwright status.  So I took my Arizona Sojourn as an excuse to hide out, lick my wounds, and heal.

Well, the healing has happened – it’s time for me to get back on the hamster wheel.

And that’s not to say I’ve been lazy – just the opposite in fact – I’ve been insanely busy.  But it’s primarily been a producerly and survivalist sort of busy… I haven’t done a lot of writing or art-making of my own, and this weekend was just the right thing to help me refocus and get my sails back up again.

Because it’s incredibly validating when a theatre company reads your work and decides to produce it – there is so much involved in theatre making, it is a tremendous compliment to know that someone besides you and the non-producing back-clappers think your work is worthy of an audience.  It’s why we write plays, after all.

There is also something incredibly inspiring about visiting a city full of artists fighting to make their art seen/heard/count.

We saw Fuerza Bruta this week and the sheer spectacle of the thing had my imagination spinning with possibilities – my playwright brain was in visual ecstasy.

I walked into shops full of hand-crafted clever arts and wanted to run home and start building pieces of my own.

I have really missed the visual and theatrical feasting that the East and West Coasts provide… and I am inspired to bring my reclaimed whimsy and dedication back home with me with a vengeance, now that the “licking-my-wounds” sojourn is over and I’m feeling the Muse stretch her wings again.

Thank you CAKE Productions, and thank you New York!

~Tiffany

 

Landed! And still Juggling…

playwriting, , ,

Well, I’m in NY… and it’s just as loud, as bustling, and as chaotic as it was the last time I was here… or maybe not.  Actually, the last time I was here, there was a freakin’ hurricane-a-coming, so things were pretty intense.

In any case, I’ve landed, taken a nap, and am safely resting in Brooklyn, trying to recover from the lack of sleep I got on the red-eye flight over.  I’m excited and nervous about tomorrow – there’s been a lot of anticipation and anxiety around this event for me for the past several months… mostly me fearing the unknown and also being afraid to trust in the awesomeness of the opportunity.  Now that I’m here, I’m like “Hey, whatever happens/doesn’t happen, I’m still a playwright who got to travel to NY to see her play performed!” and some of the anxiety it dissipating… some of it.

And I’m so thankful I have some good friends and loved ones attending the show tomorrow night with me.

Meanwhile, I’m also trying to get some emails written to the ladies contributing plays to my Female Playwright’s Fest, From the Mouths of Babes, this July.  It’s very exciting – 9 new plays written by female playwrights from AZ, CA, and MN will be performed in Prescott, AZ then read in LA (I’ll be sure to make sure the LAFPI posse gets VIP invitations!) and then also read/performed in Minneapolis.  As a playwright who yearns to have more control over her destiny than merely writing plays and sending them out into the ethers, it’s really satisfying to put on my producer hat and make things happen.

First thing I need to make happen though, are those dramaturgy emails to the playwrights 😛

So, even though I’m here in NY and on a lovely vacation of sorts, there’s still lots to be doing, to be juggling, and to keep me from chewing all my finger nails to the nub.

More to come…

~Tiffany

Control Freak

playwriting, , , , , ,

Of all the readings and workshops that In the Company of Jane Doe  has had over the years, this – my first NY production – is the first one I haven’t been able to help rehearse.  On one hand, it’s kind of exciting because it will be a completely new experience for me to walk into a space and see the play done based solely on someone else’s interpretation of what’s on the page (and a few email clarifications between myself and the producer).  On the other hand, it’s kind of terrifying to think that I will walk into a space and see the play done based solely on someone else’s interpretation of what’s on the page (and only a few email clarifications between myself and the producer).

It’s been a healthy challenge in learning to “let go”…

It’s been a healthy challenge in learning to respond to notes and questions coming from people meeting the play for the first time as well.

I don’t even remember sending the play to CAKE productions two (or was it three now?) years ago.  Apparently they had posted a call for female-focus plays and I had sent them Jane Doe.  They received so many submissions from that call that they  simply read till they found something they liked, produced it, and then went back to the pile of unread scripts for year two.  When they called me to ask if they could do a reading of the play, I was surprised (as I confessed, I didn’t remember sending them the script) and I was also over the moon excited.  When, after the reading, they said they’d like to produce it, I was over the moon again.

But when they asked me if I would take some script notes, I crash-landed at my desk and began to sweat like a mother-f***er.

My neurotic Playwright Brain began to torture me with panic:  What if I don’t agree with their notes?  Will they not do it?  What if I can’t fix the hiccups they’ve identified?  Will they not do it?   What if I make all the changes and it makes the play worse?  Will they not do it?  And even worse-   Do I even know how to write plays???  What if all this panic leaches into my brain and erases everything I’ve learned and I just sit here at my desk like a cucumber, staring blankly at the screen and thinking horribly blank vegetable-like thoughts…

Every email they sent, I sweated over, so dreadfully afraid was I that they were going to change their mind at any second and this super-cool-awesome-can’t believe-I’m-going-up-in-NY reality would dissolve into “Too bad, so sad, and bye bye Tiff!”

But only a few of those emails had notes –  really good notes – notes that challenged me to look at this thing I’d written at the start of my playwriting career and tighten it up with tools from my “7 years later” tool box.

So I wrangled the notes – I didn’t turn into a cucumber – and CAKE took the play into rehearsal.

They sent me a few more “Can we cut this, Can you write a bit more of that” emails that I listened to and worried over – it was really hard not being in the room and hearing these beats skip in the way they said –  but all in all, I had to trust them and trust myself, and negotiate my own view of the play with what they were hammering out in rehearsals in regards to which changes needed to be made and which did not.

It was a crazy new experience… and one I hope I managed well.  I guess I’ll know when I see the play on Thursday!

But all in all, this new step of “playwriting from the opposite coast” brought with it a lot by way of learning to let go, and just trusting in the play – quite a feat for an self-admitted control freak.

~Tiffany