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.

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.