Personal Statements, Artistic Statements, are tricky. Whenever I ask other writers how they
approach them, everyone tends to groan, order a beer, and evade the
question. No one I know seems
particularly happy with their own Statements – yet we’re required to write
them, sometimes several times a year, to throw our hat in the right for
different opportunities.
So it was a terrific learning experience when I had the
opportunity to read several different Statements, back-to-back, all for the
same thing (now don’t try to guess – I was reading over a friend’s shoulder,
and they were blind reads. I was struck,
immediately, by just how different one statement was from the next, by how much
I reacted to one voice or another in the statement. If you imagine the statement
as that moment when you find yourself next to someone at a cocktail party and
find out they’re a playwright, and then the conversation that ensues…that’s
what reading these felt like.
Some specific characters emerged:
The ingénue, male or female, wide-eyed as they told you that
they just love playwriting, that they’ve just landed in the big bad city
after leaving some tiny school in Ohio (or wherever), that being in this group
would change their life. Very
sweet, but I found myself muttering “virgin,” and not in a good way.
The aggressively hyper-masculine balls-to-the-walls
guy (and it was usually a guy), who works really hard to show you his “voice”
in the statement, to come off like Ginsberg or Kerouac. Who acts like he’s in the group already, like
obviously you’re gonna let him in because c’mon, how could you not, with all
the prizes he’s won or the brilliant line he led with. You kinda feel like he’s the upperclassman
cornering you in the dark corner of an apartment party, breathing whiskey and
cigarettes at you and trying to get into your pants.
The breathy, sun-saluting broomstick-skirt-wearing woman
(and it was usually a woman) with COEXIST stickers on the back of her rusty
Honda, who spent her energy (and precious word count) evangelizing you, with
passion but without detail, about how wonderful theater is, the power
of the stage as a place where people can tell age-old stories…yeah, Lady, I
know, that’s why we’re all here…but what stories do you wanna tell?
The bitter, desperate, “I’m getting too old for this! There’s age discrimination! There’s gender discrimination! There’s non-MFA discrimination! There’s a Boy’s Club! If you don’t accept me
into the group, it’s further proof that there’s discrimination!”
rant…this is the dude or lady standing in front of you on the subway, asking
for change. They may have a point, but
you’re unlikely to invite them home for dinner.
The Down-to-Business Elevator Pitch Guy (or Gal) who
immediately launched into “here’s what I’m working on now, here’s why I’m doing
it.” This guy uses bullet points, hell,
if he could he’d use powerpoint, to convey to you concisely as possible
why there should be a merger between his brand and yours. This is the playwright who bends over
backward to come across as professional.
Now if some of the above seems snide, please understand that
it’s because, at one point or another, I have tried to be all of these,
and more, in writing my own statements.
What was striking, and educational, was seeing these “types” laid out in
front of me like a deck of cards, and realizing how I responded to each
one. Each probably has its place, and
each can have its advantages, and in some cases, one’s more honest than another
(if you’re fresh off-the-boat from Iowa, you probably shouldn’t sound like the
Ginsberg Guy, and if you’re over 40, nobody’s gonna really buy the ingénue).
Me, I found that I reacted best to the Very
Professional. Yes, it was colder
than the other voices, but it was concise, specific, and to-the-point…given that
I was going to speed through it on my way to the play, it gave me sufficient
introduction and let me get on with my business. Frankly, where I needed “voice” was in the
pages, more than the statement.
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