Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

The model for the play workshops I’ve participated in have essentially followed the outline below. Certainly, what follows is not the only model. It’s merely the one I’m familiar with.1

1. The playwright brings ten to twenty pages to Group.
2. Actors read the pages.
3. Playwright hears words out loud.
4. If she has any, the playwright asks the Group specific questions about the work.
5. Regardless of questions, the Group’s feedback on the pages ensues.2
6. Finally, the playwright returns to the pages, to re-write or move on to new ones.
7. The process repeats itself at the next Group meeting with re-written or new pages.3

The limitation of this model is that at some point you need to hear the entire play in one piece. It all depends on what stage you’re at with your play, and your own personal development as a writer. The last group I was a part of would schedule an evening specifically to hear a complete draft whenever a writer was ready. This was a very informal evening, much like the regular “pages” kind of night, except the focus was on one playwright’s complete play. When the writer wanted a more public, more formal reading, we were fortunate to have a relationship with a theatre that allowed us to hold readings in their space.

I’m cutting this installment short. Am off to Chicago to see Superior Donuts.

Why, some of you ask, do I harp on about learning “structure?” My major reasons are

• Structure imposes limitations, and limitations forced us to stretch our creative muscles.
• It teaches you to purposely use all the elements you put into a play, and to discard meaningless indulgences. As Chekhov wrote,

One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.

• It teaches you the nomenclature of playwriting, like “foreshadow,” “inciting event,” “character arc,” so that you can converse with others.
• Often, the answer to why your play isn’t working is found in understanding the structure of your play, whether you’ve followed tradition or not.

While I believe the following things cannot be taught, I feel, if you have a natural affinity for them, they can be honed:

• Voice
• Imagination
• An ear for dialogue
• A sense of theatre

This cannot be said enough: Theatre is not the same as a novel, television, or a movie. It should not be; although (‘nother sigh) there are those who continue to bring us the movie of the week live at your local playhouse.

IMHO, it is not enough for a story to be on the stage. It must be theatrical by making use of the stage, its limitations, its realizations, and its immediate connection with an audience. On stage, Sweeney Todd’s bloody barberous moments can be depicted quite chillingly with red light, with red ribbons, or (big sigh), if you must go for realism, stage blood. On film, the blood becomes “real” in its depiction, losing its theatrical quality. With enough imagination, everything becomes possible on stage.

Plays are not crafted by the pen, pencil or keyboard alone. Not even by our own sole imaginations. Playwrights know this. Yet how many of us let our work evolve or, worse yet, stagnate without ever hearing it outside of our own heads? How many of us are waiting for the elusive spots at the O’Neill, New Dramatists, or Sundance? How many decent playwrights exist outside of major cities, which may or may not have workshops?

I am not alone in thinking playwrights need to take charge of our own developing work. It’s not a radical idea. It’s an essential part of a playwright’s toolkit. How else do we develop our writer’s ear for what works?

It requires sitting through a ton of readings…

A piece of dialogue, or a line, can feel of such great import as I write it. Then I hear an actor bring my words a different inflection than the one in my head. A different actor brings something else in response to the first. I find what was so important is lost completely, and I go back to the pages, re-write the words or toss them out without mercy. It requires sitting through a ton of readings of your work, and the work of others, to understand the difference between a badly written line and a badly delivered line. Sometimes the two intersect…

Some 15 years ago, four friends, and the one professional actor I knew at the time, read my very first play out loud in my living room. I captured the audio with a microphone plugged into my VCR. I paced in the kitchen until they were done. I hid the tape in a drawer until I could listen to it. The experience was painful, thought provoking, and necessary.

I knew something was wrong with the play. None of the lovely five people who read in my living room could, would, or knew what to tell me. They loved me and thought I was brilliant, brave and talented. Nice thoughts. Just not very helpful. I tried to find, uh, professional help. I called the local theatre association, and was told they had no resources to offer playwrights. I talked with the theatre which had a training program for actors, and got the same response. For a long while, I agonized over going back to school, into more debt, to get an MFA in playwriting. (My M.Ed. did not prepare me for the theatrical arts. For some of us, life is a process, much like playwriting… )

Finally, I found a group of actors and playwrights who met weekly to hear our works in progress. It took another year before I found the man who became my mentor. He taught me the foundations of playwriting, and told me point-blank what was wrong with my play. This was a frickin’ relief, and a major turning point in learning how to craft plays.

If you are looking for a seminar on "how to write a play," this blog is not the place.

There are other places you can go, like Richard Tuscan’s "The Playwriting Seminars."

There is no great book on playwriting, except maybe, Lojas Ejri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing.

And, of course, Aristotle’s Poetics.

Stuart Spencer’s The Playwright’s Guidebook is pretty good. Albee likes it.

Jeffrey Hatcher’s The Art and Craft of Playwriting is decent.

There are tons of ‘em. All you have to do is search Amazon books, or go to the library.

The best book on writing ten minute plays, if that’s your thing, is Gary Garrison’s The Perfect Ten.

For good measure, read Gary’s The New, Improved Playwright’s Survival Guide: Keeping the Drama In Your Work and Out of Your Life.

A lot of people think they can write a play. The best play you’ve written is not your first, or even your second. There just aren’t that many Margeret Edsons of you out there.

Take a class. Learn play structure. Yes, there’s a structure. You can’t throw it away until you know what it is.

The best advice I can give you, which most of you won’t take:  See as many plays as you can.

What kind of playwright never attends the theatre?