The Gifts You Give Away
I received this email from a drama coach who had directed a production of one of my plays.
"During the performance last night, one of the audience members was laughing so loud, I thought he had been drinking (haha). He approached me after the play was over. It was a community member who lost his wife to cancer last fall, and his son, Casey, is an extra in the play. He said that since his wife had passed, he had been unable to laugh - until he saw your play. For a couple hours, he was able to forget everything and just laugh. He wanted to know who wrote it. He plans on coming again Monday.
Well, his son is an understudy. When I told the cast what Casey's dad said, the student for whom his is understudying decided to let Casey play Victor on Monday. It’s going to be a surprise for Casey's dad. I'll let you know how it goes!
Michelle Miles
FHS Drama Coach"
My response:
Dear Michelle and the cast and crew,
I can’t tell you how flattered I am to receive this email. Reading it reminded me of an exchange I had years ago with a really great improv teacher. I was bemoaning the fact that, because of the war, we had been adding more and more serious scenes into our graduation show. He asked me, “Why do you think people come to the theater?”
“To be entertained.”
“No, they come to be affected.”
I think most of us, when we realized we were destined to work in theater in some capacity, proceeded because we wanted to be part of entertaining audiences, and then, years later, we learned our relationship with the audience is a little more complicated than that.
Maybe the audience doesn’t think of it in those terms, but in truth they are there to be affected, manipulated, moved by the experience. Laughter is certainly part of that, but so are tears, anger, and heated conversations in the parking lot after the show dissecting the meaning of what they’ve just seen. We want to affect the audience, the audience wants to be affected. A perfect, symbiotic relationship.
But sometimes, sitting in that darkened theater, there is an audience member who doesn’t want to be affected. Sometimes that person needs to be affected.
A very smart actor with whom I often work once said, “The most important gifts you receive are the ones you give away.” Casey’s father has given you the most important gift someone in the theater can receive; He made what you do matter. And in turn, you gave him the gift of affecting him in the way he needed most at that moment. Many speeches are given by many theater practitioners about the importance, honor, and responsibility of the theatrical arts. I can’t think of a better example than this one. You never know when someone like Casey’s father will be out there, but you should always assume they are, and approach the stage as if tonight’s show can be a transformative experience.
(And just to be clear, I’m speaking of everyone involved in the show. Without the director, playwright, costumes, props, sets, lights, stage manager, running crew, or the person handing out tickets and programs, Casey’s father wouldn’t have had that experience.)
Speaking of gifts, I must applaud the actor who stepped aside so Casey could take his role for the evening. When you hear actors speak of other actors as “gifted” and “generous,” generally that refers to their onstage habits. Rest assured, your generosity and gifts were definitely on stage that night, even if you weren’t.
So, again, thank you for the email; thank you for choosing my show; and thank you for reminding me of what’s important about what we do.
Sincerely,
Sean Abley
--
Sean Abley is one of the founding members of the Factory Theater in Chicago. While there, he adapted the films Corpse Grinders, Reefer Madness, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians for the stage, and wrote the original plays Bitches, Attack of the Killer Bs, and Nuclear Family. He also contributed to the ensemble-created worksHooray!, Second City Didn't Want Us..., and P, a comedy adaptation of the "P" volume of the encyclopedia. Commissioned and published works include The Adventures of Rose Red (Snow White's Less-Famous Sister), Dr. Frankincense and the Christmas Monster, Bad Substitute, We Wish You a Marry Spendmas!, Historically Bad First Dates, Camp Killspree, Confessions of a Male Pin-up, The RISE of the House of Usher, Dracula's Daughters: A Family Comedy, Horror High, Elevator Games, Double Trouble on the Prairie and The End of the World (With Prom to Follow).
Visit Sean's website: www.playstoorder.com
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5 Questions for Sundance Winner, Lucy Alibar
Lucy Alibar's latest project, Beasts of the Southern Wild, has already received one of the highest honors the film world can bestow -- the grand jury prize at Sundance -- and now there's Oscar buzz. (You can watch the trailer here.) We had a chance to chat with Lucy, ask her about the upcoming film, and what she's working on now.
What was your writing process to turn Juicy and Delicious (a play) into Beasts of the Southern Wild (a film)?
Location was so important to both pieces. Juicy and Delicious takes place in south Georgia -- I saw the aurochs coming out of the red clay and making their way towards this family on the verge of extinction. Benh Zeitlin, my dear friend and brilliant director, wanted to set the story in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, where the erosion is so severe that the land is sinking into the water. Hushpuppy's losing what made her, at least physically, and struggling with how to keep her father and her home in her spirit. I spent a year traveling back and forth from the bayou and New Orleans to make Hushpuppy's story a part of this beautiful, haunting place.
Are you working on any plays right now? If not, what are you working on?
I'm writing a piece about my dad and my brother that I love so much, and can't wait to show y'all. It's very funny, and sweet, and giving me a lot of joy as I write it.
How did you start writing?
My mom gave me and my brothers crayons to draw with, when we were little, and my brothers were really good at drawing. I wasn't.
What do you read to get inspired?
Breece D'J Pancake, Kevin Wilson, Joy Williams, Flannery O'Connor.
What is your favorite southern turn of phrase (colloquialism)?
"Well, hell."
-- Lucy Alibar (a.k.a. Lucy Alibar-Harrison). Lucy Alibar's other plays include A Friend of Dorothy, Home Baking Made Easy, Gorgeous Raptors and Mommy Says I'm Pretty on the Insides. Ms. Alibar is an Affiliated Artist of New Georges and a member of EST's Youngblood. She does lots of fun things with choreographer Brian Maloney and Slant Theatre Project. Ms. Alibar loves dinner parties, Dreamgirls, and the Russian-Turkish baths.
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Why it Takes So Long
When I was in my formative college years, Margaret Edson won the Pulitzer Prize for Wit. There were a lot of unusual things about this. One, she wasn’t a professional playwright. She was a schoolteacher who went back to teaching school after winning the award. I remember watching a television interview with her where she said she had one story to tell, she told it, and then she wanted to do something else. Wow.
What was most striking and unusual to me was how long it took her to get the play produced. Wikipedia doesn’t back me up on this, but I remember her saying that the play was ten years in development. Just think about that: Ten years from conception to production. How could that possibly happen?
Another tidbit: I recently learned that one of my friends from graduate school, Lloyd Suh, who just happens to be a terrific playwright, had a show called A Great Wall Story open at The Denver Center for The Performing Arts. The play is a taut comedy about a trio of reporters who invent a newspaper story in 1896, which eventually leads to the actual Boxer Rebellion. It’s a great, funny show and I’m glad it’s getting a production. Thing is, I remember seeing the first scene of this play when we were in grad school together in 2001. Eleven years for it to make it to the stage.
And, of course, my own experience. I had the joy and relief to finally see my play, White Buffalo, appear on the stage of The Purple Rose Theatre Company this month. I began writing that play in the summer of 2002 – again, a ten year saga.
I’m just glad my references to eBay still held up after ten years. An entire passage glorifying *NSYNC had to go, though. (Just kidding!)
A lot of artists have stories like this. How their masterwork sat and was ignored and rejected for years and years and then, finally, impossibly, broke through. It's almost a cliché at this point, that in order for something to be awesome, it has to be rejected countless times. Even Herman Melville’s Moby Dick sold less than 3,000 copies during his lifetime. (Probably because people thought it was terrible and no one was forcing them to read it.)
It doesn’t always work that way. On occasion you write something and it immediately becomes a smash hit and then stays that way forever. Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven is a good example: within a year of its publication it was anthologized and soon it was required reading for every child, and has stayed on the list ever since. Or suppose you write a fanfiction S&M story based on Twilight and change the main characters' names in order to avoid being sued.
White Buffalo at the Purple Rose Theatre
But usually, getting something done is a long, laborious, nearly impossible struggle. There are so many obstacles to getting a major theater to do a production of your play it’s staggering. You have to fight for it, again and again and again. You have to convince people up and down the chain of command – if anyone says no, it’s over. My play went to an intern first, who read it, and passed it on to the literary manager, who passed it on to the artistic director’s wife, who passed it on the artistic director himself. After the artistic director liked it, he had to send it on the Executive Director. And then we did readings for the public to make sure they liked it. And on and on and on… And mind you, this was after the play had been read and rejected by countless other theaters all over the country. For years. (And when I say “theaters” I mean interns or literary managers or artistic director’s husbands, or artistic directors, because they all have the power to quash your show.)
And after all that, after ten years of working on the play, after convincing everyone in the theater to love the play too, after getting the actors and designers together, and rehearsing the play for weeks, and then finally, finally putting in front of an audience, a single bad review can destroy it all.
Is it any wonder so many playwrights became alcoholics?
My point, though, is that it is possible after years of struggle to succeed at this.
One last story to illustrate this point: When I was a teenager, my friend drove a pretty crappy Volkswagon Scirocco. When you’re a teenage male, you have a tendency to try to race any other car that comes close to you – it’s not like we were drag racers – I’m talking about simply starting at a red light and gunning the engine to see who could go the fastest. Now, the Scirocco was never the quickest car out of the gate, but my friend had a philosophy: It’s not who starts the fastest, it’s who’s willing to go the farthest. He’d always be behind, but he never gave up, and when the other car hit 70 or 80 and decided that it was logical to slow down so as not be pulled over or destroy their vehicle, my friend would keep going.
And that’s how you win. You keep going farther than the other guy.
And hope there aren’t any cops watching.
--Don Zolidis
Visit Don's website: http://www.donzolidis.com/
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Basic Publicity Design on a Budget
It's a situation many of us are familiar with: you've finally chosen a show, secured a venue, set the dates, even procured a cast -- but now the production is looming, and you have to figure out how to advertise the thing. Problem is, there's no budget, little time, and you're not what anyone would call a graphic designer.
As a designer myself, I'm here to tell you that you don't need a lot of time, money, or a graphic design degree to create effective publicity designs for your show. What you do need is a solid grounding in the principles of design, and an idea of what choices will save you money -- and this post is a quick lesson in both!
There are five main principles of design: balance, alignment, repetition, contrast, and hierarchy (B.A.R.C.H.). They all work together to create something pleasing to the eye and effective from a communication standpoint.
Balance provides stability and structure to a design. You can think of it as various elements on the page having different visual "weights." If you distribute them evenly, or in a way that creates some tension (leading your eye from one point to another), then you've used balance.
Alignment creates a sharper, more unified design, creating invisible connections between elements on the page.
Repetition strengthens a design by tying together otherwise separate parts and creating association. You can think beyond repetition of content into repetition of font styles, layout styles, colors, etc.
Contrast is the most effective way to create emphasis and impact with your design, and should be obvious: big/small, classic/modern, thick/thin, cool/warm, smooth/rough.
Hierarchy creates organization, guiding the reader through the reading process. It visually identifies and ranks the importance of the information you're presenting.
Here's a poster design I created: how does it utilize the design principles? (Clicking on the poster will make it larger.)
Balance: The large type on top is balanced by the smaller but more condensed type on the bottom.
Alignment: There's a clear vertical line that starts with the "l" in "long" and leads the eye down to the production information.
Repetition: The same typeface (Futura) is used throughout the poster, and the words in the title share a common motif (the sinking letters).
Contrast: The black/yellow makes for easy visibility, and the size difference between the title and the rest of the text makes the title pop.
Hierarchy: The more important the text, the bigger (and/or more bold) I made it. This is a simple and effective way to create hierarchy.
Now you've basically got a degree in design principles. Congratulations! You can also try putting yourself into a designer mindset: pretend that your production is a client, and you've been hired. Think about the audience, the message, the motivation for your publicity campaign -- what do you want to communicate about the play? What do you want people who see your design to do after they see it (buy tickets, I hope!)?
Above all, know the play. Know your intent. And, from a practical standpoint, make a list of everything that needs to go on your poster/program/what-have-you. Otherwise, inevitably, you'll forget something important. Or misspell someone's name.
When you're sketching out ideas for your new publicity designs, make sure to keep B.A.R.C.H. in mind, as well as what's appropriate for the play and your audience -- and don't be afraid to make lots of little thumbnail sketches! They don't cost anything and they'll help more than you think in formulating ideas and layouts.
What's that? You have a design idea, but you still don't have any money, and you're freaking out? Deep breaths! Here are some simple tips to keep costs low:
- Keep your design black and white if you can. Consider printing on various colored papers to add interest.
- If you must use color, create a design that also works in black and white. Being able to print both versions saves some money.
- Create your own imagery to avoid copyright infringement or having to pay for image rights.
- Consider hand illustration/lettering (or find an artistic student or teacher who will volunteer). This is an easy way to create instantly interesting and unique designs. Just make sure it will copy/print well!
- Make your designs part of a campaign. Spread digital versions of your poster art / fliers via Facebook and Twitter. You can also go viral in an old-school way by asking local businesses to post fliers.
- Need to boost your budget? Leave ad space on your design for the program and sell some ads.
Here are some examples of super-cheap fliers for events I organized in college. They were all hand-drawn with black marker and copied onto colored paper stocks. They stood out because of their unique aesthetic, but they could not have been any cheaper to make.
If hand-drawing and hand-lettering isn't really your thing, but you don't have access to design programs like Photoshop or InDesign, never fear! You can use standard programs like Word and Powerpoint to create publicity designs. Here are some technical tips for digital design:
- Make sure your design is sized to fit standard-size paper stocks. (8.5 by 11, 8.5 by 14, 11 by 17)
- Watch your margins! If you don't leave enough space, information will get cut off.
- Make sure your design looks good printed at 100% size (and not just zoomed in on the computer). Is your type all legible?
- In Word, the "format" menu is your friend! Use this especially for text format. The most important fields are indents and spacing.
- Also in Word, right-click on images to open the format menu for them. This will allow you to control how text fits around, in front of, or behind the image.
- Powerpoint can sometimes be a better layout tool than Word.
- For a great deal more control over image and text layout, consider downloading Gimp (http://getgimp.com/) for free. It's Windows-only, and has similar capabilities to Photoshop.
- Always save your files as PDFs for printing as opposed to Word or Powerpoint files. This ensures that you won't have any issues with fonts being changed from computer to computer.
Examples I've made using Word:
And here's one using Powerpoint:
See? It's totally possible! Just remember the design principles, keep things simple, and soon you'll have a publicity design that looks great, fills seats, and won't break the bank. Good luck!
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Mark Rigney on Understanding the Considerations of Directors & Producers
Most beginning writers get told to write whatever they like, in whatever way they like. It’s a very popular idea, to just follow your muse wherever it may go. Creativity über alles, or something like that.
Well. Much as I hate to rain on any given parade, advice of that sort strikes me as wrong-headed and useless. If you’re writing for the stage, you need to understand the considerations of directors and producers. They, plus audiences, make up the market for your work. Sure, you could thumb your nose and choose to write in a total vacuum––ah, yes, the moral high ground, that purity of unsullied artistic vision––but this is a surefire method for keeping your work unproduced.
Heresy, I know. But for the sake of argument, join me, for a moment, in accepting the metaphor of the world at large as an endlessly shifting marketplace of ideas in which your writing must compete. How, then, to proceed? May I suggest hurling yourself into that marketplace river and learning to swim? Sure, your “total artistic freedom” will become suddenly constrained, limited. But limitations (and scarcity, that excellent environmental catchphrase) are the very soul of invention. Definite parameters––in art, in science, even in gardening––give shape to great work.
How do I apply this dangerous philosophy? All sensible considerations aside, I generally allow myself to write five to ten pages of just about anything that pops into my head. No questions asked; no constraints; no internal niggling about cast size or grandiose set requirements.
This usually leaves me with several possible projects. When one of those won’t let me rest––when the interplay of voices I’ve begun just won’t shut up, including when I’m mowing or helping with homework––that’s the project that earns my trust. That’s the one that I know will hold my attention for as long as it takes.
And that’s when it’s time to ask some hard-nosed stumpers.
Now, picture me in my lonely writer’s garret (actually a very sociable basement, surrounded by my gleaming beer can collection, two desks, and an overstuffed bookshelf). I am sitting down to write the opening of One Over Par. Here are a few of the questions I need to answer––and note that not one of them has to do with the equally important dramatic questions of “What changes?” or “What conflict is at work from the moment my characters appear?” or “Is Stavros’s goal sufficiently ridiculous?”
1) Who am I writing for? An equity theater? A middle school? A touring company whose set and equipment must fit comfortably into the back of a mini-van?
2) When I finally get the script done (in, say, a year), to whom can I send it? My sister? My agent? A high school drama teacher? The literary manager at Steppenwolf?
3) Who is available to help me develop this particular script? My friends? Actual professional actors? A dramaturg I once met over dinner at a conference in…wait, was it Dallas, or Portland?
4) What is the fewest number of actors required to tell this particular story?
The answers I arrive at for the first question, above, will determine a lot about permissible content, and about the set requirements I can reasonably demand. Dare to consider, from the outset, the price tag of the show you’re creating. How deep will your producer’s pockets have to be?
The second question matters more to me with every passing year. My network of contacts constantly shifts as people ebb and flow around me, intersecting here, drifting out of view there. Ten years ago, I cultivated a great relationship with a lit manager at a major theater in New Jersey. He really liked my work. But then he got out of the theater business altogether. At least in the state of New Jersey, I was back to square one.
Frankly, knowing where I’ll send a project helps me no end in the writing. It puts a whip at my back and keeps me dreaming hard enough about the future to dream the dream of the play itself. No small thing, that.
I generally know the answer to my third question: Who will help me develop the script? Unlike the Little Red Hen, I am fortunate in having this ground well prepared in advance. I have access to a department full of skilled undergraduate theater students at the University of Evansville, and I have the department chair’s ongoing blessing to borrow said students for tablework. So I know I can get a first reading, and that I’ll get considered feedback from it. That, too, gives each project a little extra push––a sense that forward momentum is possible. But as to what happens after that? “It’s a mystery.”
The solution to question number four varies from project to project, but so far, the answer has never dropped below three. I enjoy the dramatic tensions that can be created by triangles, by triads of characters in conflict. Two-handers and one-handers leave less room to roam. Call it a fiscal failure on my part, but I like a more crowded stage.
You can say all these are crass commercial considerations if you like, but to me, they’re part of a vital winnowing process, a series of hoops through which each of my starry-eyed, outrageous ideas must pass before I really get down to the brass tacks of writing and the joyous but demanding task of endless revision. Only once these questions are answered (or at least dutifully pondered), can I at last get down to actual artistry––to the play in playwriting.
‘Til next time. Dream hard. Write harder.
--Mark Rigney
Visit Mark's website: http://www.markrigney.net
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Mr. Dawkins, We Mustache You Some Questions
Something pretty wonderful happened today, but before I get into that I guess I need to introduce myself. My name is Courtney Hooper, and I am a second year teacher at Liberty Middle School in Madison, Alabama. I teach eighth and ninth grade here. This year I've been doing a good deal of experimenting with technology in my classroom. It's quite addictive, actually, and the kids L-O-V-E it. Isn't it wild that we can see and talk to someone anywhere in the world with the click of a mouse? That brings me to today's wonderfulness....
Today in my ninth grade Introduction to Drama class, students got to interview the author of the play that they are currently rehearsing. We are preparing to perform Philip Dawkins' play, The Skokie Detective Charter School in May. We rehearse during our 48 minute class each day, carefully examining each line, discussing each delivery, and blocking each step.
We planned our video chat several weeks ago, so this morning I began to set up my classroom. I flipped open my laptop, hooked it up to my projector so that the kids could see, and positioned it where I could fit all thirty of them in the frame. We used Google+ Hangouts to chat with Mr. Dawkins. He was kind enough to set up an account just for this occasion. I have been using Google+ Hangouts in my classroom lately for a project where my students portray historical figures and are interviewed by elementary students. It is my preferred video chat service because it is conducive with my school's wireless network and has free group video chat.
Once we began "hanging out," my students started asking their questions. Some wanted to know about Mr. Dawkins' background, some wanted to know about the writing and publishing processes, and several students asked about specifics from the play. Sada wanted to know where he went to school and what he majored in, and Dawkins told her about the Theater program at Loyola University. Patrick wanted to know about getting published. Dawkins told us honestly that it is often very difficult, and it involves rejection. He transitioned to the next question by assuring my kids that they were never too young to be successful writers.
Later in the conversation, he told us about his love of comic books and how it inspires some of his characters' names. Rachel wanted to know why the character named Hooper Harper never talks. Hooper's character spends the entire play grunting, and he also passes gas. (My class finds it quite hilarious that the character that shares my name has such foul tendencies-- ah, middle school humor!) Mr. Dawkins explained that he designed Hooper's character for an actor who would not be comfortable with a big speaking part. Lindsey asked, who is your favorite character? Allie asked, what is your favorite part of the play? Each answer brought about laughter and stories of our own rehearsal process. Isn't that the best part of teaching drama-- those snafus during rehearsals where we can't help but laugh at ourselves?
We ended the chat a few moments before the bell rang. When I shut the computer, I listened as the kids exclaimed how "cool" he was-- the ultimate compliment coming from a ninth grader. Logan and Trevor stopped by my class this afternoon to let me know that they have officially decided to grow handlebar mustaches like Mr. Dawkins'. I'm sure their mothers will be thrilled. On a serious note, I think the greatest effect of our conversation will be a new appreciation for this work. Now we know all that went into this little booklet that we read from each day. Now we know the man behind The Skokie Detective Charter School. He took time out of his day to let us-- a ninth grade Intro to Drama class in Alabama-- pick his brain... AND he has an awesome 'stache.
-- Courtney Hooper
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C. Denby Swanson Talks Conflict
The Florida State Thespian Festival is the largest high school theater conference in the galaxy. The squirming mass of more than 7000 students, chaperones, educators can be seen from space.
Every state festival is different. Florida’s is like a giant theater swim meet, with competitive events at unnervingly specific times (“Your adjudication starts at 8:47AM.”), and an army of uniformed student volunteers who wear clear plastic earpieces, like they are teenaged Secret Service agents. They also manage the quantum scheduling tangle of mainstage and one-act performances seemingly around the clock, a daily workshop schedule, college and scholarship auditions, and the high emotions of design, tech, acting, and vocal adjudications. Yet it everything seems to just happen. It is an organizational wonder.
For several years I have adjudicated playwriting for Florida with fellow writers Janet Allard and David Nugent. About six weeks out, we each get a refrigerator-sized box of 25-page scripts, which we read, respond to, and rate on a five point scale: Poor – Fair – Good – Excellent – Superior. For the first two days of Festival, we meet with each of the 40-odd playwrights for a 15-minute conversation. On the last day we lead a series of playwriting workshops.
I’ve been so grateful for the consistency of our adjudication team; we’ve become a solid team in terms of our approach to adjudication, which we like to structure as a conversation with the writer. Frequently, we’ll find ourselves giving the same kind of note over and over and over. What we wound up talking about a lot this year was conflict, or more specifically, lack of. So here are a couple of assumptions that we’ve seen playwrights make, and my thoughts in response.
“Conflict is when really bad stuff happens to the characters.”
No, it’s not.
Say that it’s Festival and your playwriting adjudication is at 8:47 AM on Thursday morning. On Wednesday night you check in to your hotel, which is hosting a convention for golfers, and they practice their putts in the hallways until 5AM, seeing if they can get a chip shot off your door. You oversleep. At 8:13AM, you take the elevator downstairs, but it gets stuck between the 2nd and 3rd floors. Then the cables break and you plummet to the ground, cushioned by someone’s costumes for the junior version of Amadeus, and the door crash open into the lobby. It’s now 8:21AM. Out the glass doors, you see the festival bus pulling away. The driver laughs maniacally and speeds off. You can see your troupe-mates faces pressed up against the windows, screaming. Oh, no! What will that mean for your one-act competition? The troupe has worked so hard on their adaptation of Dante's Inferno, even though it was asterisked for bad language and drug use, and you felt really good about it, especially the mime sections and the teen jazz orchestra. Then, as you’re running toward the convention center, at 8:38AM, you feel like you can just make it, and that’s when you’re attacked by zombies.
This is a bad morning at Festival. But dramatically, is it conflict? No. Bad things happening to your character is not conflict. More bad things happening to your character is not more conflict.
Sometimes the temptation is to keep adding awful events to your play. An abusive family, a car crash, and then a terminal illness, all in 25 pages.
This suggests to me, your playwriting adjudicator, that you don’t really know what your play is about. And also, you watch too many Lifetime Movies of the Week.
Do your characters do terrible things to each other? Yes. Good. This is conflict.
The play emerges when the conflict is urgent, intimate, and immediate. Conflict happens because the decisions that characters make put their relationships at risk. Is the play really about a playwright and a zombie? Great. They need to know each other, want something from each other, and make decisions that betray their weird zombie-human friendship.
The rest is context. And context can be bad. But context isn’t the play. Context is the external. Conflict is the internal. Context is the larger metaphor.
Say there’s a brutal storm outside. So show us the brutal storm raging in this family, at this moment. Say there’s a tornado. Show us the whirling destruction inside a friendship. Say there’s a tsunami. So show us the tidal forces that overwhelm a pair of lovers. In a play, the story is small, and the metaphor is huge. If you write the personal story, the story will provide the larger meaning, it will do the work for you, whether the play is set in the Renaissance, in a mental institution, or on Mars.
“Conflict means the characters hit each other.”
No, it doesn’t.
Physical violence is sometimes an indicator of conflict; more frequently, it indicates that the playwright doesn’t know what the play is about. Physical violence can become an easy out.
A gunshot isn’t de facto conflict. A punch to the face isn’t de facto conflict. Just because “It happens in life” doesn’t mean that the event is earned in the story. It may be that your characters hit each other, or kill each other, at the very moment when you are least certain of their actual conflict. What you might be going for is that characters don’t’ hit each other; they hurt each other. Sometimes, the worst possible thing that can happen is that a person opens their mouth and the exact wrong words come out.
Here’s a conflict: Your playwriting adjudication is at 8:47AM, you come in needing me to give you a Superior; I’m an adjudicator, I need to prove I’m a good judge by not giving out any Superiors whatsoever. We are at odds.
The stakes are high: You feel like a Superior will validate you at school, and if you go back with a Good, or even an Excellent, your reputation may be ruined, your hopes for social and academic advancement dashed. I feel that giving out easy Superiors invalidates my hard-earned experience and long-developed judgment. Maybe last year I was too easy, and this year I have to work hard to save my job.
By 8:49AM you realize that I have no intention of giving you a Superior. Are you going to hit me?
(I mean, will that be your first strategy?)
And will I hit you?
No. The real tension is, what will we say to each other? And then, because a play is based on failure (I try to get what I want and my first strategy fails), what do we do next? Whatever choice we make in terms of strategy, in terms of decision, we have a positive intention. We have a desire, an objective, a need. And if we fail, our life will be ruined. Will we lie? Cheat? That doesn’t work either. So what do we do next? Conflict escalates. The play doesn’t happen to the characters, the characters happen to the play.
You say: You are not only a terrible judge, you are a bad human being. You are beyond mean. You have killed my creative spirit. And I say….
Here’s a go-to list as you write the draft of your play for next year:
- Conflict isn’t when bad stuff happens. Conflict is when your characters happen. Make that the bumper sticker for your Playwriting-mobile.
- Conflict is there even before the beginning of the play – it doesn’t “develop.” Strategies develop. But conflict pre-exists lights up. These characters need their objective before we even meet them – they are in action when they walk through the door.
- Objectives are active, urgent, immediate, and personal. The play happens now, not tomorrow, not last week. It happens because these characters have a powerful, present-moment need.
- Keep your characters in the room together. When you are tempted to let them leave, make them stay. Even a dramatic exit – when a character slams the door! Bam! – can let your characters off the hook.
- Keep your characters talking directly to each other. Be wary of the temptation to have them text instead of talk. Put your characters face to face.
See you next year!
--C. Denby Swanson
C. Denby Swanson is a 2007/2008 NEA/TCG Playwright in Residence with Zachary Scott Theater Center. She graduated from Smith College, the National Theatre Institute, and the University of Texas Michener Center for Writers, and has been a William Inge Playwright in Residence, a Jerome Fellow and a McKnight Advancement Grant recipient. Her work has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater, 15 Head a Theatre Lab, Macalester College, St. Stephen's High School, and The Drilling Company and featured in the Southern Playwrights Festival, the Women Playwrights Project, the Estro-Genius Festival, and PlayLabs 2002. In 2006, she was in residence at New York Stage & Film (through P73) to develop her play A Brief Narrative Of An Extraordinary Birth Of Rabbits, which was also included in the Writer/Director Lab at the Playwrights Center, and workshopped at Cornell College in Iowa as part of New Plays on Campus grant. Her play The Death Of A Cat received its world premiere at Salvage Vanguard Theater and was subsequently a finalist for the PEN Center Literary Award for Drama. Most recently, her full length adaptation, Atomic Farmgirl, was workshopped at the Culture Projects Impact Festival. She is a Core member of The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, an alumna of the Lark Theaters Playwrights Week 2005, a former Artistic Director of Austin Script Works, and on the faculty at Southwestern University. Her plays Honour, Governing Alice, Everything So Far, The Atomic Adventures of Nikolai Nikolaevich are published by Playscripts, Inc..
Posted by Playscripts, Inc.
Script Frenzy
I’m here to talk to you about that script. You know the one. That script you keep saying you’re going to write someday. I know, I know. You’ll write it later, when you have more time, after the kids graduate, when you retire, or whatever excuse you’re making this week.
Let’s be honest. At the rate you’re going, you'll keep putting off writing that story for the rest of your life. Your script doesn’t deserve that. It’s a good idea! Heck, it’s a great idea, and you know that or you wouldn’t keep carrying a torch for it all this time. An idea that is good shouldn’t be hidden away in your head; it should be shared with the world!
Which is what I’m here to talk to you about. That script? It’s time to write it. Forget about your mythical someday. We’re setting a real, concrete deadline, which is exactly what you need to finally get your idea down on paper. You’re writing that script this April.
See, every April, a whole bunch of us all over the world decide we’ve had enough of our own procrastination and take the Script Frenzy script writing challenge. It’s actually pretty simple. When you sign up for Script Frenzy (which those in the know call Screnzy for short), you commit to finishing a script in the month of April, no matter what other distractions you have in your life. That’s it. You get to tap into this huge worldwide community of writers all aiming for at least 100 pages by the end of the month and that international network of writers all focused on the same goal makes for a, well, frenzy of inspiration and camaraderie.
You’ll make some friends. Better yet, you’ll have a finished draft of your script in your hands by May 1st. OK, sure, it’ll be a rough draft that you rushed to finish in 30 days, but you can edit a rough draft. You can’t edit nothing.
And maybe you don’t have that one big epic script idea. Maybe it’s dozens of ideas. Maybe you’re just kicking yourself because you’ve got tons of ideas for short plays or one acts and you know they’d all be great if you just had the time to write them down. Maybe your Screnzy won’t be a single 100 page full length play but rather five twenty minute 1 act plays or some other combination. The April deadline could be just the thing to kick-start your new era in productivity.
Or maybe you’ve been hitting the writer’s block pretty hard and you’re in one of those funks where you feel like you’ll never write ever again. From one writer to another, let me tell you that there is no better cure for writer’s block than staring down a terrifying deadline. There’s just something about knowing you’ve got 100 pages to fill and only 30 days to do it that unshackles your creativity and really lets your imagination fly. When you challenge yourself, your mind steps up in ways that can surprise even us experienced scribblers.
So, come on over and join the Screnzy. It may seem crazy but sometimes amazing things happen when we just buckle down and finally do that thing we’ve been putting off. Sometimes you just have to jump out of your comfort zone and see what happens. Besides, it’s not like you’ll be going into this alone. There will be thousands of us all over the world making this same dash to finish by the end of April.
30 days. 100 pages. April. Are you in?
--Hillary DePiano
Hillary DePiano is a fiction and non-fiction author best known for her play, The Love of Three Oranges which has been performed in theaters around the world. For her other plays, books, and published works, please visit HillaryDePiano.com. For tips, advice and more about Script Frenzy, check out her blog Screnzy Pages.
Posted by Playscripts, Inc.
How Being a Competitive Jerk has Been Very Good for Me
A few decades ago, theatre educators in Texas looked around and said, “Why isn’t theatre more like football?” And thus, the one-act play competition was born. (I may be oversimplifying here.) Many states have followed Texas’ lead and developed one-act tournaments of their own, but the Texas competition remains the granddaddy of them all. Each spring, hundreds of schools from around the state compete in a bloodthirsty tournament of death, in which losers go home crying and winners advance in six rounds of competition that last months. If you keep advancing, you get lots of time off from school, which is a bonus to both students and teachers. Eventually, in the finals, you perform in a theater that seats thousands. It’s crazy.
When I taught middle school, we had our own minor version of this. Our district (typically 6-8 schools) would hire a judge, get together on a Saturday, and have a great, “not overly competitive” day of it. (By “not overly competitive” I mean that we didn’t adhere strictly to the Texas rulebook, which dictates how many uses of a chair you can have, what constitutes a “level”, and disqualifies you if you run one second over the allotted time.)
So here’s what I told my kids: This isn’t a competition. We’re here to have fun. We’re not here to beat anyone else. We’re here to celebrate theater.
What I thought was: DESTROY THEM! THE RIVERS SHALL RUN RED WITH THEIR BLOOD!
You see, I’m something of a competitive jerk.
Now, I figured I had an inherent and unfair advantage over my fellow teachers, which I intended to exploit fully: I wrote the plays I intended to direct. I could look at my actors, write parts specifically for them, and basically manipulate the process in order to make sure my school came out on top.
Here’s the thing, though: Writing plays for a competition I was going to be in, forced me to write better plays.
You know who else forced me to write better plays? Jen. (Not her real name. Okay, fine, it was her real name.) First, let me say that Jen was a much better theatre teacher than I was. It was ridiculous; every year she’d bring a group of thirty ridiculously enthusiastic and happy students, who would then proceed to beat the snot out of everyone else in the theater with the most amazing show anyone had ever seen. She always won. She had costumes, she had sets that looked like they had been built by union workers, and somehow her actors were always incredible. And they were nice, which made it worse.
I wanted to beat Jen. So every year I tried to outdo myself to write a better play that would offset my disadvantages ( my total lack of costumes, set, and after-school rehearsal.)
The first time I beat her was with The Audition. I had an extremely talented group that year (the kind of kids who show up to the first rehearsal with all their lines memorized) so I decided I was going to adapt a musical for the middle school stage. What better choice than A Chorus Line? (Incidentally, this was the show that I told everyone else I was bringing to the festival just to see the looks on their faces.) My kids that year, in addition to being talented, lovely students, were also just as bloodthirsty and competitive as I was.
They were thinking things like: OUR TOUCHING AND BEAUTIFUL PLAY WILL WIPE THE FLOOR WITH YOU AND BREAK YOUR SPIRITS!
Anyway, since The Audition requires no costumes or set and we could sing and dance, we took home top honors that year. I should mention here that no one officially “won,” but believe me, we all knew who “won” every year.
We won again two years later with Oz, when I again followed the formula of slapstick humor + heartbreaking sadness = win.
The Greek Mythology Olympiaganza began as a competition piece. My costumes were all $3 sheets from Wal-Mart and safety-pinned into ill-fitting togas. This is the Coterie Theatre production. They had cooler costumes.
In any event, the plays I wrote in order to destroy my fellow teachers and send their drama kids home in tears have been some of my best plays. The seven plays I wrote – Miss Polly’s Institute for Criminally Damaged Young Ladies Puts on a Show, Snappy’s Happy Half-Hour, The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon, The Audition, The Greek Mythology Olympiaganza, It’s not you, It’s me, and Oz, have now been produced more than 1,750 times. They’ve won competitions, sure, but more importantly, they’ve been enjoyed by countless audience members, which is actually the point.
And really, theatre isn’t and shouldn’t be football. But sometimes, when you put the word “competition” in front of it, it really does bring out the best in you.
And remember: theatre began as a competition. If the ancient Greeks hadn’t named winners, the world might be an entirely different place.
--Don Zolidis
Visit Don's website: http://www.donzolidis.com/
Posted by Playscripts, Inc.
The #PitchNPlay Winners
It was a difficult decision, but our literary staff has chosen three winning pitches:
- The real Puck messes with hearts of teens during high school prod of A Midsummer Nights Dream. @rkmallister
- Young girl wins a TV singing competition, but to launch her career, her agent says she'll need to create a tabloid scandal. @Theatreaneater
- Sweethearts take Course of True Love: zen of snoring, white lies, multitasking, accept shortcomings Profs=historical figures @KennerLeslie
Next Steps: The playwriting portion of the contest is now open! It's your chance to turn one of the three winning pitches into a one-act play.
The Rules: All plays should:
- Be based on one of the three winning pitches
- Be PG-13 or cleaner
- Be comedic
- Feature 8 or more characters
- Run between 20 - 40 minutes
All play submissions should be sent via http://www.playscripts.com/submit and must include #pitchnplay in the Comments or Special Instructions field. Please read the Pitch 'N' Play Submission Disclosure and Agreement before your submit your play.
The Timeline:
May 5: Play submissions are closed.
June 5: The winning play is announced!
The Reward: The winning playwright will receive a $1,000 advance against royalties, and his or her play will be published by Playscripts, Inc..
Helpful Hints:
High school drama programs often find themselves in the following situations:
- Twice as many girls audition as boys.
- Budget permits only simple sets and costumes.
- Full cast is not available for every rehearsal (many school plays are episodic, allowing scenes featuring different characters to be rehearsed separately.)
And remember, a great title goes a long way.
Thanks again for your votes and tweets, we look forward to reading your plays.
Posted by Playscripts, Inc.
Playscripts Play of the Day
13 Ways to Screw Up Your College Interview
by Ian McWethy
Short Comedy
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