Readings

So I had three readings of pieces/plays of mine this weekend. It's so incredibly helpful to hear a play out loud- I know there's things I miss when it's only on the page. And feedback is always great, whether it's positive or negative- if negative, I try to see what caused that effect and change that- most often, I've found, it's not what the audience thinks should be changed.
My favorite is feedback from the actors who read it. There's something wonderful about the perspective from inside the piece, sometimes you can get an entirely different take on things from the characters' points of view, which is especially valuable.

"Good actors force me to write as honestly as I can. I say 'force' because if you have fudged the truth in a script (and sometimes I want to take a short-cut to the end of a scene or act, a short-cut that the action of the play doesn't justify) a good actor's honesty will shine a very bright light on that moment of chicanery and you will have to fix it or go down in flames. Good actors are merciless that way. They can't help it. It's one of the reasons they're good actors. Mediocre actors let playwrights get away with murder."


- Terrence McNally, preface, 15 Short Plays

Work in Progress

So Oracle Theatre, Inc. will be doing a reading of the first scene of my play-in-progress Roman à Clay this Friday. It's a piece I've been working on for a couple of years- I wrote it and put it away and then brought it out again and re-wrote and then put it away... recently brought it out again for a whole new rewrite... I still don't have much aside from the opening scene.
One of the actors doing the reading said he was riveted to find out what happens next, and was disappointed to find out that I don't exactly know yet. :)

Gay Theatre

It's a sad thing to say that a lot of theatre about homosexual experience is pretty bad. The thing is, it doesn't need to be good. Queers are so starved for entertainment that reflects our lives, we'll buy tickets to any piece of trash that has gay characters in it. Especially if there's a hot guy on the poster and it's implied that he'll get naked.

I once was handing out postcards for a Gay play of mine, and a guy asked if there was nudity- I shook my head, and he handed the card back.

Which is not to say that there isn't good Gay theatre out there, it's just hard to know when the plays are good or just well-marketed.

Support: A Manifesto

After a post some time ago on Isaac Butler's blog, I've been thinking a lot about "support" and how that word is used in NYC Theatre circles- we're always saying "Come support our show" or "thanks for your support". I don't want people to come to my shows just to support me- I want them to come in the expectation of a good show. I'm doing fantastic work, and people should want to come see it. And many people do.

And I understand when people can't. I really, honestly do. Most of my friends are doing the same thing I'm doing- creating theatre. Most of it happens at the same times, which makes scheduling difficult. Most of us have 9-5 jobs on top of doing theatre in the evenings, and we get busy.
Most of my friends who are doing theatre are as broke as I am, all of our money going to our true vocation: theatre.
So I know that people are sometimes busy or choose to spend their money on food instead of theatre. The same thing happens to me.

People say, "I'm sorry I missed your show", and I agree with them. I'm sorry they missed it too, because it was awesome.

Playwrights of Color, check it out!

I got this e-mail through my website:

I found your site through the theatre blogosphere (Flux Ensemble Theatre and Tarhearted). I'm working on a project you might find interesting. This is it: http://rvcbard.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-im-doing-now-forming-playwrights.html. The vision of the group is nearly identical to 13P (http://www.13p.org/), but with the emphasis on producing works by new writers of color. The idea is to use our shared passion for theater and our status as Othered to empower us when it comes to gathering resources and reaching out to potential audiences and creative partners. We're committed to giving people theatre by and about us that challenges what people assume we stand for and/or are interested in. This will not be just another reading group. We want performances of our work. Rather than sitting around submitting our plays to all these places and waiting for other people to decide our work is worth doing, we're going to do it ourselves. We will definitely read each other's work. However, our feedback process is geared less towards reviewing our pieces and more towards uncovering the performance possibilities of the scripts and giving the writers a better understanding of how their works . . . work. In other words, instead of trying to rewrite the plays, the group is there to help writers figure out what their plays are capable of and finding the way to make sure that happens. I'm taking a lot of inspiration from the Liz Lerman method of critical response: http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2003/10/toward_a_proces.php. Since we're geared toward development and production, we really can't do the typical writers' group thing of reading a snippet of a play out loud during a meeting then giving 15 to 30 minutes of instant feedback. Rushing through reading and feedback is a disservice to the writer. If that works for a particular writer, fine. But I want to make it clear that we're going to put our stuff on stage. It's up to the group to decide when and how that's going to happen, but I'm firm about setting up performances of our work. I'm leaning toward deciding on an activity (for example: a night of 10-minute plays and/or selections from larger works), picking a date, and going for it. Without that commitment, it's just an idea. So far there are about 5 writers (with scripts!) and a director interested. Right now we are reaching out to venues, organizations, and individuals who would be interested in being a part of our project. If you know of directors, actors, designers, producers, or even marketing/PR people who would be interested in micro-productions of new works by new playwrights of color, please feel free to send them our way. We'd love to work with them! Thanks for taking the time to learn more about us.

Sounds fascinating- if I were a Playwright of Color (and not the honkiest honky who ever honked), I would certainly apply to be a part of it.

Classic Txts

Last night I went to go see a play and the man in the audience in front of me was texting on his brightly lit Blackberry periodically during the show. I've seen that a lot recently- apparently these idiots don't realize that they're incredibly distracting to audience members behind them (or possibly they just don't care).

Last night after the 4th or 5th time of him doing it, I leaned forward in my seat so I could read, as well (he didn't even notice me hovering behind him), and then I realized that he wasn't just texting during the show, he was sexting during the show. Awkward.

Universality

Just read this very interesting article on Scott Walter's blog about story creation...

He quotes Joseph Campbell:

"The folk aspect, which simply has to do with people and things in stories and time and space is called desi, which means local, popular. On the other hand the elementary ideas, when the diety is represented, are called marga, the path.

I've always been under the impression that to make a story "universal" (which is what everyone seems to want), it's always a mistake to concentrate on the mythic (i.e. "generic") at the expense of the details. The more personal and detailed a story is- even as the plot gets farther from the actual experience of the audience- the more the audience can project themselves into the story and see themselves in it.

Perhaps it's part of my perspective as a Gay man, being perforce subjected to heterosexuality and its tropes as the predominant vision in media growing up (I always say Lamar Latrell from Revenge of the Nerds was my first real role model- the pickin's were slim in the 1980s), I'd had to project into stories alien to my own experience. But I do think that's a capacity of all human beings, to be able to understand and empathise with any story and glean something that they can take back with them.

Now I'm considering it's the marga we can all feel, despite any desi which might be alien to our experience.

99Seats, in response to Scott Walter's post, says:

A Great Play lives in that place between the big, universal truths and the specific language of a specific time and place. The language of Hamlet is specific to Shakespeare's world and times, but the story soars above it. The same holds for Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Or Death of A Saleman. We need them. We need great masterworks that elevate the heart and soul, that capture the human spirit in amber and hold it up to the light.

I think the play(s) that best exemplifies that idea of A Great Play is Angels In America. The marga is there, of course, but it's the desi that really made it so real and vital for its time.