Another missive from Herr Dietz, to hold onto
Never forget the words that you generated when I asked you why this odd little play might work, why an audience of people might watch it. You spoke of “anticipation, investment, clarity, follow-thru on an action, empathy, recognition of a clear challenge or goal, a sense of inevitability, closure.”
In that list of words you have your art form.
CLARITY. Let me say one more thing about this. Clarity is this art form’s only true risk. Muddled or grey choices are cowardice. Pure and simple. And the cowardice of sloppy, “it means what you want it to mean” theatre — foisted on the public as “new” or “experimental” is gutless in the extreme. Make a clear choice. In “Viewpoints”, a decision is noted to be akin to an act of violence. This is right. Risk a decision (what a character wants, what actually happens to someone, how you want the work to affect others) — a clear one. And follow through on it.
AMBIGUITY. Isn’t great art often ambiguous? Of course it is. So where does that leave “clarity.” Here’s where: Ambiguity is not the ABSENCE of choice; it is not a state of CONFUSION. Ambiguity is the COLLISION OF TWO (or more) CHOICES. Hamlet is not saying: “I’m not sure what to do.” He is saying: “I must act.” AND “I cannot act.” Two clear choices in conflict. If you want your audience left with a level of uncertainty or unease or ambiguity, I support you, however: you must work TWICE as hard, not half as hard. You must sell them, fully, TWO (or more) CLEAR, POWERFUL, RESONANT, UNFORGETTABLE CHOICES — not just one.
Is this hard? Of course it is. Let’s keep working.
Friday, November 30, 2007
MORE MONDAY NIGHT LABS
SPLIT FOCUS LAB
If you have two very different threads in your play, two different timeframes or stories or what have you, pull them apart. Have actors read one thread on one side of the room, and actors read the other thread on the other side of the room. Let people gravitate toward whichever side is holding their interest.
If you have two very different threads in your play, two different timeframes or stories or what have you, pull them apart. Have actors read one thread on one side of the room, and actors read the other thread on the other side of the room. Let people gravitate toward whichever side is holding their interest.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
THE MONDAY NIGHT LABS
What follows are various exercises we have done in Suzan Zeder's Monday Night Labs, to help us interrogate or build our scripts
FRANCES'S CAMP LAB
Five characters, a little information given on each. Participants are asked to create two collages...one for their character's exterior world, one for interior. AKA, "to the world, I am..." and "to me, I am..."
Each participant is asked to write down the character's hopes and fears about their encounter with the other characters.
Each participant has to write an introduction from his or her character to the group, answering certain questions that tie into the play's context.
Each participant is asked to do some journal writing from the perspective of his or her character.
ERIN'S MAPPING LAB
Participants read the play, or what they have of it.
Participants are given crayons and a large piece of paper. All participants are asked to draw the most resonant images from the script. Participants are then asked to add on to each others' drawings.
Particants are asked to draw lines or roads or what have you connecting the different images to each other, according to a logic that makes sense to the group.
LETTERS
Participants are asked to write letters from one character to another, or to an outside character.
PRISCILLA'S BODY LAB
Groups are given small pieces of the same text, and asked to direct each other. Groups share those pieces. The groups may play with gender dynamic, age, number of characters who speak the text, blocking, etc.
More on this later
FRANCES'S CAMP LAB
Five characters, a little information given on each. Participants are asked to create two collages...one for their character's exterior world, one for interior. AKA, "to the world, I am..." and "to me, I am..."
Each participant is asked to write down the character's hopes and fears about their encounter with the other characters.
Each participant has to write an introduction from his or her character to the group, answering certain questions that tie into the play's context.
Each participant is asked to do some journal writing from the perspective of his or her character.
ERIN'S MAPPING LAB
Participants read the play, or what they have of it.
Participants are given crayons and a large piece of paper. All participants are asked to draw the most resonant images from the script. Participants are then asked to add on to each others' drawings.
Particants are asked to draw lines or roads or what have you connecting the different images to each other, according to a logic that makes sense to the group.
LETTERS
Participants are asked to write letters from one character to another, or to an outside character.
PRISCILLA'S BODY LAB
Groups are given small pieces of the same text, and asked to direct each other. Groups share those pieces. The groups may play with gender dynamic, age, number of characters who speak the text, blocking, etc.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
On Small Moments
Or: Why I love studying with Steven Dietz
The following is an exerpt from a message to our class from Steven Dietz:
GOAL:
We are seeking to transcend the “actual” and find the “theatrical”. This does not mean false or fake or even non-realistic. It means that each contribution (Space, Action, Language) requires the “Theatrical Gesture” -- the quality of REFINEMENT and RESONANCE which captures an “essence”; which literally forces us to watch. This is hard. This is necessary. This is why we train.
People don’t – in the real world - actually live in Tom Lynch’s sets, or walk around surrounded by Peter Maradudin’s lights, or talk like characters in an Adam Rapp or Suzan Lori-Parks play. These artists bring the “Theatrical Gesture” to each moment, each image, each sentence. With audacity and specificity they transcend the ordinary; push us beyond our daily lives. And when a series of “small moments” are fashioned into a living narrative presented in a defined space (or spaces) in real-time: we call that a play. And so, in making Small Moments ...
STRATEGY:
Work SMALL. Work with an aggressive, even obsessive PRECISION. Make ONE SINGULAR MOMENT: one Space, one Action, one shard of Language. Do LESS — but do it FULLY.
You are not making “scenes” - you are not making “stories” - if you attempt to do so, with this exercise, you’ll more than likely end up with “skits”. The world has enough skits.
The great challenge to us all is that the Mundane and the Actual are very insidious. They will sneak into your art and take your work hostage. They will threaten to turn “Space / Action / Language” into ... “Furniture / Behavior / Conversation”. The world has enough furniture and behavior and conversation. Be on guard. Wield your theatrical sense of audacity and specificity. Remember the van Gogh quote: “Exaggerate the essential; leave the obvious vague.”
For example: if you decide that your Space is an “apartment” and your Action is “sewing” and your Language is “It’s so late. I wonder when Amy will finally get home?” ... your small moment is probably going to be general and literal and lacking the Theatrical Gesture.
If, instead, your Space is “a small weathered footstool” and your Action is “threading a tiny needle” and your Language is “The year is done, Amy. Come home.” ... you are on the way towards something which has a little more resonance, prompts questions, “opens out” instead of “folding in” and answering itself. Is it a scene? - a play? - a story? - no: it’s just a moment that requires us to watch.
Furthermore: general choices beget more general choices. Each collaborator who makes a “soft” or “literal” choice inevitably locks his/her fellow collaborators into a series of soft, literal, general choices. The Actual and the Ordinary are like weeds -- they will overtake the Theatrical instantly, every single time, if you give them a chance. Fight this. Help each other.
The following is an exerpt from a message to our class from Steven Dietz:
GOAL:
We are seeking to transcend the “actual” and find the “theatrical”. This does not mean false or fake or even non-realistic. It means that each contribution (Space, Action, Language) requires the “Theatrical Gesture” -- the quality of REFINEMENT and RESONANCE which captures an “essence”; which literally forces us to watch. This is hard. This is necessary. This is why we train.
People don’t – in the real world - actually live in Tom Lynch’s sets, or walk around surrounded by Peter Maradudin’s lights, or talk like characters in an Adam Rapp or Suzan Lori-Parks play. These artists bring the “Theatrical Gesture” to each moment, each image, each sentence. With audacity and specificity they transcend the ordinary; push us beyond our daily lives. And when a series of “small moments” are fashioned into a living narrative presented in a defined space (or spaces) in real-time: we call that a play. And so, in making Small Moments ...
STRATEGY:
Work SMALL. Work with an aggressive, even obsessive PRECISION. Make ONE SINGULAR MOMENT: one Space, one Action, one shard of Language. Do LESS — but do it FULLY.
You are not making “scenes” - you are not making “stories” - if you attempt to do so, with this exercise, you’ll more than likely end up with “skits”. The world has enough skits.
The great challenge to us all is that the Mundane and the Actual are very insidious. They will sneak into your art and take your work hostage. They will threaten to turn “Space / Action / Language” into ... “Furniture / Behavior / Conversation”. The world has enough furniture and behavior and conversation. Be on guard. Wield your theatrical sense of audacity and specificity. Remember the van Gogh quote: “Exaggerate the essential; leave the obvious vague.”
For example: if you decide that your Space is an “apartment” and your Action is “sewing” and your Language is “It’s so late. I wonder when Amy will finally get home?” ... your small moment is probably going to be general and literal and lacking the Theatrical Gesture.
If, instead, your Space is “a small weathered footstool” and your Action is “threading a tiny needle” and your Language is “The year is done, Amy. Come home.” ... you are on the way towards something which has a little more resonance, prompts questions, “opens out” instead of “folding in” and answering itself. Is it a scene? - a play? - a story? - no: it’s just a moment that requires us to watch.
Furthermore: general choices beget more general choices. Each collaborator who makes a “soft” or “literal” choice inevitably locks his/her fellow collaborators into a series of soft, literal, general choices. The Actual and the Ordinary are like weeds -- they will overtake the Theatrical instantly, every single time, if you give them a chance. Fight this. Help each other.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Reading List
A book to read NOW:
"and then, you act; making art in an unpredictable world"
- by anne bogart
"and then, you act; making art in an unpredictable world"
- by anne bogart
Monday, October 15, 2007
What's Theater's Responsibility?
This is an open question, for me. But I'm trying to start with its MOST BASIC responsibilities, not it's most advanced.
1) To Get People In The Room Together
I'd guess if it doesn't do that, it isn't theater.
2) To Entertain
I think this is one we forget.
3) To Give People Something to Talk About and Think About After The Fact
We share this with a lot of artistic mediums. Maybe that's our job as artists.
What else?
1) To Get People In The Room Together
I'd guess if it doesn't do that, it isn't theater.
2) To Entertain
I think this is one we forget.
3) To Give People Something to Talk About and Think About After The Fact
We share this with a lot of artistic mediums. Maybe that's our job as artists.
What else?
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Definitions of Plot
American Heritage Dictionary
plot
n.
A small piece of ground, generally used for a specific purpose: a garden plot.
A measured area of land; a lot.
A ground plan, as for a building; a diagram.
See graph1.
The pattern of events or main story in a narrative or drama.
A secret plan to accomplish a hostile or illegal purpose; a scheme
A space. A story. A scheme.
Is a plot a series of questions? What happens once they're answered? Does plot disappear once it's revealed?
plot
n.
A small piece of ground, generally used for a specific purpose: a garden plot.
A measured area of land; a lot.
A ground plan, as for a building; a diagram.
See graph1.
The pattern of events or main story in a narrative or drama.
A secret plan to accomplish a hostile or illegal purpose; a scheme
A space. A story. A scheme.
Is a plot a series of questions? What happens once they're answered? Does plot disappear once it's revealed?
Simplicity
For the record.
Remember there is a differency between CLARIFYING and SIMPLIFYING, just as there is a difference between COMPLEX and CONVOLUTED. Know when you're dealing with what.
"We make systems when we watch things to make sense of things" -- probably the same as saying "we're hard-wired for narrative" (both Dietz)
Remember there is a differency between CLARIFYING and SIMPLIFYING, just as there is a difference between COMPLEX and CONVOLUTED. Know when you're dealing with what.
"We make systems when we watch things to make sense of things" -- probably the same as saying "we're hard-wired for narrative" (both Dietz)
Multiple Time Frames
I'm working on a play called "Summer People" that involves multiple time frames, and several shifts in time. I had a meeting with Suzan yesterday, talking about the next draft. Here were some points that seem worth remembering.
*You should know how many time frames you have at work in your play.
*At some point, if you don't know what the "trigger" is that moves you from one time frame to the other, you should figure it out. This isn't being persnickety, it's about the logic and motion of the story...even if it's a weird trigger...
* CHOOSE where your story is complicated and where it is simple. If you are working with a very complicated overall structure, there may be events or smaller sequences of events that you need to make simple, so that the audience can have some touchstones.
*Are there places where your story can PARALLEL to trigger a shift in time?
*Is it the MEMORY of a character that triggers a shift in time?
*Are you dealing with an INTERNAL flashback (particular to a character's memory) or an EXTERNAL flashback (where the whole play is moving)? How is each triggered?
*If Character A is having hallucinations, and that's a major plot point, maybe B and C shouldn't have moments of hallucinatory theatricality -- who OWNS hallucinations in the play?
For now, these all seem like very good points, maybe not just for this play but for other plays.
*You should know how many time frames you have at work in your play.
*At some point, if you don't know what the "trigger" is that moves you from one time frame to the other, you should figure it out. This isn't being persnickety, it's about the logic and motion of the story...even if it's a weird trigger...
* CHOOSE where your story is complicated and where it is simple. If you are working with a very complicated overall structure, there may be events or smaller sequences of events that you need to make simple, so that the audience can have some touchstones.
*Are there places where your story can PARALLEL to trigger a shift in time?
*Is it the MEMORY of a character that triggers a shift in time?
*Are you dealing with an INTERNAL flashback (particular to a character's memory) or an EXTERNAL flashback (where the whole play is moving)? How is each triggered?
*If Character A is having hallucinations, and that's a major plot point, maybe B and C shouldn't have moments of hallucinatory theatricality -- who OWNS hallucinations in the play?
For now, these all seem like very good points, maybe not just for this play but for other plays.
Source Outline Template for Adaptation
The following is a template from Steven that we'll be using in our adaptation to film class, to use as a nuts-and-bolts reference in outlining story, which we will then use to create outlines for our adaptations. That made sense, right?
1. BLURB. A quick line or two, telling what the story is about. The kind of description you'd find on the back of a video guide.
2. MAIN CHARACTER(S). Name, age, central characteristics, relationship to one another.
3. SECONDARY CHARACTER(S). Same as above.
4. UNSEEN CHARACTER(S). Same as above.
5. TRIGGER OR LAUNCH OF STORY (BEGINNING). One (or perhaps several) events which begin the narrative. This is not a "feeling" or "problem" -- it is an event or observable action. Brief.
6. THE STORY. All necessary events laid out as a "list" -- chronologically in the order WHICH THE AUTHOR USES THEM. List nothing that could be omitted and still have the story be accomplished.
7. CONCLUSION OR RESOLUTION OF STORY (ENDING). The final event (or events) of the narrative. Brief.
8. POINT OF VIEW. From whose perspective is the story told? WHY?
9. MOOD, TONE, STYLE OF THE STORY. For example: upbeat or down, gritty or slick, naturalistic or fantastical, etc.
10. THREE THINGS THAT YOU BELIEVE WILL TRANSLATE EASILY OR WELL TO THE SCREEN.
11. THREE THINGS THAT WILL BE DIFFICULT OR CHALLENGING TO TRANSLATE TO THE SCREEN.
12. ON A PERCENTILE BASIS, HOW MUCH OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL DO YOU THINK WILL SURVIVE IN THE SCREENPLAY?
For future reference, on other adaptation projects...
1. BLURB. A quick line or two, telling what the story is about. The kind of description you'd find on the back of a video guide.
2. MAIN CHARACTER(S). Name, age, central characteristics, relationship to one another.
3. SECONDARY CHARACTER(S). Same as above.
4. UNSEEN CHARACTER(S). Same as above.
5. TRIGGER OR LAUNCH OF STORY (BEGINNING). One (or perhaps several) events which begin the narrative. This is not a "feeling" or "problem" -- it is an event or observable action. Brief.
6. THE STORY. All necessary events laid out as a "list" -- chronologically in the order WHICH THE AUTHOR USES THEM. List nothing that could be omitted and still have the story be accomplished.
7. CONCLUSION OR RESOLUTION OF STORY (ENDING). The final event (or events) of the narrative. Brief.
8. POINT OF VIEW. From whose perspective is the story told? WHY?
9. MOOD, TONE, STYLE OF THE STORY. For example: upbeat or down, gritty or slick, naturalistic or fantastical, etc.
10. THREE THINGS THAT YOU BELIEVE WILL TRANSLATE EASILY OR WELL TO THE SCREEN.
11. THREE THINGS THAT WILL BE DIFFICULT OR CHALLENGING TO TRANSLATE TO THE SCREEN.
12. ON A PERCENTILE BASIS, HOW MUCH OF THE SOURCE MATERIAL DO YOU THINK WILL SURVIVE IN THE SCREENPLAY?
For future reference, on other adaptation projects...
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Which Conversation?
Which conversation do you want to be part of?
I'm starting to think that's a pretty powerful question to ask yourself as a theater artist, because it shapes how you do everything else. The "why am I here" question...
In the beginning, the majority of my conversations were "how can we get noticed by these companies, and how can we get them to like us/want to work with us? how can we get agents?" Then: Which of these companies are ones I want to work with? Or: What companies within the city are doing work that interests me?
Local conversations. But then there are NATIONAL conversations about the state of the arts, politically, socially, in terms of how new work is cultivated, in terms of what the arts are or should be. There are the INTERNATIONAL conversations, where American or Western assumptions about arts are affirmed or upended. There are conversations that bridge the artistic and the political (Erik Ehn/Rwanda work), conversations that are about the arts and the kind of people they create (Clowning)...
There are the conversations about the cutting edge of the arts, there are the conversations that happen at new play festivals, in the pages of the New Yorker and the New York Times, on blogs like this one, there are the nuts-and-bolts conversations over cups of coffee about how to make one single play or scene its absolute strongest. There are post-show bitch sessions about why a show didn't work.
All this to say: I don't have to choose ONE conversation...I can be a part of many at once...but the kind of artist I am will be shaped by the conversations I have, and they, too, should be thoughtful, wide-reaching, attentive to detail... and I should be mindful that those other conversations are happening around me, whether or not I choose to participate in them.
I'm starting to think that's a pretty powerful question to ask yourself as a theater artist, because it shapes how you do everything else. The "why am I here" question...
In the beginning, the majority of my conversations were "how can we get noticed by these companies, and how can we get them to like us/want to work with us? how can we get agents?" Then: Which of these companies are ones I want to work with? Or: What companies within the city are doing work that interests me?
Local conversations. But then there are NATIONAL conversations about the state of the arts, politically, socially, in terms of how new work is cultivated, in terms of what the arts are or should be. There are the INTERNATIONAL conversations, where American or Western assumptions about arts are affirmed or upended. There are conversations that bridge the artistic and the political (Erik Ehn/Rwanda work), conversations that are about the arts and the kind of people they create (Clowning)...
There are the conversations about the cutting edge of the arts, there are the conversations that happen at new play festivals, in the pages of the New Yorker and the New York Times, on blogs like this one, there are the nuts-and-bolts conversations over cups of coffee about how to make one single play or scene its absolute strongest. There are post-show bitch sessions about why a show didn't work.
All this to say: I don't have to choose ONE conversation...I can be a part of many at once...but the kind of artist I am will be shaped by the conversations I have, and they, too, should be thoughtful, wide-reaching, attentive to detail... and I should be mindful that those other conversations are happening around me, whether or not I choose to participate in them.
Speech: Sobel's LMDA Acceptance
I'm afraid I can only post this as a link to the PDF, but Ed Sobel, Steppenwolf's Resident Dramaturg/play guru made a speech worth reading and remembering. A bit snarky, but well-aimed.
www.lmda.org/_attachments/3053714/SOBEL-%20Hayes%20Acceptance%20Speech%202007.pdf
www.lmda.org/_attachments/3053714/SOBEL-%20Hayes%20Acceptance%20Speech%202007.pdf
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Nuts and Bolts -- Monologues
Am often tempted to write monologues for my characters to help me get to know them -- "pre-writing," I guess. But what are the different KINDS of monologues, to be pedestrian about it?
1) I have a burning secret I need to tell you (See Masha Act 3 Three Sisters)
2) I have this one memory from way back which, when I tell you, will help you to understand me better (See Violet in the dinner scene in August:Osage County, when she talks about the Clawhammer)
3) You know, the thing about this other character we both know is / let me tell you the story that will help you understand this third character
4) Character A tells Character B what Character B's problem is
5) Character A tells Character B what happened to Character A today...and we find out it relates, somehow to the events of the play and how they will unfold
6) "Let me tell you how the world works, and how I know it"
7) Let me tell you a joke or a funny story (The Clean House)
8) The equivalent of an "I wanna" song in a musical -- this is everything I want, layed out for you
9) I am going to nervously go on about something esoteric that has nothing to do with what is happening between us at the moment, but which will reveal aspects of my character like what books or movies I enjoy, and which the playwright will probably use to draw some artful parallels to what will be happening in the play, unbenownst to the characters (See half of what Matt says in Red Light Winter)
10) Character A tells Character B a secret about Character C which Character C wouldn't tell of his or her own accord (See Davis talking about Matt's Giardia in Red Light Winter)
11) The Grand Exposition of everything that has happened to this point, so that the play can continue (see Olga, Act 1, Three Sisters)
What else? What are the other standard KINDS of monologues, or what are ways that we can use monologues in our work? Help.
1) I have a burning secret I need to tell you (See Masha Act 3 Three Sisters)
2) I have this one memory from way back which, when I tell you, will help you to understand me better (See Violet in the dinner scene in August:Osage County, when she talks about the Clawhammer)
3) You know, the thing about this other character we both know is / let me tell you the story that will help you understand this third character
4) Character A tells Character B what Character B's problem is
5) Character A tells Character B what happened to Character A today...and we find out it relates, somehow to the events of the play and how they will unfold
6) "Let me tell you how the world works, and how I know it"
7) Let me tell you a joke or a funny story (The Clean House)
8) The equivalent of an "I wanna" song in a musical -- this is everything I want, layed out for you
9) I am going to nervously go on about something esoteric that has nothing to do with what is happening between us at the moment, but which will reveal aspects of my character like what books or movies I enjoy, and which the playwright will probably use to draw some artful parallels to what will be happening in the play, unbenownst to the characters (See half of what Matt says in Red Light Winter)
10) Character A tells Character B a secret about Character C which Character C wouldn't tell of his or her own accord (See Davis talking about Matt's Giardia in Red Light Winter)
11) The Grand Exposition of everything that has happened to this point, so that the play can continue (see Olga, Act 1, Three Sisters)
What else? What are the other standard KINDS of monologues, or what are ways that we can use monologues in our work? Help.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Different Day, Same Lesson
Just spoke with a favorite friend about a scary but ultimately good experience he had on his most recent project.
Week before tech. The person who hires you has just seen your run-through, calls you into his office, and says "it isn't working. Fix it." You think it through, and realize that in trying to fit the play to your perception of the aesthetic of the institution by which you've been hired, you have moved away from your OWN aesthetic -- which is, not coincidentally, probably why you were hired in the first place. Gulp.
What do you do? If you're my brilliant, brilliant friend, you throw cold water on your face, walk into your rehearsal hall 15 minutes later, tell your stage manager "follow me" and then walk the stage saying "cut this. cut this. cut this and this." And it works out. It might not work out, but in this case it does.
The lesson? Again, I quote (probably mis-quote) Herr Dietz:
"The material is not fragile. YOU may be fragile. But the material is not fragile."
Week before tech. The person who hires you has just seen your run-through, calls you into his office, and says "it isn't working. Fix it." You think it through, and realize that in trying to fit the play to your perception of the aesthetic of the institution by which you've been hired, you have moved away from your OWN aesthetic -- which is, not coincidentally, probably why you were hired in the first place. Gulp.
What do you do? If you're my brilliant, brilliant friend, you throw cold water on your face, walk into your rehearsal hall 15 minutes later, tell your stage manager "follow me" and then walk the stage saying "cut this. cut this. cut this and this." And it works out. It might not work out, but in this case it does.
The lesson? Again, I quote (probably mis-quote) Herr Dietz:
"The material is not fragile. YOU may be fragile. But the material is not fragile."
Monday, August 20, 2007
Things You Learn Other Places
Was working today on a new piece and how to shape it, thinking about organizing principles and asking myself "what's my aesthetic?/do I have one?"
Thought about another set of tools that I use often onstage as an actor and how they might translate into my work as an actor. Yes, the oft-used, oft-misused Viewpoints.
Anyway. Here are a series of elements that might be useful to keep in mind when playing with your play.
Architecture -- what are the architectural elements of the space? This could mean a lot of things -- what kind of theater do you envision for the play? What would be the architectural elements of imagined space? What kind of set would best allow you to tell your story?
Spatial relationships -- between characters, between set elements, between actors and audience, etc,
Topography -- what kind of floor patterns can people make through the space?
Shape -- The shape of lights, space, actors themselves, the shapes actors make with their bodies, the shapes actors make together with their bodies...
Gesture -- what is the physical language you imagine in your play...and how does that translate to/work with/counterpoint the play's verbal language? Think both behavioral and psychological gesture. Does the play live in realism? Something more heightened? A ping-pong between the two?
Repetition -- repetition of words, of scenes, of images, of themes, elements, music, light, arguments, jokes. Repetition WITHIN the play of these things, or borrowing from stories, plots, cliches, fairy tales that are shared within a particular culture (maybe your own, maybe borrowing from others) to call to mind other things
Duration -- how long does a scene last? A moment? The play? The intermission?
Tempo -- Fast, slow, languid, choppy, hyper, still, super-fast etc.
Kinesthetic Response -- What happens in response to something else? Think of Dominos, think of reactions, think of football plays.
Thought about another set of tools that I use often onstage as an actor and how they might translate into my work as an actor. Yes, the oft-used, oft-misused Viewpoints.
Anyway. Here are a series of elements that might be useful to keep in mind when playing with your play.
Architecture -- what are the architectural elements of the space? This could mean a lot of things -- what kind of theater do you envision for the play? What would be the architectural elements of imagined space? What kind of set would best allow you to tell your story?
Spatial relationships -- between characters, between set elements, between actors and audience, etc,
Topography -- what kind of floor patterns can people make through the space?
Shape -- The shape of lights, space, actors themselves, the shapes actors make with their bodies, the shapes actors make together with their bodies...
Gesture -- what is the physical language you imagine in your play...and how does that translate to/work with/counterpoint the play's verbal language? Think both behavioral and psychological gesture. Does the play live in realism? Something more heightened? A ping-pong between the two?
Repetition -- repetition of words, of scenes, of images, of themes, elements, music, light, arguments, jokes. Repetition WITHIN the play of these things, or borrowing from stories, plots, cliches, fairy tales that are shared within a particular culture (maybe your own, maybe borrowing from others) to call to mind other things
Duration -- how long does a scene last? A moment? The play? The intermission?
Tempo -- Fast, slow, languid, choppy, hyper, still, super-fast etc.
Kinesthetic Response -- What happens in response to something else? Think of Dominos, think of reactions, think of football plays.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Another Playwriting Blog
I've gotten my first responses to my notebook! Thanks to those with interest. David Alan Moore, a playwright friend of mine in Chicago, has said I can post his blog address here. It is www.davidalanmoore.wordpress.com.
Check it out for more thoughts on playwriting.
Check it out for more thoughts on playwriting.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Things Stage does better than other mediums
1. Simultaneity. Simultaneity works better on stage than on film. That could be of worlds, but it can also just mean that you can watch two people reacting to something more easily onstage...because the audience can direct their focus as they choose.
2. Inability to escape. On stage, you are two people trapped in a room. With fifteen or five hundred or however many people are in your theater. The stage does the LONG ARC of a scene better than other media.
3. "Magic with the wires showing" (to steal from Kushner) -- you can see the magic, and the trick, at the same time onstage (ie having someone "fly" on visible wires or by swinging them around on a ladder. Which ties into:
4. Conjuring (to steal from Steven Dietz). Steven says "Film shows...theater conjures" Theater is still the storyteller's great medium. You can sit a person on stage and listen to them talk for three hours and still have had a brilliant night at the theater, where you've gone through thirty years and six countries, without even necessarily changing a light cue.
To be continued...
2. Inability to escape. On stage, you are two people trapped in a room. With fifteen or five hundred or however many people are in your theater. The stage does the LONG ARC of a scene better than other media.
3. "Magic with the wires showing" (to steal from Kushner) -- you can see the magic, and the trick, at the same time onstage (ie having someone "fly" on visible wires or by swinging them around on a ladder. Which ties into:
4. Conjuring (to steal from Steven Dietz). Steven says "Film shows...theater conjures" Theater is still the storyteller's great medium. You can sit a person on stage and listen to them talk for three hours and still have had a brilliant night at the theater, where you've gone through thirty years and six countries, without even necessarily changing a light cue.
To be continued...
On "August: Osage County"
Or: just when you were feeling safe in your blanket statements...
So I just saw "August: Osage County," Tracy Letts's new play, which is receiving its world premiere at Steppenwolf right now.
And it overturned all the things I've been saying about what I find interesting on stage.
I think I've spent a lot of this year getting VERY excited about plays that play with perception by playing with "what is reality" -- having evil garden gnomes appear mid-act (Devil Baby), having split-second transitions between places, playing with technology onstage, having actors play multiple characters, filling the place with ghosts, having three worlds onstage at the same time...I was beginning to feel like "three people in a room" was all well and good, but simplistic. I was also ready to state categorically that no play should go longer than about 90 minutes.
Enter "August: Osage County" in the form of a free ticket from my friend Paul. Three and a half hours. Two intermissions. A single set, built like a dollhouse, showing a whole family home. A family drama, where the trick is that nobody gets to leave the room. And it FLEW by. I mean, I was on the edge of my seat for three hours.
Granted, part of this was the acting. This was the Steppenwolf ensemble at their finest, all but chewing the furniture, playing characters who clearly sat close to their own hearts (small-town people of the Plains states). But you know what? Even some of that has to go to Tracy, who made a point of writing this play to actors he knows, to damned fine actors he knows. And who let the play be autobiographical, and who let the play break all the assumptions about what is "innovative" or "interesting" or "theatrical" that we throw around. This was a damned fine play.
So I just saw "August: Osage County," Tracy Letts's new play, which is receiving its world premiere at Steppenwolf right now.
And it overturned all the things I've been saying about what I find interesting on stage.
I think I've spent a lot of this year getting VERY excited about plays that play with perception by playing with "what is reality" -- having evil garden gnomes appear mid-act (Devil Baby), having split-second transitions between places, playing with technology onstage, having actors play multiple characters, filling the place with ghosts, having three worlds onstage at the same time...I was beginning to feel like "three people in a room" was all well and good, but simplistic. I was also ready to state categorically that no play should go longer than about 90 minutes.
Enter "August: Osage County" in the form of a free ticket from my friend Paul. Three and a half hours. Two intermissions. A single set, built like a dollhouse, showing a whole family home. A family drama, where the trick is that nobody gets to leave the room. And it FLEW by. I mean, I was on the edge of my seat for three hours.
Granted, part of this was the acting. This was the Steppenwolf ensemble at their finest, all but chewing the furniture, playing characters who clearly sat close to their own hearts (small-town people of the Plains states). But you know what? Even some of that has to go to Tracy, who made a point of writing this play to actors he knows, to damned fine actors he knows. And who let the play be autobiographical, and who let the play break all the assumptions about what is "innovative" or "interesting" or "theatrical" that we throw around. This was a damned fine play.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
A Few Words from Adrien-Alice Hansel
This is reproduced from the Actors Theater of Louisville website. It struck me and I wanted to remember it.
Adrien-Alice Hansel has been the literary manager at Actors Theatre since March 2004. This piece originally appeared in Inside Actors in September 2005.
As I write in early August, the literary office is busily reading away getting ready for Humana 2006. Since the first Great American Play Festival in 1976 (renamed Humana Festival of New American Plays two years later), the Actors Theatre literary office has read in excess of 200,000 plays. These days we read roughly 700 full-length plays a year. The literary staff hunt high and low for the best plays: we attend readings all over the country, chat up agents, e-mail playwrights we’re interested in and read hundreds of ten-page samples of plays by writers who are new to us. Once we’ve read the plays, we write up an evaluation, and decide whether to return the play — encouraging the writers of compelling pieces to continue to send us their work — or to send it on to another reader. We pass the promising pieces around the theatre, where they’re read and discussed several more times, until we’ve whittled our list down to the five plays you’ll see this spring.
So. When I sit down with a play, what am I looking for? It’s a tricky proposition, because the writer has spent some real time making decisions about his or her characters, the way the story unfolds, the interplay between setting, theme and plot, where I’ll only spend an hour and a half with it. This is my chance to enter a world and to make sure that I see it as it could be on stage.
Here are my ground rules:
Assume the play is perfect. Try to enter the play on its own terms. A good play, I’ve found, will teach me how to read it. Time may unfold in a peculiar way, or characters may use language differently, but a good play will let the rules of its world unfold.
So, what works? When I write up my evaluations, the first thing I address is what I loved (or even liked) about the piece — the characters are impossibly charming, I was stunned by the language, the plot kept unfolding in intriguing ways.
And how does it work? Then I step back and take a look at how the whole play fits together: what’s the basic question that the playwright is examining? How do the characters, plot, language and style of the play feed into that question? What’s the playwright trying to do?
Sometimes, the things that don’t seem to fit are the best clues to what the playwright is trying to get at. Why does Queen Victoria suddenly show up in the middle of a contemporary family drama? Why does time run backwards in the first act? Crack that, and suddenly the universe opens up. Ignore it, or judge it, before considering it and you’ll never get inside the play.
Remembering the play is perfectly itself, what questions am I left with? Then I assume that I’m wrong about everything I don’t understand: if the characters feel thin to me, why might the writer choose to do that? Is the writer commenting on the world of these characters? Does something else in the play — the language or the conflict — support this new view? How might this play be working that I don’t expect?
Then, make a judgment. Having identified what the play is setting out to do, how well does it do it? And then, how interesting is its ambition? Is it a solid play I don’t respond to? A not-quite successful play that I’m head over heels for? Does it get my blood pumping? Am I thinking about it a few days later? Is there something unavoidably true here?
Adrien-Alice Hansel has been the literary manager at Actors Theatre since March 2004. This piece originally appeared in Inside Actors in September 2005.
As I write in early August, the literary office is busily reading away getting ready for Humana 2006. Since the first Great American Play Festival in 1976 (renamed Humana Festival of New American Plays two years later), the Actors Theatre literary office has read in excess of 200,000 plays. These days we read roughly 700 full-length plays a year. The literary staff hunt high and low for the best plays: we attend readings all over the country, chat up agents, e-mail playwrights we’re interested in and read hundreds of ten-page samples of plays by writers who are new to us. Once we’ve read the plays, we write up an evaluation, and decide whether to return the play — encouraging the writers of compelling pieces to continue to send us their work — or to send it on to another reader. We pass the promising pieces around the theatre, where they’re read and discussed several more times, until we’ve whittled our list down to the five plays you’ll see this spring.
So. When I sit down with a play, what am I looking for? It’s a tricky proposition, because the writer has spent some real time making decisions about his or her characters, the way the story unfolds, the interplay between setting, theme and plot, where I’ll only spend an hour and a half with it. This is my chance to enter a world and to make sure that I see it as it could be on stage.
Here are my ground rules:
Assume the play is perfect. Try to enter the play on its own terms. A good play, I’ve found, will teach me how to read it. Time may unfold in a peculiar way, or characters may use language differently, but a good play will let the rules of its world unfold.
So, what works? When I write up my evaluations, the first thing I address is what I loved (or even liked) about the piece — the characters are impossibly charming, I was stunned by the language, the plot kept unfolding in intriguing ways.
And how does it work? Then I step back and take a look at how the whole play fits together: what’s the basic question that the playwright is examining? How do the characters, plot, language and style of the play feed into that question? What’s the playwright trying to do?
Sometimes, the things that don’t seem to fit are the best clues to what the playwright is trying to get at. Why does Queen Victoria suddenly show up in the middle of a contemporary family drama? Why does time run backwards in the first act? Crack that, and suddenly the universe opens up. Ignore it, or judge it, before considering it and you’ll never get inside the play.
Remembering the play is perfectly itself, what questions am I left with? Then I assume that I’m wrong about everything I don’t understand: if the characters feel thin to me, why might the writer choose to do that? Is the writer commenting on the world of these characters? Does something else in the play — the language or the conflict — support this new view? How might this play be working that I don’t expect?
Then, make a judgment. Having identified what the play is setting out to do, how well does it do it? And then, how interesting is its ambition? Is it a solid play I don’t respond to? A not-quite successful play that I’m head over heels for? Does it get my blood pumping? Am I thinking about it a few days later? Is there something unavoidably true here?
Friday, May 18, 2007
Quote from Anton Chekhov
in a letter to Olga Knipper in "Dear Writer, Dear Actress"
"If over half the cast couldn't get into the mood then it's the play's fault -- number one. Number two, once and for all you must stop worrying about success or failure. Your business is to work step by step, from day to day, steadily, and to be prepared for inevitable mistakes and failures, in a word, to follow your own path and leave competition to others. What is important for beginners, and so very useful, is to write or act and be aware that you are not doing well enough."
"If over half the cast couldn't get into the mood then it's the play's fault -- number one. Number two, once and for all you must stop worrying about success or failure. Your business is to work step by step, from day to day, steadily, and to be prepared for inevitable mistakes and failures, in a word, to follow your own path and leave competition to others. What is important for beginners, and so very useful, is to write or act and be aware that you are not doing well enough."
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Keep in Touch...
This is a reminder for me, but it is also an encouragement to any MFA playwrights who can apply TO apply for the Theater Masters Program.
Went to NYC to see my 10-minute play staged. The upshot?
William Morris will read scripts from TM winners that have been vetted through TM
Williamstown wants to see our ten-minute plays
Primary Stages, same deal as William Morris
The Public has encouraged me to stay in touch and send plays
Note to self: finish the next play and follow up!
Went to NYC to see my 10-minute play staged. The upshot?
William Morris will read scripts from TM winners that have been vetted through TM
Williamstown wants to see our ten-minute plays
Primary Stages, same deal as William Morris
The Public has encouraged me to stay in touch and send plays
Note to self: finish the next play and follow up!
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Things I learned in New York
At the Theatre Masters showcase
(1) Apply, apply, apply to programs for emerging playwrights. If nothing else, you want them on your resume -- but they're also a great way to develop new work (Molly)
(2) Agents are interested in your plays, but they're also going to want to see a screenplay -- that's where they'll make money on you (Agents)
(3) It is advantageous, if you want to go into film or TV, to be seen as a New York Playwright (Tom)
(4) It would be a good idea to have a 25-minute short, produced, on a reel and ready to show people "you want to be part of the festival circuit" (Tom)
(5) For the purposes of schmoozing (ay, yi yi), have three things to talk about. Example: the play you're working on, the showcase that's going up, and the development workshop you're doing this summer
(5) Join the dramatists guild (Julia)
(6) You don't need an agent until you're dealing with complicated contracts. You're your own best advocate
(7) Don't cultivate the agents, they won't talk to you yet. Cultivate the agents' assistants (Tom)
(1) Apply, apply, apply to programs for emerging playwrights. If nothing else, you want them on your resume -- but they're also a great way to develop new work (Molly)
(2) Agents are interested in your plays, but they're also going to want to see a screenplay -- that's where they'll make money on you (Agents)
(3) It is advantageous, if you want to go into film or TV, to be seen as a New York Playwright (Tom)
(4) It would be a good idea to have a 25-minute short, produced, on a reel and ready to show people "you want to be part of the festival circuit" (Tom)
(5) For the purposes of schmoozing (ay, yi yi), have three things to talk about. Example: the play you're working on, the showcase that's going up, and the development workshop you're doing this summer
(5) Join the dramatists guild (Julia)
(6) You don't need an agent until you're dealing with complicated contracts. You're your own best advocate
(7) Don't cultivate the agents, they won't talk to you yet. Cultivate the agents' assistants (Tom)
Thursday, May 3, 2007
On Networking
When you meet people, be on the lookout for PEOPLE you want to work with -- don't get too overwhelmed by people. Think of it like dating. Desperation has a smell.
Keep your contact with people EVENT BASED
(1) Go to OPENINGS of shows
(2) Go to the big weekends of the big festivals (like Humana)
(3) Give people the opportunity to see your work. Always email everyone when you have a reading or workshop. Even if they're not in the same city. Simple -- a few lines long.
(4) ALWAYS send an example of your work if invited to do so.
(5) You can send out your work ONCE IT REPRESENTS ITSELF.
(6) And send thank you notes :)
(7) Apply again and again. If you don't get something, call to see if there are panel notes.
Keep your contact with people EVENT BASED
(1) Go to OPENINGS of shows
(2) Go to the big weekends of the big festivals (like Humana)
(3) Give people the opportunity to see your work. Always email everyone when you have a reading or workshop. Even if they're not in the same city. Simple -- a few lines long.
(4) ALWAYS send an example of your work if invited to do so.
(5) You can send out your work ONCE IT REPRESENTS ITSELF.
(6) And send thank you notes :)
(7) Apply again and again. If you don't get something, call to see if there are panel notes.
On Goals
Make Goals and check in with them.
Make Craft Goals. Make Production Goals. Keep a running list of the people you're meeting.
Get into the habit of applying for things and sending out your work. Persistence and volume counts.
Make Craft Goals. Make Production Goals. Keep a running list of the people you're meeting.
Get into the habit of applying for things and sending out your work. Persistence and volume counts.
On Professional Development, Part Two
Things to have on hand at all times. Caveat: says Daniel "this is not the work, and it is not the conversation about the work -- but these things function as seeds that will facilitate the conversation
(1) one-page bio
(2) one-paragraph bio
(3) twenty-five word bio
(4) an updated resume
(5) a business card
(6) an updated website
(7) an artist's statement
(8) Synopsis of your plays (short -- a few lines -- about basic plot, structure, style, character breakdown -- something true, accurate, and that can then be related to other people. Keep it simple).
Know what the tangible things are that you want to build to. What are the kinds of theatres you want to work with? What are examples of those theatres? Who wants to see work that does what?
Begin to articulate what you do as an artist. Avoid jargon. Be direct. Be able to accurately represent yourself and your work.
(1) one-page bio
(2) one-paragraph bio
(3) twenty-five word bio
(4) an updated resume
(5) a business card
(6) an updated website
(7) an artist's statement
(8) Synopsis of your plays (short -- a few lines -- about basic plot, structure, style, character breakdown -- something true, accurate, and that can then be related to other people. Keep it simple).
Know what the tangible things are that you want to build to. What are the kinds of theatres you want to work with? What are examples of those theatres? Who wants to see work that does what?
Begin to articulate what you do as an artist. Avoid jargon. Be direct. Be able to accurately represent yourself and your work.
On Professional Development, Part One
Daniel Alexander Jones says that professional development begins with an interrogation of WHAT YOU WANT from the business of theater and playwriting. That Professional Development is always PERSONAL.
Questions to ask
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
What kind of audiences do you want to be reaching?
What kind of communities do you want to be working with?
What stories do you want to tell?
What do you want to talk about?
How do you want to art to live in your life? Do you want a family, kids? Do you want to have another profession as well?
What do you want your work TO DO in the world?
I feel like, right now, I have answers to all but the last one.
Questions to ask
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
What kind of audiences do you want to be reaching?
What kind of communities do you want to be working with?
What stories do you want to tell?
What do you want to talk about?
How do you want to art to live in your life? Do you want a family, kids? Do you want to have another profession as well?
What do you want your work TO DO in the world?
I feel like, right now, I have answers to all but the last one.
On Storytelling and Character
A question to ask when revising:
Are you telling the story of the play with the characters or telling the story of the characters with the play?
Aim for the former.
Are you telling the story of the play with the characters or telling the story of the characters with the play?
Aim for the former.
Why to mess with time in a play
To make a play more purposeful.
To tell the story.
Bend time if it is how the storygets told.
To tell the story.
Bend time if it is how the storygets told.
On Things That Are Irrelevant
A few things that are (more or less) irrelevant...from Dietz's class.
Author's Intent. This is neat and interesting, but isn't a big part of telling the story of your play.
Your character's past. "Tell me your character's past" is common director question, and fine in terms of giving your collaborators background, but can lead to mushy thinking in terms of the structure of your play. Nobody cares about a character's background. Characters become interesting when there is an INCIDENT.
LET YOUR CHARACTERS HAVE SPECIFIC, STRATEGIC HISTORIES.
Author's Intent. This is neat and interesting, but isn't a big part of telling the story of your play.
Your character's past. "Tell me your character's past" is common director question, and fine in terms of giving your collaborators background, but can lead to mushy thinking in terms of the structure of your play. Nobody cares about a character's background. Characters become interesting when there is an INCIDENT.
LET YOUR CHARACTERS HAVE SPECIFIC, STRATEGIC HISTORIES.
On "Triggering Moment"
What will be true of the trigger for your play (or inciting incident, or whatever you want to call it)?
(1) It will be specific
(2) It will entangle all your major characters
(3) It won't reach too far back.
(1) It will be specific
(2) It will entangle all your major characters
(3) It won't reach too far back.
Thoughts from Mentors
These are distilled notes about my work from my first big meeting mentors Suzan Zeder, Steven Dietz and Daniel Alexander Jones.
DIG DEEPER into stories. Go to the scary places. Right now many of my scripts have madness running alongside them. Get that madness INTO the stories.
DON'T RESCUE characters from the hard stuff. Don't let them leave the room. Let them say the terrible stuff. Let them do the horrible thing. Trick yourself into writing things spontaneously that you'll never use. Listen to what your characters have to tell you. Cut later.
Cross the raging river.
There is no such thing as doing this right.
My tendency is to find the heat in something, feel it burn me, and put down the iron.
Understand the difference between a character's truth and the play's truth.
DIG DEEPER into stories. Go to the scary places. Right now many of my scripts have madness running alongside them. Get that madness INTO the stories.
DON'T RESCUE characters from the hard stuff. Don't let them leave the room. Let them say the terrible stuff. Let them do the horrible thing. Trick yourself into writing things spontaneously that you'll never use. Listen to what your characters have to tell you. Cut later.
Cross the raging river.
There is no such thing as doing this right.
My tendency is to find the heat in something, feel it burn me, and put down the iron.
Understand the difference between a character's truth and the play's truth.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Richard Nelson Speech on Play Development
Below is the 2007 Laura Pels Foundation Keynote Address, which was
delivered by Richard Nelson last Monday evening at Curtain Call, the
annual meeting of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New
York).
R.Nelson
Speech April 9th, 2007
First I want to thank Laura Pels - a truly generous woman. Generous in
both the obvious sense, and also always with her time, her energy, her
enthusiasm, her humor. She and I have had a few meals together over the
years, both here and in Paris, and I've enjoyed every minute of them and
always left inspired and encouraged. And I wish to thank ART New York
for inviting me here tonight. I have to say I was surprised to be asked,
but also very honored.
I am also very honored to be speaking to each and every one of you; I
know I am in a room of people who care about theater, who love theater,
many of you have and are devoting your lives to theater. And any lover
of theater - must also be a lover of plays. And any lover of plays
will, I am sure, recognize the unique place of the playwright in the
making of theater. And it is this place that I wish to speak about.
By the way, I think this will be the first 'speech' I have ever given;
fifty-six years old, and I've managed to escape giving a speech until
now. I suppose I never thought it was my 'thing,' I love hearing what I
write spoken by others, not myself. But things change, we change.
I remember when I became a father for the first time. And suddenly I
found within me an ability to fight for my child in ways that I could
never have fought for myself.
A year and a half ago I began teaching young emerging talented
playwrights at the Yale School of Drama. Tonight I want to talk about
issues that are important to them - and to me, and I believe to all
American playwrights. But mostly to them. And I suppose it is because
of them, and because of the hundreds of playwrights whose work I now
read each year, that I feel the need, the passion, but more importantly
the responsibility to discuss the state of our profession with you
tonight.
So much has happened to the profession of playwriting since I had my
first professional production at the Mark Taper Forum Lab in 1975. And
so much of what has happened has not been good for playwrights.
The profession of playwright, the role of the playwright in today's
American theater, I believe, is under serious attack. Some who attack
are simply greedy, some ignorant, some can't understand why theater
isn't TV or film. But perhaps the greatest threat to the playwright in
today's theater comes from not those greedy and ignorant, but rather
from those who want 'to help.'
'Help.' 'Playwrights are in need of help.' This is now almost a maxim
in our theater today. Unquestioned. A given. But where does this
mindset - for that is what it is - a mindset, come from? Of course
playwrights need things - money, productions, support, encouragement.
So do actors, directors, designers, artistic directors. But THIS
mindset is different, because what is meant here is: 'Playwrights are in
need of help -- to write their plays.' 'They are in need of help - to do
their work.' 'They can't do their work themselves.'
How strange. What other profession is viewed in this way? What other
person in the theater is viewed this way? Imagine hiring say a director
with the assumption that he couldn't do his work himself. Now I am not
saying by this that a director shouldn't listen to others, receive
notes, be open to discussions, and so forth. Quite the opposite, for
THIS is all part of what a director does. AND I am NOT saying a
playwright shouldn't listen to notes, be open to discussions, and so
forth - because THIS is what a playwright does. What I am saying is
that the given mindset should not be that the playwright cannot be
trusted to lead this process. Cannot be trusted to know how to work
within the collaboration of theater.
Nor am I talking about mentoring - or educating young playwrights here.
I'm not talking about a classroom situation. I'm talking about how our
professional theater looks at playwrights and the playwright's play.
About assumptions made and about the various specific solutions theaters
THEN make based upon these false assumptions.
What is really being said to the playwright by all the help? From the
playwright's perspective it is this: that the given now in the American
theater is that what a playwright writes, no matter how much he or she
works on it, rewrites it at his or her desk, the play will ALWAYS not be
right. Will ALWAYS need 'help.' In other words, writing a play is too
big of a job for just the playwright to achieve. This, I believe, is
now a prevalent attitude in the American theater. And this mindset is
devastating.
Emily Mann told me the other day that in her 17 years running the
McCarter Theater the greatest change has been - that now more and more
plays are submitted that are obviously unfinished. That writers today
recognize that if they wish to participate in a process that perhaps
will lead to the production of their work, then this will require
rewriting and revision guided and cajoled by others. So why finish
anything?
I sit with young writers and hear how they now leave chunks of their
plays purposely badly written - hoping that the 'help' they receive will
concentrate on these areas and not on others that they care about.
Tricks, games that many a screenwriter has learned over time, but now
finding their way into the writing of plays.
Now no doubt many of you are thinking - but the plays aren't finished,
they need help, and they do get better.
Again, I am not saying that a playwright should avoid and ignore
comments and reactions to his work, quite the opposite. But I am saying
that our mindset toward playwrights should be this: 1) the playwright
knows what he is doing, 2) perhaps the play as presented is as it should
be. So that the onus for change is not on the playwright but on others,
on the theater. And the theater is there with a full array of tools to
support the playwright as he or she attempts to improve upon his or her
play. How to improve a play should be the domain of the writer, with the
theater supplying potential tools, a reading say, or a workshop with
clearly delineated goals. These are tools that should evolve out of a
need, as opposed to being a given.
Now a culture of 'help' breeds a culture of dependence and this is what,
I believe, we now have in the American theater: the culture of readings
and workshops, one unimaginable when I was a young playwright thirty
years ago. A culture of 'development.' And this culture, more than
being an activity, a process - is a mindset. Having spent a great deal
of time in classical theater, I have watched actors and directors
approach classical plays that have massive contradictions and address
those plays not as works to be fixed, but rather to be solved. So I am
arguing for a theater where the mindset is not to fix new plays, but to
solve them.
Now if it is assumed that all plays need to be helped along, then no
playwright actually has it in his or her power to complete his or her
play. Therefore, can it really be called his or her play? Ah - now we
come to other trickier sides of this equation, where the 'help' given
writers also has strings. In the time I've been given, I'd like to look
at just a few - there are many - examples of how this mindset has
infiltrated our theater and what it is doing to my profession. So let's
get specific.
And let's look at the actors, directors, even audiences who have been
taught/re-educated by this culture to feel a responsibility to 'help'
the playwright write his or her play. Producers, literary managers,
dramaturges who 'help' with rules about what makes a good play, who
'help' by mandating readings because they must be 'helpful'. Let's look
at managers who 'helpfully' organize commissions so that the theater
can encourage OR is the word 'enforce' changes that are 'helpful' to
the play. There are contracts that demand remuneration for this 'help.'
There are foundations that allow their monies to be used in a
developmental hell that breeds the loss of confidence and control that
every playwright needs, must have, to succeed.
SO. Readings. Mandatory reading of plays for judgment or to 'give
help.' Be careful. This is dangerous, and has already caused great
harm. A play with two people at a table having a conversation - this
works in a reading, we get a good sense of what the writer is after.
But what about 7 people in a room, moving about, talking to two, then
three, unheard by a forth, and so on. This makes no sense in a reading.
And so playwrights, practical people that we are, slowly - like a bad
evolution - we stop writing in forms that don't work in readings. And
again, slowly, our plays begin to look alike, dramaturgically similar.
Of course a playwright can benefit from a reading, but one needs to be
so very careful about why the play is being read, what hopefully is
being gained. And, what is being lost. All those reading series out
there - careful, careful, in the long run are they doing much more harm
than good?
Workshops. What are they? What IS the role of an actor or a director
in a workshop? To direct or act in a play requires, I believe, a strong
element of confidence in the play; a belief that the answer to one's
questions or confusions can be found - in the play. This is what a
director or an actor does, this is their talent and how they explore.
But if the playwright is encouraged to - no CELEBRATED -for rewriting
during this process, then where does that put the actor, the director -
not acting, not directing - but there - 'to help.' Isn't this the wrong
mindset for a director or actor to have? Is this the way they should be
looking at a play? Couldn't their talents be put to better service
trying to solve what the writer has written - as opposed to trying to
help him fix it?
Audiences. By involving them in readings and discussions and god forbid
workshops, we are apparently asking for their 'help' with the play. But
doesn't this confuse even warp the role of the audience? And in terms of
new work doesn't this put an audience's focus overwhelmingly on 'does it
work?' as opposed to 'what is it about?' or 'why was it written?' or
'does it matter?' Aren't these the questions we want discussed? Aren't
these the questions that help generate the sort of substantive
discussions we in the theater wish to have with an audience?
Rules for writing plays. My god. One hears young playwrights being told
what a play 'must do,' or 'how a play works.' One hears writers being
told that a character's 'journey' isn't clear enough, or that the writer
needs to determine a character's 'motivation.' One hears how a play has
to 'build' in a certain way, or how 'the conflict' isn't strong enough.
These are terms that seem to suggest a deep understanding of what a play
is and how it is put together, but in fact they tell us very little.
Perhaps a particular play might be helped by one of these suggestions,
but they (and other 'rules') are too generally prescribed. To see how
silly this prescription is, one has only to ask: what is the clear
motivation of Lear? The playwright doesn't write out of 'motivations'
but rather out of truth and reality, out of people and story and worlds
he or she wishes or needs to create for us. These terms are perhaps
useful to the critic, or the dramaturg in finding a way in for
themselves to these plays; but such considerations are not how plays,
good plays, great plays are made.
The word 'text.' I may be crazy, but I think I just woke up one day and
suddenly somehow people starting talking about the 'text' instead of
'the play.' How did this come about? Since when does a playwright only
write 'words.' Isn't that the hidden meaning of this? To make the
playwright the 'word guy' and leave the theater making to others? As if
the writer was only a source from which words flowed that others made
into plays.
As I tell my students endlessly - theater is the only artistic form that
uses the entire live human being as its expression. Playwrights write
people, not words. We write words to convey the people. To push us
aside, to make us the 'text guy' and not the 'play guy' is a subtle but
dangerous change in thinking and betrays a new mindset about the place
of the playwright in the making of theater.
Step commissions. These are commissions - and this is pretty prevalent
I believe - where the playwright is paid in say three stages. First
when he agrees to the commission and signs the contract, 2nd payment
when he submits the play, and 3rd payment when he submits the rewrite.
Now what is wrong with this picture? What is the underlying assumption
here? That the play the playwright submits will need to be rewritten
and that the playwright will only do this rewrite only if he or she is
paid for it.
Now as we all know the playwright still is the owner of the play, he or
she owns the copyright. So - say you build a house and you own this
house. And someone comes along and suggests that you add a window. Now
if you agree and think this would improve your house a great deal you
are going to add this window. However, suppose a guy comes along and
says - he thinks you should add a window and he will pay you to do so.
To your own house! How bizarre. This guy must be thinking maybe you
don't want to add a window and you need to be paid to do it. Well, that
is very much what these step deals suggest - and once again insidiously
we have the role of the playwright, or at least his judgment and
understanding of his own play and what it needs doubted, questioned. In
his mind he's thinking he is being paid to do what he doesn't
necessarily want to do.
Here's one that will upset some of you. And the one that will take the
longest to explain and discuss. The idea of 'participation.' You
should see my first year students' faces when I explain what
'participation' is. You mean, they say, that I give up a percentage of
my play forever? Why? Because, I say, the theater has done your play.
Why? They ask again. Because -- and I tell them the theaters will give
you two reasons: they have enhanced the play's value by producing it in
a important 'market' and two, because the theaters have HELPED the
writer with the writing of the play. Ah - this HELP again, which may
have been unwanted, now we have to pay for! How did this happen?
A little background that most of you know, I'm sure. Participation has
been around a long time in the commercial theater, but it is a fairly
recent development, certainly as a pervasive practice, in the non-profit
theater. And it just sort of happened. No real debate that I know of.
Now who is to blame for this? Of course playwrights themselves need to
accept a good bit of that blame, for not fighting this harder when it
began to occur in non-profit contracts. But - and I would guess that
those who now run the Dramatist Guild might even agree - until very
recently our Guild was pretty myopic, and saw theater only through the
lens of Broadway where participation was a given. So there was no
understanding of why it should be stopped in the non-profit theater. And
so there was little if any serious debate or opposition. Only when
Gregory Mosher and Bernie Gersten took over Lincoln Center and they
refused to take any participation from new work was there even the
glimmer of discussion. And certainly nothing like the praise that those
two gentlemen deserved.
So it happened because no one fought it. The playwrights were too weak
and disorganized to fight back and understand what was being done to
them. So - I suppose it's our fault. However, as we all know, that's
not how the theater works, the serious theater works.
I remember an executive committee meeting many years ago at the Guthrie
where I was working, when we were going over salary increases for the
next season. When it came to the proposed raise for actors one new
board member said, 'but I understand that there are always lots of
actors who want to play each part. So why are we now going to pay
actors more? We should pay them less and save that money.' A few
minutes later a couple of more experienced members of the board took
this gentleman aside and explained. And what they explained is obvious
to all of us in this room: we in the theater have a responsibility not
just to our immediate bottom line, but to the future of our art and
profession. You apply principles of hardnosed business to every element
of the theater and you will destroy the theater. So yes, we playwrights
did not protect or fight for ourselves. Yes, we should have. But that
failure does not make us -- fair game.
We write our play, we own our play and we should continue to own our
play - all of it, at least as long as we stay in the non profit theater,
which is a theater that raises its money often on claims of producing
new writing.
Now only one argument about this has ever made sense to me: if a
playwright has a huge hit, shouldn't some of that money come back to the
theater and support other writers and other productions? And I have
signed many contracts in England stating just this, that should I make a
very large amount of money from the play during a given year, then a
percentage is owed to the theater. That makes sense. That is
responsible. But I have never seen an American theater contract with
anything like that language. If theaters won't take it upon themselves
to rectify this situation, if playwrights prove as a group too weak and
unfocused, then I say let's turn to the funders themselves, the
foundations and donors, and ask does this make sense to you, that
healthy percentages of future incomes from plays presented in smallish
theaters with small royalties, requiring months and months of work and
involvement by the playwright - should these theaters now have a right
to this? Should they now own part of the plays? And what signal does
this send to the writer, especially the young ones.
These are a few - there are many more - specific examples of how this
mindset toward the playwright has found its way into all reaches of the
theater and therefore how difficult it will be to change.
Finally to conclude, as I'm running out of time: EMPOWERMENT, that I
suppose is what all this is about,- allowing the playwright to feel that
he or she owns the play, IN ALL MEANINGS OF THAT WORD. AND TO HAVE
PRIDE IN THAT OWNERSHIP. Prescribing 'rules' - this does the opposite.
A culture with a mindset of 'help,' does the same. The loss of a
percentage of one's play - the same again. And so it is my hope and I
believe my profession's best hope -- to change this mindset and the
culture based upon it. When I was asked to give this speech, I was told
to speak about anything I wanted. I knew right away that this is what I
wished to talk about with all of you . Because, it is my great belief
and hope, that it will be from gatherings like these, gatherings of
caring, dedicated theater professionals, lovers of theater, that we can
change how we think, change the broken ways, and reinvigorate, even
re-imagine our theater. Thank you.
Richard Nelson
delivered by Richard Nelson last Monday evening at Curtain Call, the
annual meeting of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New
York).
R.Nelson
Speech April 9th, 2007
First I want to thank Laura Pels - a truly generous woman. Generous in
both the obvious sense, and also always with her time, her energy, her
enthusiasm, her humor. She and I have had a few meals together over the
years, both here and in Paris, and I've enjoyed every minute of them and
always left inspired and encouraged. And I wish to thank ART New York
for inviting me here tonight. I have to say I was surprised to be asked,
but also very honored.
I am also very honored to be speaking to each and every one of you; I
know I am in a room of people who care about theater, who love theater,
many of you have and are devoting your lives to theater. And any lover
of theater - must also be a lover of plays. And any lover of plays
will, I am sure, recognize the unique place of the playwright in the
making of theater. And it is this place that I wish to speak about.
By the way, I think this will be the first 'speech' I have ever given;
fifty-six years old, and I've managed to escape giving a speech until
now. I suppose I never thought it was my 'thing,' I love hearing what I
write spoken by others, not myself. But things change, we change.
I remember when I became a father for the first time. And suddenly I
found within me an ability to fight for my child in ways that I could
never have fought for myself.
A year and a half ago I began teaching young emerging talented
playwrights at the Yale School of Drama. Tonight I want to talk about
issues that are important to them - and to me, and I believe to all
American playwrights. But mostly to them. And I suppose it is because
of them, and because of the hundreds of playwrights whose work I now
read each year, that I feel the need, the passion, but more importantly
the responsibility to discuss the state of our profession with you
tonight.
So much has happened to the profession of playwriting since I had my
first professional production at the Mark Taper Forum Lab in 1975. And
so much of what has happened has not been good for playwrights.
The profession of playwright, the role of the playwright in today's
American theater, I believe, is under serious attack. Some who attack
are simply greedy, some ignorant, some can't understand why theater
isn't TV or film. But perhaps the greatest threat to the playwright in
today's theater comes from not those greedy and ignorant, but rather
from those who want 'to help.'
'Help.' 'Playwrights are in need of help.' This is now almost a maxim
in our theater today. Unquestioned. A given. But where does this
mindset - for that is what it is - a mindset, come from? Of course
playwrights need things - money, productions, support, encouragement.
So do actors, directors, designers, artistic directors. But THIS
mindset is different, because what is meant here is: 'Playwrights are in
need of help -- to write their plays.' 'They are in need of help - to do
their work.' 'They can't do their work themselves.'
How strange. What other profession is viewed in this way? What other
person in the theater is viewed this way? Imagine hiring say a director
with the assumption that he couldn't do his work himself. Now I am not
saying by this that a director shouldn't listen to others, receive
notes, be open to discussions, and so forth. Quite the opposite, for
THIS is all part of what a director does. AND I am NOT saying a
playwright shouldn't listen to notes, be open to discussions, and so
forth - because THIS is what a playwright does. What I am saying is
that the given mindset should not be that the playwright cannot be
trusted to lead this process. Cannot be trusted to know how to work
within the collaboration of theater.
Nor am I talking about mentoring - or educating young playwrights here.
I'm not talking about a classroom situation. I'm talking about how our
professional theater looks at playwrights and the playwright's play.
About assumptions made and about the various specific solutions theaters
THEN make based upon these false assumptions.
What is really being said to the playwright by all the help? From the
playwright's perspective it is this: that the given now in the American
theater is that what a playwright writes, no matter how much he or she
works on it, rewrites it at his or her desk, the play will ALWAYS not be
right. Will ALWAYS need 'help.' In other words, writing a play is too
big of a job for just the playwright to achieve. This, I believe, is
now a prevalent attitude in the American theater. And this mindset is
devastating.
Emily Mann told me the other day that in her 17 years running the
McCarter Theater the greatest change has been - that now more and more
plays are submitted that are obviously unfinished. That writers today
recognize that if they wish to participate in a process that perhaps
will lead to the production of their work, then this will require
rewriting and revision guided and cajoled by others. So why finish
anything?
I sit with young writers and hear how they now leave chunks of their
plays purposely badly written - hoping that the 'help' they receive will
concentrate on these areas and not on others that they care about.
Tricks, games that many a screenwriter has learned over time, but now
finding their way into the writing of plays.
Now no doubt many of you are thinking - but the plays aren't finished,
they need help, and they do get better.
Again, I am not saying that a playwright should avoid and ignore
comments and reactions to his work, quite the opposite. But I am saying
that our mindset toward playwrights should be this: 1) the playwright
knows what he is doing, 2) perhaps the play as presented is as it should
be. So that the onus for change is not on the playwright but on others,
on the theater. And the theater is there with a full array of tools to
support the playwright as he or she attempts to improve upon his or her
play. How to improve a play should be the domain of the writer, with the
theater supplying potential tools, a reading say, or a workshop with
clearly delineated goals. These are tools that should evolve out of a
need, as opposed to being a given.
Now a culture of 'help' breeds a culture of dependence and this is what,
I believe, we now have in the American theater: the culture of readings
and workshops, one unimaginable when I was a young playwright thirty
years ago. A culture of 'development.' And this culture, more than
being an activity, a process - is a mindset. Having spent a great deal
of time in classical theater, I have watched actors and directors
approach classical plays that have massive contradictions and address
those plays not as works to be fixed, but rather to be solved. So I am
arguing for a theater where the mindset is not to fix new plays, but to
solve them.
Now if it is assumed that all plays need to be helped along, then no
playwright actually has it in his or her power to complete his or her
play. Therefore, can it really be called his or her play? Ah - now we
come to other trickier sides of this equation, where the 'help' given
writers also has strings. In the time I've been given, I'd like to look
at just a few - there are many - examples of how this mindset has
infiltrated our theater and what it is doing to my profession. So let's
get specific.
And let's look at the actors, directors, even audiences who have been
taught/re-educated by this culture to feel a responsibility to 'help'
the playwright write his or her play. Producers, literary managers,
dramaturges who 'help' with rules about what makes a good play, who
'help' by mandating readings because they must be 'helpful'. Let's look
at managers who 'helpfully' organize commissions so that the theater
can encourage OR is the word 'enforce' changes that are 'helpful' to
the play. There are contracts that demand remuneration for this 'help.'
There are foundations that allow their monies to be used in a
developmental hell that breeds the loss of confidence and control that
every playwright needs, must have, to succeed.
SO. Readings. Mandatory reading of plays for judgment or to 'give
help.' Be careful. This is dangerous, and has already caused great
harm. A play with two people at a table having a conversation - this
works in a reading, we get a good sense of what the writer is after.
But what about 7 people in a room, moving about, talking to two, then
three, unheard by a forth, and so on. This makes no sense in a reading.
And so playwrights, practical people that we are, slowly - like a bad
evolution - we stop writing in forms that don't work in readings. And
again, slowly, our plays begin to look alike, dramaturgically similar.
Of course a playwright can benefit from a reading, but one needs to be
so very careful about why the play is being read, what hopefully is
being gained. And, what is being lost. All those reading series out
there - careful, careful, in the long run are they doing much more harm
than good?
Workshops. What are they? What IS the role of an actor or a director
in a workshop? To direct or act in a play requires, I believe, a strong
element of confidence in the play; a belief that the answer to one's
questions or confusions can be found - in the play. This is what a
director or an actor does, this is their talent and how they explore.
But if the playwright is encouraged to - no CELEBRATED -for rewriting
during this process, then where does that put the actor, the director -
not acting, not directing - but there - 'to help.' Isn't this the wrong
mindset for a director or actor to have? Is this the way they should be
looking at a play? Couldn't their talents be put to better service
trying to solve what the writer has written - as opposed to trying to
help him fix it?
Audiences. By involving them in readings and discussions and god forbid
workshops, we are apparently asking for their 'help' with the play. But
doesn't this confuse even warp the role of the audience? And in terms of
new work doesn't this put an audience's focus overwhelmingly on 'does it
work?' as opposed to 'what is it about?' or 'why was it written?' or
'does it matter?' Aren't these the questions we want discussed? Aren't
these the questions that help generate the sort of substantive
discussions we in the theater wish to have with an audience?
Rules for writing plays. My god. One hears young playwrights being told
what a play 'must do,' or 'how a play works.' One hears writers being
told that a character's 'journey' isn't clear enough, or that the writer
needs to determine a character's 'motivation.' One hears how a play has
to 'build' in a certain way, or how 'the conflict' isn't strong enough.
These are terms that seem to suggest a deep understanding of what a play
is and how it is put together, but in fact they tell us very little.
Perhaps a particular play might be helped by one of these suggestions,
but they (and other 'rules') are too generally prescribed. To see how
silly this prescription is, one has only to ask: what is the clear
motivation of Lear? The playwright doesn't write out of 'motivations'
but rather out of truth and reality, out of people and story and worlds
he or she wishes or needs to create for us. These terms are perhaps
useful to the critic, or the dramaturg in finding a way in for
themselves to these plays; but such considerations are not how plays,
good plays, great plays are made.
The word 'text.' I may be crazy, but I think I just woke up one day and
suddenly somehow people starting talking about the 'text' instead of
'the play.' How did this come about? Since when does a playwright only
write 'words.' Isn't that the hidden meaning of this? To make the
playwright the 'word guy' and leave the theater making to others? As if
the writer was only a source from which words flowed that others made
into plays.
As I tell my students endlessly - theater is the only artistic form that
uses the entire live human being as its expression. Playwrights write
people, not words. We write words to convey the people. To push us
aside, to make us the 'text guy' and not the 'play guy' is a subtle but
dangerous change in thinking and betrays a new mindset about the place
of the playwright in the making of theater.
Step commissions. These are commissions - and this is pretty prevalent
I believe - where the playwright is paid in say three stages. First
when he agrees to the commission and signs the contract, 2nd payment
when he submits the play, and 3rd payment when he submits the rewrite.
Now what is wrong with this picture? What is the underlying assumption
here? That the play the playwright submits will need to be rewritten
and that the playwright will only do this rewrite only if he or she is
paid for it.
Now as we all know the playwright still is the owner of the play, he or
she owns the copyright. So - say you build a house and you own this
house. And someone comes along and suggests that you add a window. Now
if you agree and think this would improve your house a great deal you
are going to add this window. However, suppose a guy comes along and
says - he thinks you should add a window and he will pay you to do so.
To your own house! How bizarre. This guy must be thinking maybe you
don't want to add a window and you need to be paid to do it. Well, that
is very much what these step deals suggest - and once again insidiously
we have the role of the playwright, or at least his judgment and
understanding of his own play and what it needs doubted, questioned. In
his mind he's thinking he is being paid to do what he doesn't
necessarily want to do.
Here's one that will upset some of you. And the one that will take the
longest to explain and discuss. The idea of 'participation.' You
should see my first year students' faces when I explain what
'participation' is. You mean, they say, that I give up a percentage of
my play forever? Why? Because, I say, the theater has done your play.
Why? They ask again. Because -- and I tell them the theaters will give
you two reasons: they have enhanced the play's value by producing it in
a important 'market' and two, because the theaters have HELPED the
writer with the writing of the play. Ah - this HELP again, which may
have been unwanted, now we have to pay for! How did this happen?
A little background that most of you know, I'm sure. Participation has
been around a long time in the commercial theater, but it is a fairly
recent development, certainly as a pervasive practice, in the non-profit
theater. And it just sort of happened. No real debate that I know of.
Now who is to blame for this? Of course playwrights themselves need to
accept a good bit of that blame, for not fighting this harder when it
began to occur in non-profit contracts. But - and I would guess that
those who now run the Dramatist Guild might even agree - until very
recently our Guild was pretty myopic, and saw theater only through the
lens of Broadway where participation was a given. So there was no
understanding of why it should be stopped in the non-profit theater. And
so there was little if any serious debate or opposition. Only when
Gregory Mosher and Bernie Gersten took over Lincoln Center and they
refused to take any participation from new work was there even the
glimmer of discussion. And certainly nothing like the praise that those
two gentlemen deserved.
So it happened because no one fought it. The playwrights were too weak
and disorganized to fight back and understand what was being done to
them. So - I suppose it's our fault. However, as we all know, that's
not how the theater works, the serious theater works.
I remember an executive committee meeting many years ago at the Guthrie
where I was working, when we were going over salary increases for the
next season. When it came to the proposed raise for actors one new
board member said, 'but I understand that there are always lots of
actors who want to play each part. So why are we now going to pay
actors more? We should pay them less and save that money.' A few
minutes later a couple of more experienced members of the board took
this gentleman aside and explained. And what they explained is obvious
to all of us in this room: we in the theater have a responsibility not
just to our immediate bottom line, but to the future of our art and
profession. You apply principles of hardnosed business to every element
of the theater and you will destroy the theater. So yes, we playwrights
did not protect or fight for ourselves. Yes, we should have. But that
failure does not make us -- fair game.
We write our play, we own our play and we should continue to own our
play - all of it, at least as long as we stay in the non profit theater,
which is a theater that raises its money often on claims of producing
new writing.
Now only one argument about this has ever made sense to me: if a
playwright has a huge hit, shouldn't some of that money come back to the
theater and support other writers and other productions? And I have
signed many contracts in England stating just this, that should I make a
very large amount of money from the play during a given year, then a
percentage is owed to the theater. That makes sense. That is
responsible. But I have never seen an American theater contract with
anything like that language. If theaters won't take it upon themselves
to rectify this situation, if playwrights prove as a group too weak and
unfocused, then I say let's turn to the funders themselves, the
foundations and donors, and ask does this make sense to you, that
healthy percentages of future incomes from plays presented in smallish
theaters with small royalties, requiring months and months of work and
involvement by the playwright - should these theaters now have a right
to this? Should they now own part of the plays? And what signal does
this send to the writer, especially the young ones.
These are a few - there are many more - specific examples of how this
mindset toward the playwright has found its way into all reaches of the
theater and therefore how difficult it will be to change.
Finally to conclude, as I'm running out of time: EMPOWERMENT, that I
suppose is what all this is about,- allowing the playwright to feel that
he or she owns the play, IN ALL MEANINGS OF THAT WORD. AND TO HAVE
PRIDE IN THAT OWNERSHIP. Prescribing 'rules' - this does the opposite.
A culture with a mindset of 'help,' does the same. The loss of a
percentage of one's play - the same again. And so it is my hope and I
believe my profession's best hope -- to change this mindset and the
culture based upon it. When I was asked to give this speech, I was told
to speak about anything I wanted. I knew right away that this is what I
wished to talk about with all of you . Because, it is my great belief
and hope, that it will be from gatherings like these, gatherings of
caring, dedicated theater professionals, lovers of theater, that we can
change how we think, change the broken ways, and reinvigorate, even
re-imagine our theater. Thank you.
Richard Nelson
On Collaboration
Thoughts from Steven Dietz, Sheila Daniels
Know the difference between entitlement, pride, and ownership.
"Yes it's a collaboration, but who is at the helm?"
FORGE collaboration, rather than WAITING for collaboration
As a playwright, a workshop (or ANY collaboration) will work better if you come into the room saying "this is what I want to work on, and these are the questions I have" -- because the thing is, you KNOW what doesn't work in your plays. And if you don't, then pick something you're curious about. Go in with FOCUS.
You should have an answer to the following question "If we fuck up everything else on this play, what should we get right?"
Believe that your play is worth people's time and energy.
Be ready to say to people who are sponsoring a workshop "Thanks for these tools. I need this one and this one and this one."
Know the difference between entitlement, pride, and ownership.
"Yes it's a collaboration, but who is at the helm?"
FORGE collaboration, rather than WAITING for collaboration
As a playwright, a workshop (or ANY collaboration) will work better if you come into the room saying "this is what I want to work on, and these are the questions I have" -- because the thing is, you KNOW what doesn't work in your plays. And if you don't, then pick something you're curious about. Go in with FOCUS.
You should have an answer to the following question "If we fuck up everything else on this play, what should we get right?"
Believe that your play is worth people's time and energy.
Be ready to say to people who are sponsoring a workshop "Thanks for these tools. I need this one and this one and this one."
Sunday, April 29, 2007
(Q) What is the order of time that makes the most sense for this play?
Start from there. Then create the chronology. Don't put things in chronological order just because "that's the order in which they happened."
When in doubt, ask "How do I want to shape my audience's experience of this story?"
When in doubt, ask "How do I want to shape my audience's experience of this story?"
(E) Exercise - Cuts
If you have a monologue play that is turning into something that needs a chorus (which Erica found with "Love, Candy"...or if you are brave enough to put your play into other people's hands...you can try giving your play to friends and colleagues and asking them to suggest cuts or a different way of breaking up lines.
Some common things to cut for:
Repetition
Stated Emotion
Filler words ("just" etc...)
Some common things to cut for:
Repetition
Stated Emotion
Filler words ("just" etc...)
Answered Questions
Recommendations for boundary-pushing plays
These recommendations from Dramaturg Liz Engleman for plays and playwrights that are somehow pushing the boundaries of American play-making, in an email to me (thanks to Steven Dietz for putting us in touch).
"Some boundary pushers:
Dan Dietz, Colin Denby Swanson, Lisa D’Amour, Carson Kreitzer, Naomi Iizuka (all of the above have been Austin-ites), Carlos Murrillo (dark play: or stories for boys), Melissa James Gibson, Deborah Stein (The aerodynamics of Accident, GodSave Gertrude)
Then, writers that I just love, but maybe don’t push as hard:
Kelly Stuart (Mayhem, Shadow Language), Julie Marie Myatt (The Sex Habits of American Women, Boats on a River, My Wandering Boy), Janet Allard (Vrooommm: A Nascomedy),Melanie Marnich (Blur, Quake"
"Some boundary pushers:
Dan Dietz, Colin Denby Swanson, Lisa D’Amour, Carson Kreitzer, Naomi Iizuka (all of the above have been Austin-ites), Carlos Murrillo (dark play: or stories for boys), Melissa James Gibson, Deborah Stein (The aerodynamics of Accident, GodSave Gertrude)
Then, writers that I just love, but maybe don’t push as hard:
Kelly Stuart (Mayhem, Shadow Language), Julie Marie Myatt (The Sex Habits of American Women, Boats on a River, My Wandering Boy), Janet Allard (Vrooommm: A Nascomedy),Melanie Marnich (Blur, Quake"
Having An Agenda
Talked the other day about the workshop process for a play. A few of the more salient points:
(1) Go into a workshop with things you are looking for. USE the workshop to accomplish what YOU want to see accomplished on your draft.
(2) If you don't have an agenda for your play, someone else in the room will.
(3) You want the actor who can treat each new draft as "final," right up until they get the next draft.
(1) Go into a workshop with things you are looking for. USE the workshop to accomplish what YOU want to see accomplished on your draft.
(2) If you don't have an agenda for your play, someone else in the room will.
(3) You want the actor who can treat each new draft as "final," right up until they get the next draft.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
On Secrets
Dietz talked today about his play, "Fiction," and what became one of its organizing principles, in terms of how to structure the plot. For that play, it was the revelation of secrets. Once he knew the secrets that each character had to reveal, and realized that those secrets were the engine of the play, the work became about figuring where to place those for maximum impact.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
BOOKS TO READ
The Grammer of Motives (says Dietz)
Sense of an Ending (says Dietz)
Books by architect Christopher Alexander (says Zeder)
The plays of Adrienne Kennedy (says Jones)
La Ronde (says Sanchez)
Sense of an Ending (says Dietz)
Books by architect Christopher Alexander (says Zeder)
The plays of Adrienne Kennedy (says Jones)
La Ronde (says Sanchez)
On Plot Form
From Paula Vogel to Steven Dietz, in reference to her play, The Long Christmas Ride Home .
"Design a different plot form for every play. The plot form radically designs the play world..."
That particular play is a bastardized Bunraku puppetry telling of a story about a family's ride to and from grandmother's house. There is a break in the script when the family almost goes off a cliff, when the actors behind the "child" puppets step forward to talk about "years later," then step back into the play.
"Design a different plot form for every play. The plot form radically designs the play world..."
That particular play is a bastardized Bunraku puppetry telling of a story about a family's ride to and from grandmother's house. There is a break in the script when the family almost goes off a cliff, when the actors behind the "child" puppets step forward to talk about "years later," then step back into the play.
(T) Chronology
We've been thinking about time a lot in Steven's class -- the different choices we can make in crafting a play, the tools available.
TO TELL A STORY IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER IS ALSO A CHOICE, AND A VALID ONE
Just a thought. Sometimes the most appropriate mechanism is also the simplest...not always, but sometimes.
TO TELL A STORY IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER IS ALSO A CHOICE, AND A VALID ONE
Just a thought. Sometimes the most appropriate mechanism is also the simplest...not always, but sometimes.
Monday, March 19, 2007
(Q) A Question...
A question that seems to come up a lot in my work. I need to figure out what the question means..."what is the story you are trying to tell." Yeah, the more I look at the question, the less I understand it.
Something to ponder.
Something to ponder.
(E) Story Building Exercise
This is an in-class exercise we did with Steven to explore triggering events and actions. Much of the following is taken from the assignment verbatim (mistakes are mine).
Use seven of the eight following actions. Pick one of them as your "triggering event" -- which must be placed at the beginning of your narrative.
You will then place the remaining actions in any order you wish -- with the goal of building a STORY, in the form of a play, that you will later present.
Hint: focus narrative on a small group of characters
Hint: Move your story in time, as needed, to tell story
Hint: Commit to it, don't joke. Make it mean something to you
Actions:
1. The alarm goes off
2. The kiss
3. Emptying her wallet
4. In the car, at night
5. Taking/giving back flowers
6. A secret is told
7. New shoes
8. Snow
Use seven of the eight following actions. Pick one of them as your "triggering event" -- which must be placed at the beginning of your narrative.
You will then place the remaining actions in any order you wish -- with the goal of building a STORY, in the form of a play, that you will later present.
Hint: focus narrative on a small group of characters
Hint: Move your story in time, as needed, to tell story
Hint: Commit to it, don't joke. Make it mean something to you
Actions:
1. The alarm goes off
2. The kiss
3. Emptying her wallet
4. In the car, at night
5. Taking/giving back flowers
6. A secret is told
7. New shoes
8. Snow
(T) TIME as a tool in your play
Steven Dietz is teaching a whole class on TIME this semester, and there are a ton of ways to bend time as necessary to the telling of your story. A few ways:
Tell your story "backward" (as in Betrayal)
Age your characters more slowly than time (As in Cloud Nine)
Tell the aftermath of your story, where the mystery is the past, and then how it got that way (Three Days of Rain)
Show one character at different ages simultaneously (Three Tall Women)
Employ flashbacks
Employ flashforwards
Have a character remember something that happened in the past (get their interpretation of the event/s
These are just a few...more later
Tell your story "backward" (as in Betrayal)
Age your characters more slowly than time (As in Cloud Nine)
Tell the aftermath of your story, where the mystery is the past, and then how it got that way (Three Days of Rain)
Show one character at different ages simultaneously (Three Tall Women)
Employ flashbacks
Employ flashforwards
Have a character remember something that happened in the past (get their interpretation of the event/s
These are just a few...more later
(E) What Happens Next?
This was something we did in Suzan's class as a way of opening up how a story might go, based on what we had heard to that point.
After listening to the beginning of a work-in-progress, have each member of class write down three things they think will happen before the end of the play. These are not suggestions, they are just guesses -- but they should be rooted in the text as it currently exists.
After listening to the beginning of a work-in-progress, have each member of class write down three things they think will happen before the end of the play. These are not suggestions, they are just guesses -- but they should be rooted in the text as it currently exists.
(E) 3-dimensions exercise
This was an exercise we did in Suzan's class to help us get a feel (literally) for our play.
Create a set, a sculpture, a model or mobile --basically a three-dimensional entity -- that represents the world of the play you are creating. Pay attention to the materials you are using, to spatial relationships, to angles and curves, to how you imagine light would interplay with the world of your play, to the dimensions of reality at work in your piece. Think about how to represent all of these, then do it. Keep it as a reference as you work in your play.
Create a set, a sculpture, a model or mobile --basically a three-dimensional entity -- that represents the world of the play you are creating. Pay attention to the materials you are using, to spatial relationships, to angles and curves, to how you imagine light would interplay with the world of your play, to the dimensions of reality at work in your piece. Think about how to represent all of these, then do it. Keep it as a reference as you work in your play.
(E) Collage Exercise
This was an exercise that Erica N. and George B. had us do in a workshop for George's play "Elephant Graveyard."
(1) Assign each member of the group to one of the characters in your play
(2) Have each create a collage that represents your understanding of that character.
You could do other things with this -- have each collage an idea, a place, an event, whatever. See what they put together and pay attention to how they've talked about what they've made.
(1) Assign each member of the group to one of the characters in your play
(2) Have each create a collage that represents your understanding of that character.
You could do other things with this -- have each collage an idea, a place, an event, whatever. See what they put together and pay attention to how they've talked about what they've made.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
(E) Monologue Exercise
Take a character from your play who is silent or says very little. Write the monologue where your character says what they WOULD say, if they spoke.
From Steven Dietz's Playwriting Workshop.
From Steven Dietz's Playwriting Workshop.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tension and Tensional Force Exercise
We spend most of our lives (most of us) trying to avoid or alleviate tension. You call someone tense, it's a negative thing. Your shoulders are tense, you want a massage so that you can relax. Tension is a kind of kryptonite.
But on stage, Tension is lifeblood. Without it, you likely have something unwatchable.
It's the difference between tension in your shoulders and tension in a ROPE. The tension in a rope is what makes it productive, allows it to do its work.
Look for tension in your work. Foster it. It will keep your play moving, will keep your audience engaged in the question of "what next?"
This was an exercise that Suzan gave us.
Take six pieces of paper, and label each as follows:
(1) Character
(2) Theme
(3) Image
(4) Plot
(5) Language
(6) Spectacle
Consider a piece on which you are currently working. For each of the above elements, brainstorm all of the tensional forces currently at work in your play. For example, in Character, you might have tensions of age, race, gender, socioeconomic background, religion, etc. For image, you might have light and dark, up and down, rounded and angular, dirty and clean...you see. For theme, various paradoxes, for plot you're looking at events that upset a balance that then must be restored.
Now step back, look at what you've got, and consider what you have. Are there sufficient tensional forces at work? Do you want more or to up the ante on the ones you have? What do you see? Paste it to your wall and get back to writing your play.
But on stage, Tension is lifeblood. Without it, you likely have something unwatchable.
It's the difference between tension in your shoulders and tension in a ROPE. The tension in a rope is what makes it productive, allows it to do its work.
Look for tension in your work. Foster it. It will keep your play moving, will keep your audience engaged in the question of "what next?"
This was an exercise that Suzan gave us.
Take six pieces of paper, and label each as follows:
(1) Character
(2) Theme
(3) Image
(4) Plot
(5) Language
(6) Spectacle
Consider a piece on which you are currently working. For each of the above elements, brainstorm all of the tensional forces currently at work in your play. For example, in Character, you might have tensions of age, race, gender, socioeconomic background, religion, etc. For image, you might have light and dark, up and down, rounded and angular, dirty and clean...you see. For theme, various paradoxes, for plot you're looking at events that upset a balance that then must be restored.
Now step back, look at what you've got, and consider what you have. Are there sufficient tensional forces at work? Do you want more or to up the ante on the ones you have? What do you see? Paste it to your wall and get back to writing your play.
Friday, February 23, 2007
(P) Ten Years Later Exercise
Prompt assigned in Steven's class (class is on Time as a tool) February 2007
Take the play on which you are currently working and write a 3 page scene that is "the scene that happens ten years later."
Take the play on which you are currently working and write a 3 page scene that is "the scene that happens ten years later."
(E) Characters talking across time exercise
Exercise assigned in Steven's playwriting workshop, February 2007
Take 2 of your central characters and place them at a table with four chairs. In the other two chairs, take those characters a certain amount of time later (ie character A and A+5 months, character B and B+5 months). On the table, place an object that is somehow significant in your play, or emblematic of the conflict within your piece.
Write a scene using the above. Make it no less than one and no more than five pages long.
Take 2 of your central characters and place them at a table with four chairs. In the other two chairs, take those characters a certain amount of time later (ie character A and A+5 months, character B and B+5 months). On the table, place an object that is somehow significant in your play, or emblematic of the conflict within your piece.
Write a scene using the above. Make it no less than one and no more than five pages long.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
(E) "Who's in the room" improv
Exercise created to explore a love triangle in which characters A and B are both having a romantic relationship with character C. In the play, A and B never appear in the room together.
Exercise: Two actors are assigned character A and B. Moderator poses a question and then cedes floor to the characters, who answer the question and then can ask questions of each other. Each workshop participant can "tag in" as either character A or B, like freezetag, and the conversation continues.
Useful as a generative exercise, or to explore relationships in a work-in-progress.
(created by Priscilla and Michael, feb 2007)
Exercise: Two actors are assigned character A and B. Moderator poses a question and then cedes floor to the characters, who answer the question and then can ask questions of each other. Each workshop participant can "tag in" as either character A or B, like freezetag, and the conversation continues.
Useful as a generative exercise, or to explore relationships in a work-in-progress.
(created by Priscilla and Michael, feb 2007)
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