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Edd
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| Joined: | Sat Jun 10th, 2006 |
| Location: | Denver, Colorado USA |
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Posted: Fri Sep 1st, 2006 01:59 am |
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The September challenge promises to be great fun, It'll be something like writing a play with yourself as the leading character.
Write an interview with yourself. Answer the questions you would like to ask of yourself. Write at least one full page. Example:
INTERVIEWER: What kind of plays do you write?
EDD: That is the one most often asked and the most difficult to answer. I write in all stage play genres. I've made it point to do that. I suppose others will know better how to answer that question, if I should be so lucky.
INTERVIEWER: If you were to die today, would you be happy with what you've accomplished?
EDD: No. Absolutely not.
PLEASE DO NOT RESOND TO THE ENTRIES OF OTHER MEMBERS. JUST POST YOUR SELF-INTERVIEW ONLY. POST WHAT YOU'VE WRITTEN UNDER A "NEW TOPIC" SO EACH PERSON HAS THEIR OWN THREAD. I WILL THE REMOVE IT FOR BLIND AND IMPARTIAL JUDGING.
There will be two runners-up who will receive Honorable Mention, but only the author of the 1st place entry will win a prize. The first place author may choose from hard cover plays such as: My Children! My Africa! by Athol Fugard, A Shayna Maidel by Barbara Lebow, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, Simpatico by Sam Shepard, The Cryptogram by David Mamet and more.
Thank you.
AND NOW FOR THE AUGUST 2006 WINNERS!
August essays proved very difficult to judge. So many were so good I needed to call in the troupes to help out—Paddy and mac who made their selections blindly. Each of us picked our choices for the three positions. And guess what? We had a tie for first place! The following is our list of winners.
First place: SCENEDREAMER and KATO
Second place: BLADE
Third place: SWANN1709
SCENEDREAMER and KATO, please choose your prizes from the following titles in hardcover, Racing Demon by David Hare, The Speed of Darkness by Steve Tesich, Beyond Therapy by Christopher Durang, Company by Sondheim and Furth, Mrs. Klein by Nicholas Wright, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, The Cryptogram by David Mamet, Simpatico by Sam Shepard, A Shayna Maidel by Barbara Lebow or My Children! My Africa! by Athol Fugard. You may also choose from any one of the soft cover acting editions of my plays sold on The Internet Theatre Bookshop, the sponsor of this forum. Read the synopses and let me know if you want one of them. Send me a PM with a postal address so that I can mail you your prize choice. Please note that there is only one copy of each title, so claim the one you want quickly!
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SCENEDREAMER (First Place)
The greatest influence on my becoming a playwright was a teacher. He was hired to coach the basketball team at the high school near the Indian land grant where I grew up. He was a great coach and a wonderful teacher. His name was John Nobles.
In my junior year, the English teacher resigned mid-term so Mr. Nobles was assigned to teach the English class. He assigned us to write an essay about racial tensions and he praised my essay highly. He insisted I was a born writer.
The teacher of the junior class traditionally directed the class in a play at the end of the school year. But no play had been selected and no scripts were available so Mr. Nobles assigned me to write one. He just assumed I could do it and he convinced me. I had never seen a live play. But because he believed in me, I wrote it and it turned out to be a hit. The other students and the parents loved it. I was hooked.
The next year, I wrote another play for the class and it was even more popular. I never saw myself as a writer or playwright and I studied more practical subjects in college and developed other careers, but I always wrote plays and they were produced. Eventually I acquired a graduate degree in Creative Playwriting, but the most important aspect of playwriting I learned from Mr. Nobles. He taught me, not just the confidence necessary for being a writer, but the over-confidence necessary for being a playwright.
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KATO (First Place)
I think a well-crafted play requires…RETHINKING!
Well-crafted—well-made—well-what?
We’re not making tiny ships to fit in glass bottles, we’re not making fine wine (again, made to fit in glass bottles), we’re not creating anything that can be weighed or measured or quantified. Not really.
We are making stories that look, at first glance, like writing. But that’s an illusion. The play is not the ink laid out on dead leaves. The play needs to be taken from the page, played on the tongue, worked through the body, and made alive on the air. The play is alive, moment to moment, whether in the rehearsal room or in the theater. The play goes on living in the imagination. The imagination of the director, the actor, the patron, even the playwright. The work of the play is to keep the mind occupied long enough to steal the heart of the viewer.
Well-crafted? Perhaps. But not always, and to my taste, rarely.
Look at the work of Sara Kane. Raw talent that squishes your lungs out in broad, clumsy scratches and strokes. reading her work changed the way I write, and it also changed the way I look at the world.
What about early Tony Kushner? The man grabbed on to big themes and big problems and organized them around the notion of angels, going as far as having one break through a ceiling. Who doesn’t recognize that moment now? At the time it was crazy. What guts to actually lay it on the page so that we could someday be in the room with it.
Plays are flawed creations. They have problems. It’s not the work of the playwright to smooth out things and make them tidy, palatable. The work of the playwright is to make the world of the play so compelling, to make the problems so interesting, that some director picks up the play and says, “I want to solve this problem.” It’s the problems, the grit, the contradictions, the impossibility contained within the play that makes it exciting, immediate, and interesting.
Craft? I heard Romulus Linney say that, “The craft of writing plays is applying the seat of your pants to the seat of your chair.” That’s craft.
A great play? It comes out of craft, but goes beyond that into something truer. And we know truth when it’s in the room with us because it will allow itself to be messy and flawed while in our presence. Good manners are for Sundays. Theater is a Saturday night occupation.
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BLADE (Second Place)
The greatest influence on my becoming a playwright is my high school English teacher, Mrs. Pip Edson because…
Well, I started off a passionate, enthusiastic no hoper and she got me focused, was my first critic and my biggest fan. I went from a couple of pages of ridiculous drivel to two act plays she really enjoyed - and trying to impress a senior English teacher with a play is an incredibly hard thing to do. I just absorbed the comments she gave to me. For a thirteen year old writer, it’s like giving them steroids. It made me practise and practise and practise until by year 12, I realised I could cut it. I am not the type to study a play and work out why it works. I just wrote and if it clicked with myself or the reader, then that was it. That is why feedback is essential for me. Pip willingly gave me feedback at the price of her own time.
Pip supported me even when I wrote dialogue along the margins of my work. I once wrote a whole scene on the side of the pages of a draft essay unaware it was just a practise and we had to hand them up. She was kind enough to give me the paper back a week later so I could type up what I wrote.
When I reached my final year of high school, I chose a creative writing piece for my major assignment. She asked if I wanted to write a play and I said yes, unaware how much of a challenge it would be. The fine print was that there was a 1,000 word limit and no one in the state had attempted to write a play, though it is permitted. After getting the details from the assessment board for me, Pip would read draft after draft of one of the best short plays I’ve ever written.
I graduated and got a great mark for my script. On the last day of year 12, I gave my teacher a signed copy of a two act play she really liked. I told her one day that signature would be worth something. Last year I won a competition to have a staged reading of a short play and this year that particular two-act play is going through dramaturgy. I still keep in touch with Pip and I owe so much to her.
Some people from where I live think I got buckley's chance of cracking it big. How many world famous playwrights from Adelaide, South Australia are there? Most of my life was spent beating the odds so I want to beat the bejeesus out of them again. Thanks to Pip's support, I have and I can.
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SWANN1709 (Third Place)
The reason I write plays is the feeling of connection I get watching them. That feeling is better than winning a jury trial. Don’t get me wrong, winning a trial is great. I loved impressing judges and I loved wearing my “closing argument” suit (pink, short skirt). I made the jurors my own by acting like I respected them. I told convincing stories and made clever objections. I loved winning.
But six years ago I sat anonymously in the middle of a crowded theatre and saw a play I wrote performed. I saw a nice-looking lady nod her head. I saw a college boy crack a wry smile. People laughed at my jokes. Some girls seemed to wince, a little, at the loneliness of the overworked protagonist. I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t empathy. Warm and healing, it wrapped up my heart like a poultice. I felt a little cured of being all alone. I didn’t feel crazy. I felt peace.
This feeling, my new best buzz, didn’t come from being clever or strategic. It didn’t come from mixing over-prepped witnesses and short skirts. It didn’t come from winning. It came from two equal parts: the humbling, tearful, chaotic honesty of the play, and the people who chose to come together and see it. It came from telling the truth and being heard.
It's much harder than trial work but on my best days I feel brave for even trying.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
THE FOLLOWING ENTRIES ARE IN NO ESPECIAL ORDER
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KATE
I think that a well-crafted play requires much the same ingredients as a good story, and this is the ‘test’ that I try to use and questions I ask myself:
An engaging opening. Does my opening ‘grab’ the reader/audience? Or is it a bit dull and long-winded? The first paragraph of a novel, the first line of a poem, the opening sequence of a film and the first beats of a play can transport the reader or viewer or listener into the world of the text. In those crucial first seconds, mood, texture and genre can be established by language, tone, rhythm, image and sound. Signposts are created – indicating something interesting to follow.
A journey (metaphorical): growth, change, transformation. Has a journey taken place during my piece? Have my characters experienced any sense of change? (Whether they’re aware of it or not.) Can I track this change? And what has brought it about?
A journey (for real): Have I established a sense of place? Is there enough detail so that the reader/audience can also be there? Is it interesting?
A test or trial/In pursuit of a goal/Overcoming adversity/Suspense
Is it real? Is there pressure? Is there, perhaps, deadlines or pressure of time?
Surprises
Is my use of language interesting/surprising? Or are there too many chiches/repetitions. Have I been daring enough?
Dialogue
Is the dialogue alive? Do I know what each character wants? Do I know their mood? (Whether or not they are hiding these things.) Have I made use of rhythm – overlaps, pauses, elispes, etc. Can I distinguish, by use of dialogue alone, between characters?
Believable detail – internal logic. (Probable impossibility is better than impossible probability)
Have I ‘twisted’ my narrative to make something happen, to ‘fit in’ with my plot, or because I particularly like a passage/speech/phrase/word that I’ve written early on and that should really be scrapped because it’s no longer relevant. Am I being too self-indulgent? Have I made things happen for no good reason? Every good plot has its own logic and every incident can be traced back to a previous incident or action by someone behaving in a particular way because they are the kind of person that they are. (Unless, of course, I am writing something totally absurdist!)
Someone to identify/empathise with.
Do I like my protagonist(s)? (Doesn’t mean she/he is a ‘nice’ person – they could be flawed/nasty.) I think it’s often fatal to create characters that are more stupid than me and then blame them for the limitations I have given them.
Clarity – keeping score.
Is my structure/form too confusing? Am I being too obscure, too ‘clever’? I remind myself that this is probably the first and last time the audience will see it (no luxury of re-reading passages as in a novel/poem), so if there’s doubt about where, when, why, what and how, there will be a major ‘turning off’ situation. On the other hand, have I underestimated the audience? Have I made things too obvious? Am I being too didactic?
A world that draws you in (whether familiar or unfamiliar).
Have I made use of the senses to create images? Are there too many abstractions? Is there too much exposition?
Darkness before the dawn.
Is there a turning point in my play? Is there a moment of intense struggle? This is tied in with the journey, with the development. And the ‘dawn’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘happily ever after’!
Emotion.
Have I achieved it? – whether funny or sad. Have I avoided telling where a small action or silence can indicate so much more. Have I made use of sub-text? Is there enough depth/layers?
Choices.
Could there have been any other outcome? Has my character been faced with any cross-roads, or is the ending inevitable? Have I inserted myself in the piece and dictated what must happen? As soon as the first scene is under way – or the end of Act One, for example – can the audience predict what exactly will happen?
The ending.
Is my ending significant? The opening provides the hook; the ending provides the last image, the last picture in the audience’s mind and should have a resonance that remains after the final silence. That doesn’t, of course, mean that I’ve merely ‘tied up loose ends’, but has, perhaps, left the promise or the hint of a new journey.
Can I answer the question: what is my play about?
And what is it really about?
* * * * * * * *
MAGLEASO
I think a well-crafted play requires as few words, props, etc. as possible. If dialogue and movement expose each character’s turmoil, fears, desires, goals, weaknesses, loves and progressive experience, there is an absolute unfoldment toward a conclusion as individual as the fingerprint of each single human being. Give me one naked actor, who can ACT, a director who can INTERPRET and even in the darkness we shall create theater.
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BKAHN
The greatest influence on my becoming a playwright is all the playwrights whose work I performed in and the directors who helped me in those productions. I was fortunate to begin my theatrical career as an actor at a very young age. The first living playwright whose work I performed was Edward Albee. We had the same financial backer (although in different decades). This wonderful benefactor, named H.B. Lutz, put up the money for a FREE professional actors workshop in Philadelphia, directed by Bob Sickinger. I auditioned and became one of only two youngsters in a class of older working actors. We did a number of Albee plays in the workshop. Later, in New York, I created roles in plays by Tom Eyen and Ted Harris and was directed by Ted, Ron Link and Robert Dahdah, all of whom were legends of the early days of Off-Off Broadway. During this time, I was also in some very bad plays by playwrights I will not name. Following a period of almost non-stop acting, I found myself with nothing scheduled in the foreseeable future. I took stock and thought that maybe I would try to write something with a part I could play. It would probably not be as good as the best plays I had been in, but I knew it would not be as bad as the worst plays--and, after all, they had been produced. My first effort, a semi-autobiographical comedy, was eventually produced, but not until I was too old to play the lead. I was through the first draft of my second effort when I realized there was no role in it that I was right for. It was then that I realized that I must be a playwright.
Tom Eyen was a master of strange and wonderful characters and situations. Ted Harris' plays expertly captured the atmosphere of their time and place. Ron Link enabled actors to find the truthfulness of their characters' emotional life. Bob Dahdah taught me about timing, among many other acting skills. My approach to playwriting, inspired by all of them, is the same as my approach to acting. I create characters, put them in situations of conflict, either fictional or historic, give them intentions and obstacles, and let them talk to each other while I write it all down.
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KATO
The greatest influence on my becoming a playwright is the person who told me I had to face the fact that I wasn’t a writer.
We had co-written a full-length work as a team and had just come back from an out-of-state staged-reading of the piece. At the staged reading I saw a scene performed that I had never seen on the page. No one had consulted me about it, no one had told me it would replace one of my scenes. I addressed the issue upon our return. That’s when my writing partner told me that I had to face the fact that I wasn’t writer.
I set out that summer to see if it was true. Could I write plays? I read every book about playwriting that I could lay my hands on; attended every staged reading that summer at the O’Neill Theater Center (the place where I worked); lurked around the playwrights table at lunch time; went to every lecture given; and bought more than a few drinks for playwrights and directors in order to sit in their company well into the night. Gathering my courage, I asked the new director of the National Theater Institute if I could take their playwriting course, although I had no money for tuition. He granted me a space and waived the fee.
The classes were held on Sundays throughout the fall semester. Three hours of reading each week’s assignment and learning to discuss the plays. Before the first several sessions I would become physically ill. I learned not eat before the class. You see, I was going to find out once and for all if I could write plays. I wanted to write for theater, but I didn’t want to be a purveyor of schlock.
I consider that fall, the fall of ’98, the time when I became a determined playwright.
A friend of mine who is also a writer has heard me tell this story, and he tells me about watching Zorro with Tyrone Power, how Zorro receives a scratch from the sword of the villain, and Zorro’s response, “I needed that scratch to wake me up.”
I got scratched. I woke up. Now I write like mad. Z.
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