Playwright Zoo

Jessica Cerullo: Creator & Performer of Miracle Tomato

2011-08-17T07:07:00.000-07:00

When Jessica Cerullo's one-woman show Miracle Tomato played a few months ago at the Grade Arts Center in New London, Connecticut, it was an artist coming home. Jessica is a native of Southeastern Connecticut and got her start acting in high school shows and local theater productions. The spaces along Long Island Sound are rich in theater projects, both professional and community, and Jessica had long been a part of these endeavors. But Jessica went into the wider-world of theater-making, studying, practicing, and rising into making the performing arts her profession. I first met Jessica at the O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT where we both were employed. When Jessica brought her solo-show to the Garde, I sat in the front row and was amazed - and I knew I had to interview her for the Playwright Zoo. This interview is published here in two parts - because Jessica has a lot to say about what inspired her to compose and perform her solo-project-of-love -- Miracle Tomato.
Interview by Kato McNickle originally posted 3/2010

---------------

Jessica Cerullo Jessica Cerullo is a New York based performer, writer and teacher. She serves on the board and as Managing Director for MICHA, the Michael Chekhov Association.

As a writer and performer Jessica's recent original work is Miracle Tomato a traveling story of love, bioengineering and the search for home. Miracle Tomato premiered in May 2007 at P.S. 122 in New York City as part of the soloNOVA Festival and continues to tour in the United States in 2008-2009. Jessica's work has been part of the Brooklyn Arts Exchange First Weekend Series. Her work has also been supported by the town of Breckenridge, Colorado where she is welcomed as an artist in residence at the Tin Shop.

A former member of the Stanislavsky Theater Studio in Washington, DC and the Flock Theater in New London, Connecticut Jessica worked at the Mystic Seaport Museum where she was a member of the Mystic Seaport Players and performed and wrote a one womanpiece entitled Women Keepers of the Light. She has created experimental works with The Actors' Ensemble in New York and has performed in regional theaters such as the Folger Theater and Horizons Theater.

The interview:

What is MIRACLE TOMATO for you?

It is the history of the cultivation of the tomato told by Angelina, a triplet who, with her sisters Valentina and Josephina, was birthed in a tomato plot. But functionally Miracle Tomato is an opportunity, for me, as a performer-writer to mingle my research with my art and to meet audiences, farmers, chefs, other artists on theatrical terms. To me Miracle Tomato is an invitation.

What inspired you to write the work?

Working on the play began as an assignment in graduate school. Moises Kaufman, Leigh Fondakowski and Greg Perotti of the Tectonic Theater Project were teaching us the tools of how they devise work in their theater company and I began developing material about the genetically engineered tomato and about a set of triplets. The piece, however, transitioned from fulfilling an assignment when I began interviewing people about the tomato. The more I talked to people the more I was compelled to craft a theatrical event that could contain all of their stories and some of my own, too.

I loved the line, "history ain't as simple as rhymes." What does that line mean for you the performer/creator of the work? Is that meaning different than Angelina's understanding of it?

When researching the tomato I fell into the legacy of Christopher Columbus. For me that line of the story is an opportunity to introduce some of the more serious themes of the play. In it I reference the mis-education of America and the obsessive desire in our culture to sound bite history and events. For Angelina, the argument over Columbus has divided the family and has distracted everyone from addressing what the real issues are in the here and now. In this moment Angelina reveals that her family history is as complicated as the history of Columbus and that she is at a loss of what to do about it.

MIRACLE TOMATO, while playful, also manages to straddle political realms - addressing aspects of American colonialism, ethnic identity, and questionable practices of modern food production. How central are the political questions the play raises to your ultimate intent regarding the performance? Was it difficult to find the right balance between the play's "message" and its value as "entertainment."

All of those issues are very important to me but with Miracle Tomato I am not trying to tell people what they must or must not do. I have, however, done my research and like you, I go grocery shopping every week and struggle over what I should or should not buy and this information, this consciousness, is present in the play. All the political and historical themes that contextualize both the tomato and the characters are a part of the story. And some of those events, like when Valentina moves to California to help develop the Flavr Savr Tomato, and when Josephina moves to Texas to help fight the Flavr Savr Tomato, directly impact Angelina's life.

I suppose the issue of identity is an issue I feel the most connected to during the actual performance. As an Italian-American I often see popular culture represent me in ways that I don't identify. And so when I, as Angelina, stand on a stage I feel the gaze of the audience and those 'other images' are also in the room. So, if there is anything political that I am doing in the play it is in having a character like Angelina, with her accent and her physicality, stand in front of an audience for an hour and talk. Just in this act I hope to make a connection with the audience and to advance the stereotype that is perpetuated in the media. The fact that a person like Angelina can say thoughtful and intelligent things, that she can laugh and cry and embrace her audience is paramount.

When you performed the piece at The Garde Arts Center in New London, local food growers set-up a mini food fair in the lobby. The mixing of a theater event with a local farmers market was a lot of fun and served to get audience members to arrive early, to connect by milling around, sampling foods, and learning where they can go to get local food products. Is this a typical response to your show coming to a space?

Yes. And this goes back to what I said earlier about Miracle Tomato being an opportunity. Whenever I perform the play I always ask the host theater or organization how this play might go about celebrating the local community. Depending on the community the results vary. Sometimes it takes the form of a post show disussion with local farmers. In New London Steve Seigle and Ken Kitchings at the Garde were very excited about the possibilities and introduced me to Art Costa who is instrumental in the sustainable and local food movement in New London. Art and I met for coffee at the Bean and Leaf and shared some ideas about how to involve the local farmers and businesses and the New London event took off from there. To me the play and the events surrounding it are all part of the same thing - I see the theater as a meeting place. Often it is a place where some people come and sit in seats and meet the other people who are up on the stage. But with Miracle Tomato I try to enlarge that. With the support of the Garde and Art this enlarging happened on a big scale. In addition to all of the wonderful chefs and farmers sharing food and info in the lobby we had students from Fitch High School milling about performing and students from the Isaacs school were throwing rubber tomatoes during the show, in addition to which Kate Fioravanti, a teacher at the Isaacs school, performed the role of Joanie in the show that night. So the number of community member involvement in the New London production was exceptional.

What has performing a solo-piece (or an almost solo-piece) revealed to you as a performer that is unique from your experiences as an ensemble member?

Creating and performing an 'almost solo piece' has shown me the creative power of the performing artist. I realized that my years as an actress left a part of me unexpressed. It is the difference between interpreting a role and creating performance. With Miracle Tomato I relish in creating the role from scratch and making changes based on the current political situation or the current mood of an audience. As a solo performer I chose where and when I perform. There is a lot more freedom in it. Depending on my interest I work with different directors and sometimes without a director at all. In Miracle Tomato, the script serves as a map but if I feel like it, I can go on a diversion. After years of development the structure is now strong enough to support that. As for the ensemble element, I think that is most present in my working relationship with the audience and the actress playing Joanie. And of course it is also very improvisatory when I consider the whole business of touring and engaging with the people that I meet along the way.

Had you written for the stage before MIRACLE TOMATO?

I had devised work with ensembles before but had never authored a full length performance by myself.

Have you written since?

I continue to devise work. Right now I am teaching at Whitman College and we are devising a piece called 'Waiting' and working with some inmates at the Washington State Penitentiary.

Where have you performed the show?

The show opened at P.S. 122 in New York in 2007. Since then I have performed it in a variety of venues from traditional theaters, like the Garde, to art galleries, a sculpture center, back yard gardens, livingrooms and blackbox theaters. This spring I will perform in Walla Walla, Washington at a local restaurant. Sometimes I take selections from the play into farmers markets and comedy clubs. Once I performed at the Italian Language and Cultural Center's Holiday Party and ended up singing 'O Sole Mio' with a priest.

You have a solid background in Russian theater techniques - most notably in Michael Chekhov training. What draws you to these forms? And how do you incorporate the various techniques that you have studied?

The Michael Chekhov technique was the foundation of my acting training. Initially I think I was drawn to the lineage present in the technique. Chekhov had worked with Stanislavsky and he had disagreed with Stanislavsky and eventually moved from Russia to the United States. Because I love history and stories I was drawn to the Russians. I even went to Moscow and Siberia to study. Once I got beyond my fascination with the lineage of it all and dug into the technique I started to develop my imagination and was able to work with it, to teach with it, to live with it. It was with Michael Chekhov's help that I realized that the performer is the theater. That in the end it is she who places herself in front of an audience and plays for them that is the thing itself.

What advice do have for a performer thinking of creating their own show?

I think when you create your own work it is important that you work in the way that is best for you. To do that you need as little outside input as possible. It sounds simple but it is hard to stand on your own two feet. Most important I guess is just the advice of "Yes, get on with it and do it!" Of learning to follow through and work at your own pace. Along those lines I would suggest not working with a director until you absolutely need one.

What's the craziest thing that's happened either during your show, or as a result of it?

Once, after a show I was introduced to an Italian American woman who was the friend of a friend and this woman told me that I couldn't wear the costume that I was wearing. (I was in jeans and a red sweatshirt) She actually said I couldn't "represent our people" that way. And so this woman, her name was Valerie, asked me my size and the next day went out and bought me the clothes she thought I should wear. The next night I was on stage in the costume that she purchased.

Will you do another solo-show or is this one it?

As soon as something comes along and takes my attention the way the tomato took my attention a few years ago I will write another show. But it might not be 'almost solo.'

Do you have a motto or mantra that helps you as a theater artist?

I'm afraid it is terribly transparent. My motto, or rather my image at the moment is the August-ripe, thin-skinned tomato. I am cultivating my vulnerability as a theater artist.

Angelina says, "When I see a ripe one, I gotta pick it and I gotta eat eat it -- or I'm gonna miss it." What is that taste for her as the character, and for you the creator/performer of the work?

In this play Angelina, and also the actress playing Angelina, is learning how to embrace the life that is in the present. They are on an adventure and are simultaneously mourning all that has been lost. And so I suppose the taste would be all of them%u2026 sweet and sour and bitter and salty; the taste would be full. And whenever something is lost in this play - be it an heirloom seed or a member of the family, or even an entire population of peoples, there is room in this play to say goodbye, to let go, to mourn the loss that is present in our lives. So in addition to the fullness there is also a degree of emptiness.

Anything else?
Well, it's nearly April. Time to start planting seeds for the summer garden.

Interview with playwright Michael R. McGuire

2010-02-09T12:38:00.000-08:00

Michael R. McGuire is one of the playwrights whose opinion I trust. He's a theater artist working within his community as a major contributor to the local arts scene in New London, Connecticut. He is a self-taught self-starter who also helps other theater-artists see their work produced. I've know Mike for a few decades, and we've worked together to co-produce new-play festivals and full-up productions. He founded a playwrights group that meets regularly throughout the year where members bring new work to have it read and discussed (then we all go out for food and beer). He's the kind of guy you want to have around when you're trying to get a new piece on its feet. Everybody should have a friend like Mike.

---------------
---------------

Michael R. McGuire has written plays for the past 16 years. His play SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE I MISSED THE TRAIN was part of The Lark's 2004 Playwrights Week and showcased by The Planning Stage at The Golden Street Gallery in 2006. He was awarded a CT Artist Fellowship in 2005 for his play THE NEW GIRL with which he produced a showcase at the Avery Point Playhouse. His plays PERSEPHONE RULES! and THE MISJUDGMENT OF OENONE are published by Brooklyn Publishers.

McGuire founded the playwrights reading group Writers' Roundtable in 2000.

The interview:

Michael R. McGuire - why the "R"?

There is another playwright in America named Michael McGuire. We were getting one another's rejection letters returned. The other McGuire has been around longer so I added my middle initial. Plus, it sounds cooler.

You're a playwright based in Southeastern Connecticut. What are some of the challenges to you as a playwright not being in a big city?

The biggest challenge is the lack of opportunity to network with theater professionals. Literary managers have no face to put with my name. Of course this might also be an advantage...

What are the benefits?

I enjoy being an outsider. Because so many playwrights live in NY, they tend to have a New York sensibility. My New London, CT sensibility is a bit different and informs my writing.

Living in a small arts community like New London County, how essential to you and your work has been the acquisition of production skills?

I have produced, directed and also acted in many of my own productions. It is essential for a playwright to see the work in front of an audience. If opportunities do not present themselves, you must create them.

What makes you want to produce the works of others as well as your own?

I sometimes come across a script that I simply must see on stage. Your play TO DIE FOR WANT OF LOBSTER was one of these. (That it had a great role for me had nothing to do with it)

I do not consider myself an especially skilled director of the works of others and prefer to leave that to others when I can.

Being outside of the mainstream loops and circles that life in New York or another theater hub could offer, how do you get your work out there? Do you have a marketing plan? If so, how does it work?

I wouldn't call it a plan so much as a dogged tenacity to submit my work to every theater I can find that might be appropriate. In addition to Dramatists Sourcebook, I also search online and scour the resumes of playwrights I admire for theaters they began in.

I keep a database of all my submissions and mail frequently. How does it work? I'm not so sure it does!

While the stereotype of the struggling playwright places him/her in a room, alone, flushing out genius across pages, waiting for discovery - how does it really work from your experience? Are you alone or do you depend on others?

I write in coffee shops. I need a bit of hubbub to write. Silence is deadly to me. I read a great deal and consider all writing as part of a larger conversation. Nothing is created in a vacuum. Our playwrights group Writers' Roundtable has been a valuable resource for feedback and inspiration.

How did you find other artists in your small-town community to work on your plays?

Mine is a theater-heavy small-town due, in part, to our proximity to The O'Neill. New London has an artistically thriving if financially struggling community. I am also fortunate to have an actress girlfriend, Heidi Harger, who has inspired imagery for more than one of my plays.

What resources are do you use to expand your knowledge of writing? What's available when you're off the beaten path?
Given Amazon.com everything that is available elsewhere is available here. The works of Gary Garrison, Jeffrey Sweet and Stuart Spenser have been valuable, especially early on. Reading the works of current playwrights has also been important. I have to travel a bit to see professional theater, but every playwright should watch live theater.

You recently participated in a 24-hour play experiment, which was the first of it's kind in the New London area - what was that like? What was unexpected?

We were given an assignment in the evening and had to have a 10 page play written by morning. The plays were handed off to randomly selected actors and director who rehearsed and had the play before an audience that night. It was fun for me because I didn't have to direct it myself, a rare treat.

Unexpectedly my director, unknown to me before the project, is interested in an on-going collaboration on future plays.

You've also participated in the now defunct Local Playwrights Festival at the O'Neill Theater Center, which was produced and performed by all Connecticut and Rhode Island based volunteers to present workshops of plays by local authors - how relevant was that earlier experience for you?

Having an early play (WHAT'S GONNA SET YOU FREE?) selected for that festival was the encouragement I needed at that time to let me know I might be in the right business. It also introduced me to other playwrights and the local theater community at large. It is impossible to overstate the importance of that event. You may blame them for all my subsequent scribbling.

Any plans for the short play that came out of that?

I'm not much of a short play writer in general, but I may send it out here and there.

What are some recommend reads for playwrights?

I mentioned some writers above, and of course read any play you can get your hands on, but also read magazines, novels, comic books, essays and everything else. Ideas are everywhere. I could live ten lifetimes and not run out of ideas.

What do you recommend a playwright order from the bar when being taken out after a showing of one of his/her plays?

If the show went well, have a Guiness or two. Remain sober enough to absorb the praise. If the show went poorly, start pounding whiskey. I accept no responsibility for anyone who follows this advice.

Anything else?

Learn the rules and then break them with style.

A Playwright & Web Forums: How to Use Them for the POWER OF GOOD (your good & others)

2010-02-09T12:36:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of playwright specific forums, groups on Facebook or MySpace, and other web-based cyber-groups floating around. One thing I've noticed from participating in these forums and groups is that about 1 outta 50 playwrights actually knows how to interface, interact, and maximize the potential of these virtual porticoes. How savvy are you when it comes to participation thru posting? Are you that one or the other 50?

If that forum your a member of was a theater -- what would you do with it? Would you really only tap on the mike once our twice, see if it was on, and only leave a brief calling card -- or would you do more? Can you do something more memorable, more lasting, more significant with your stage-time?

I think sites such as these are like stage-time. How can you do more than leave a calling card? How can you use this forum to make a statement -- to leave an impression? From impressions come connections. The connections are what we seeks as artists.

How a play gets to Broadway - an interview

2010-02-09T12:35:00.001-08:00

The Broadway Producer:
How A Play Gets To Broadway

On the nature of 'Boo-hooing'

2009-03-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

from the mind of Kato McNickle

Who hasn't heard this story?

I can't get my plays done because I don't have a resume.

I can't get my plays done because I'm unconnected.

I can't get my plays done because no one will read them.

I can't get my plays done because of where I live.

I can't get my plays done because no one is producing new work.

And on and on and on.

Boo hoo for playwrights. No one wants to do your plays, or even look at them, or even give you a fair chance or even... you get the idea.

You are a playwright. You are writing works for the theater. So? Get a space (like a church basement, or a rec center, or a gallery, or a room at your library, or your back yard) find some actors (audition or invite them) make some copies, and produce your play.

It can be performed as a staged reading with blocking but no props; as a concert reading while standing at music stands; or as a production, either with minimal production values or with sets and costumes and the works.

Be a maker of theater.

Stop with the excuses and with the boo-hooing and get to work!

Cool playwright Jason Grote interview

2009-03-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

Jason Grote's work has been presented and/or developed with The 24-Hour Plays, The 92nd Street Y's Makor/Steinhardt Center, Baltimore Center Stage, The Bloomington Playwrights Project, The Brick, Circle X, Clubbed Thumb, Denver Center Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Flea, HERE, The Lincoln Center Directors' Lab, Manhattan Ensemble Theater, The Millay Colony for the Arts, The NY International Fringe Festival, The O'Neill Playwrights' Conference, P73, The Playwrights' Center, Salvage Vanguard, Sanctuary, Soho Rep, Studio 42, Theatre of NOTE, The Williamstown Theater Festival workshop, and The Working Theater, and published in The Back Stage Book of New American Short Plays 2005 (edited by Craig Lucas). His play, Hamilton Township, will be presented in Slovenia in December 2006, and his play, 1001, will premiere at Denver Center Theater in January 2007. Honors include a nomination for the 2007 Kesselring Prize; an NEA grant via Soho Rep; a Sloan Commission from Ensemble Studio Theatre; The P73 Playwriting Fellowship; and multiple-year finalist for The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, PlayLabs, and The Princess Grace Award. He is co-chair of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and theatre co-editor of The Brooklyn Rail, and has an MFA from NYU.

Current and upcoming projects include his commissions from Clubbed Thumb, Denver Center, and Ensemble Studio Theater, as well as various projects for film, TV, and radio. He teaches playwriting and screenwriting at Rutgers University, is a member of PEN and New Dramatists, and a contributor to Comedy Central's "Indecision 2008" blog. He was co-chair of Soho Rep's Writer/Director Lab from 2004-07, and currently serves on their Artist Advisory Committee. He is represented by Antje Oegel at AO International, in Chicago and Berlin.

-----

I got a chance to meet Jason at the O'Neill Theater Center this summer and to see his play BOX AMERICANA, a play that takes you in and out of the Walmart nation. Here's an interview conducted via e-mail:

I'm glad we got to meet at the O'Neill last month, and it was a treat to see such a smart comedy.

Thanks!

Your play, BOX AMERICANA, was presented at the O'Neill this summer. What compelled you to set a play inside and around a Walmart?

It was a commission from The Working Theater, a labor-oriented theater in NYC. I'm generally interested in writing about contemporary issues, and Walmart's labor troubles have been receiving a lot of press lately, especially their systemic failure to promote women into management positions, which is the only way to make a decent living working there. This inspired the largest class action suit in history, which is still pending, but doesn't look good in light of the recent Supreme Court decision reducing Exxon Mobil's penalties for the Valdez oil spill to a slap on the wrist. The play was largely inspired by a book on the topic, Liza Featherstone's excellent SELLING WOMEN SHORT.

This is your second summer at the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference -- how did the experience change for you?

I was much more aware of how quickly the month goes, and tried to use the time for efficiently (though who knows if I did or not). I also tried to make more time to have my wife up, which is really important - as I discovered in 2006, a month is a really long time to be apart.

How do you prepare for a workshop experience like the O'Neill's?

I mailed a lot of food and books to myself, and tried to square away as much business back home as I could. As far as the art of it goes, I'm not sure what preparation one could do, other than having written the actual play. Everything always happens in the room.

The mother/daughter relationship that you and the cast conjured at the O'Neill was mesmerizing and very real. What brought you to creating that duo? What were you channeling?

Thanks!

I was channeling lot of different things, actually. Partially, my own life - while my mother has achieved great material success, when I was born she was 18 and single, and we were on welfare for the first 4 or 5 years of my life. I also worked at an elementary school by the Farragut Housing projects in Brooklyn while I was in grad school at NYU, where I got to observe a lot of mother-child interaction in a largely poor, African-American community. I also listened to a lot of colleagues who would tell me things like, "black people would never say that in front of white people," and stuff like that - the playwright Marcus Gardley was a great help when we were both at The Lark. I also took a lot of inspiration from authors like Toni Morrison, Octavia E. Butler, and George Saunders, as well as various nonfiction sources, including documentaries.

The first summer you were at the O'Neill with your play 1001 was also the second summer led by NPC director Wendy Goldberg. What changes, modifications, or growth happened during the interim conferences?

I think Wendy (who started in 2005), and Preston
Whiteway, Martin Kettling, Jill Mauritz, and the many other people working there have done a pretty amazing job of righting the ship. Playwrights are thankfully shieded from these kinds of details, but the problems the O'Neill was undergoing have been pretty well-publicized. I don't know enough to say where the problems came from, or even what they were exactly (other than the fact that they were financial in origin), but it was clear from my experiences in 2006 and 2008 that things are much more stable now. It's a process that was clearly underway when I was originally there - but these
things take a while.

Other than that, theater is an extraordinarily social art form, and so the experience is very often shaped by the people there. I'm very lucky to have had a number of close friends in residence in 2008 (some of whom, like Irish playwright Ursula Rani Sarma, actor Daoud Heidami, and props master Scott Melamed, I had met in 2006).

An integral part of the O'Neill experience is the month-long residency of the playwrights. What on earth did you do all month long?

Wrote, read, went to the beach, drank, went bicycling, looked for places to get real food, emailed, downloaded music.

Where do you go from here?

I'm opening another show, Maria/Stuart, in Washington, DC - it's starting the season at Woolly Mammoth. I'm also developing a new play with Clubbed Thumb in NY, a process that will include some of the actors from the O'Neill (some from other projects). After that, 1001 is going up at Mixed Blood Theater in Minneapolis, and there will be a student production at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where I'll be teaching a workshop.

What do you think are some of the finest opportunities for playwrights in
> the US right now?

Well, I'm pretty partial to the O'Neill. Other than that, I love the Soho Rep Writer-Director Lab (which I ran for three years) and had a blast at Portland Center Stage's JAW/West Festival. The former has an
open submission process but looks for very, very specific kinds of work, and the latter is invite-only, though. In terms of open submissions, New Dramatists is an amazing organization, and I've
always wanted to go to Sundance (but never have).

How do you answer the oft asked question, "Where do you get your ideas?"

I steal them.

What's a recent good read that made you rethink or inspire your work as a playwright?

Reading Comics by Douglas Wolk, a truly amazing piece of criticism. A few other must-reads for playwrights are Story by Robert McKee, The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard, New Playwriting Strategies by Paul Castagno, The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri, and the film criticism of Slavoj Zizek.

If I had to pick ten playwrights with whose work everyone should be familiar, they would be: Shakespeare, Chekhov, Brecht, Beckett, Churchill, Paula Vogel, Maria Irene Fornes, Mac Wellman, Naomi Wallace, and Suzan-Lori Parks.

I'm on a puppet kick right now. At the O'Neill they have some pretty inspired puppets and puppet art around the place, and they host one of the finest puppetry conferences in the nation. What do you think about puppets showing up in serious plays like Vogel's LONG CHRISTMAS RIDE HOME or larger pieces like the work of Julie Taymor?

Great, I'd like to see more of it. I recently turned my play Moloch and Other Demons into a puppet play, though that hasn't seemed to increase interest in it. I have a theory that really uptight older rich people hate puppets, which makes me love them even more.

Where do you recommend a fledgling playwright set her/his sights?

On whatever makes them happy. There's really no other reason to do this - a lot of people will try to make you feel like they're doing you a huge favor or that you owe them something because they're
working with you in some capacity, but that's almost never true. Work gets difficult sometimes even under the best of circumstances, but there's no reason to suffer through anyone treating you badly or to do something you're not enjoying. Life's too short and the rewards are far too meager. If you want to get an MFA and work at commercial or nonprofit theaters, do it. If you want to produce your own work, do it. If you want to write poetry or screenplays instead, or a comedy video on YouTube, or go to law school, or do community theater because it makes you happy, do that.

Who drew that caricature of you on your Facebook profile (it's pretty awesome)?

The amazing Neil Numberman - his website is www.neilnumberman.com.

Cool playwright Gregory Moss

2008-08-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

Gregory Moss is a playwright, performer and director from Cambridge MA. He is an MFA student at Brown University's Playwriting Program, and he runs Independent Submarine Productions, a DIY production company dedicated to presenting challenging artistic content in various media (www.independentsubmarine.com). Gregory is a recipient of the Lucille Lortel Playwriting Fellowship for 2006-2007. Recent and upcoming productions of his work include Play Viewed From A Distance at The Empty Space Theater in Seattle; The Yankee City Theater Project at the Firehouse Center For The Arts; The Accident at Theatre Limina's Double Vision Festival in Minneapolis; and No One Remembers When as part of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival. Recent solo performances include 1000 Proms at The Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge MA and "let's pretend" (adults only) at P.A.'s Lounge in Boston. His latest play, House of Gold, debuted in February as part of Brown University's New Play Festival. Gregory is a member of The Dramatists' Guild.

I met Greg in Florida at the Atlantic Center for the Arts where we were both part of a seven person playwrights bootcamp for 3 weeks with Paula Vogel. Since then we've both be seeing each other around the Brown University campus for the past two years; he is completing his masters in playwriting, and I am working on my undergraduate degree. This has given me a chance to see some of Greg's latest work, and to watch him create it. I am always amazed at how he he gets me hooked into such absurd and disturbing stories-- but he does GET ME HOOKED on impossible people. Impossible! Greg revels in the grotesque and bizarre and always manages to scratch away at those levels to reveal something deeply human and deeply desirous of love. Magic. Weird. But magic.

Here's a few questions for Greg, just after the presentation of his new work PUNKPLAY at the Brown New Play Fest:

Where'd 'Punkplay' come from?
Punkplay came from a couple places. Last year I wrote a play called House of Gold which upset some people when it was done at Brown, which I found oddly surprising, and caused me to think a bit about my approach to making plays. Not so I could change it, but to figure why I was in fact I seem to be so intent on upsetting people. My default mode, as a writer, is to write from a position of aggressive provocative and irony, and I realized that attitude came from early exposure to first and second wave punk rock. So in part I wanted to explore my base assumptions about the world and art, which were so heavily influenced by an adolescence spent absorbing punk music and culture. But also House of Gold had been about growing up as a girl in America, and I write mostly female protagonists, so I wanted to do a boy play. I did the first draft in a class for Paula Vogel in which we studied Jacobean and German Expressionist drama, so some of that got in there too - this imaginative relationship of the individual to History. There's a lot of my own life in there.

How important is music to your stuff?
I am not a musical theatre person, but almost every play I write these days has at least one song in it, like new original songs. But music is one of the Aristotelean elements and I am nothing if not Aristotelean. Using the right song at the right moment can add inflection to a dramatic moment - ironize it or make it creepier. I don't want to use music to underscore (I hate that in theatre) or manipulate emotion, but it's a good way to linger in a moment without slowing a play's momentum.

Where do you go after Brown?
I will either be in Providence another year, or I will be in New York. Probably teaching, definitely writing, hopefully continuing to act and find other creative outlets as well.

What's the difference between being an educator and being educated?
Uh, I don't know. I learn as much or more teaching as I do as a student, cliched as that sounds. Educating, especially in writing and theatre, I feel, is mostly about presenting different approaches to students in a non-threatening, practical and contextualized way. To cultivate their curiosity and ingenuity, so they can write the plays they wanna write - and also to help them delay that reflexive "bullshit!" reaction so many people have when confronted with new or challenging work.

Are you ever compelled to fix people's spelling?
Not in like emails or whatever, but as a teacher, yeah, sometimes. I don't like misspellings, and if it's something glaring I will draw their attention to it. I try not to be a composition teacher - the spelling can get fixed later, once the play is in place.

What do you think every playwright should read?
Sheesh. I feel I should advocate for someone no one is gonna read on their own here. Fornes is my first and favorite, but I'm gonna say everyone should read the "Little Theatre of The Green Goose" plays by Konstanty Iidefons Gaiczynski. They are very short, absurd and hilarious sparks of resistance to socialist realism written by a crazy Polish writer post WW II. I directed 'em as a student project as an undergrad, and I've loved 'em ever since

Also everyone should read Ann Marie Healy.

What's the beverage that keeps you going?
Whey protein smoothie made with vanilla soy milk, a banana, and frozen blueberries. Every morning and sometimes again in the afternoon.

Why puppets?
Anyone who grew up in America with a television set grew up surrounded by talking frogs and anthropomorphic furniture. These things are our friends as kids and then we are very quickly asked to forget that world of living objects. Puppets and object with souls remain a fixture of my imagination, like dolls and toys and dead people coming back to life.

Got a personal mantra?
Work work work.

Anything else?
Naw. Thanks for asking though.

Workshopped to Death

2008-03-06T11:06:00.001-08:00

from the mind of Kato McNickle

There have been rumblings and articles and a lot of talk about the "workshopped to death" syndrome plaguing playwrights of late. At the O'Neill Theater Center, which boasts the most prestigious workshop experience in the United States, it is not uncommon to see a list of five or six, sometimes ten or eleven, previous workshops and development processes that the play and playwright have been thru. All of these workshops were worked thru by the playwright with the hopeful expecation that someone would see it, get connected to the play, and want to produce it.

No such luck.

Onto the next workshop.

Here's the thing...aren't playwrights complicite in this trend? If you're a playwright who's done workshopping the play, then hold out for a production and stop sending it to workshop opportunities. If that isn't working, produce the damn thing yourself.

Look back at the careers of all of the great or succesful (or both) playwrights. Everyone knows Shakespeare wrote, produced, directed, yada yada yada; but so did O'Neill; so did Gurney; so did Bullins; Vogel; Brecht; Becket; the list goes on and on.

This is one of those "push comes to shove", "will there's a way", "I'm a playmaker, dammit" kinda things.

Yeah, yeah, theaters get money for doing workshops, and the more readings, the less production money goes into the list of "here's what we did this year" that they have to hand in to get their grant money. It's a non-profit world that the theater exists in, and numbers are very, very important.

It's up to the playwright to be sure their play becomes more than grist for the non-profit mill. It's up to the playwright to push for production. If the theater won't do it, then the playwright needs to find a space and make their play a reality. Be a playmaker.

Creative Creatures: Writer's Retreat with Susan Piver

2008-01-12T09:01:00.001-08:00

A Writer's Retreat

May 11-16, 2008 (5 nights, Sun - Fri)
with Susan Piver

Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health
in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts

What do writers want more than anything in the world? Time to write! Yet, even when precious time can be found, it's not always easy to settle into the writing groove. Yoga and meditation can help synchronize the mind and body in a way that truly supports the creative process.

The focus of this week is on having plenty of personal time to write. To support our writing, there will be meditation instruction and practice, and you are encouraged to attend one of the Kripalu Yoga classes offered each day. There will also be opportunities to read and discuss your work. Guiding and weaving the week are award-winning writing teacher Sanford Kaye, who teaches at both Harvard and Curry College, and Buddhist meditation teacher and best-selling author Susan Piver.

The retreat-like atmosphere at Kripalu offers a peaceful and supportive setting for a writing retreat. No previous experience in yoga or meditation is necessary. The retreat is open to dedicated writers of fiction and nonfiction, published and unpublished.

Susan Piver is an authorized meditation instructor in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage and the New York Times best-selling author of The Hard Questions series. She has practiced meditation for more than 10 years. Her most recent book is How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life.

Featured Playwright: Dominic Orlando

2008-01-08T10:13:00.001-08:00

I met Dominic two years ago at the Atlantic Center for the Arts when we both participated in a three-week bootcamp residency with Master Artist Paula Vogel. Since then I've seen his name all sorts of places, including American Theater. He's an aritist to watch.
-Kato McNickle

BEST QUOTE: Great (and useful) theatre serves one of two
purposes--to celebrate or to mourn.

Dominic Orlando is a former Jerome Fellow to The Playwrights Center and was last year awarded a McKnight Advancement Grant. His plays have been developed and produced at The Guthrie Theater (commission), Here Arts Center (NYC), The Samuel Beckett on Theatre Row (off-Broadway), The Lincoln Center/American Living Room (multi-year), The Ontological at St Mark's Church, The Aurora Theatre, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Teatro Del Pueblo (commission, multi-year), The Jungle Theater (multi-year), Stage Left Theater, The New York International Fringe Festival (multi-year), The Edinburgh Fringe, The Prague International Fringe, and The Pasinger/ Fabrik in Munich, among others. In NYC his work was supported by The New York State Council on the Arts, the Alliance of Resident Theatres, The NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs and The Puffin Fondation. He has been a writer-in-residence at The MacDowell Colony (three-time Fellow), The Edward Albee Foundation (multi-year), Ucross, The Djerassi Resident Artists Program, The William Inge Center for the Arts, and The Atlantic Center for the Arts (a residency with Paula Vogel). His writing is published by Playscripts and Dramatics Magazine. Recent productions: "Juan Gelion Dances for the Sun", Crowded Fire Theatre, San Francisco ("electric with dramatic, physical and intellectual energy"-The Chronicle); "A Short Play About Globalization", Workhaus Collective, Minneapolis ("daring and idea-packed, one of the most original nights of theatre in recent memory"-City Pages). He is a Core Member of The Playwrights Center and a founding member of The Workhaus Collective.

What's the most interesting/fun thing you've done as a playwright?
Prague/Munich/Edinburgh/The East Village + meeting
other species of artist at colonies around the country--

Where's the best place for a playwright to live/work nowadays?
NYC/Minneapolis/San Francisco (or maybe HBO)

Who are you reading right now?
The Diaries of Rilke

What's your favorite (or most effective) beverage of choice to consume either before or while writing?
Coffee, coffee, coffee

What's your latest project?
Producing for the Workhaus Collective, writing the book for two friends in the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop, trying to figure out why I'm reading Rilke

What are you doing for New Year's?
What else? getting drunk with a bunch of playwrights

Find out more about his Plays
Buy his plays from Playcripts.com

Dominic at the ACA in Florida taking some R&R on one of the bikes.

Classy

2007-12-28T07:46:00.000-08:00

from the mind of Kato McNickle

Finding a good playwriting class takes a little work. Classes can be offered at colleges, community centers, or private tutoring sessions. Most of these options will mean spending some money, anywhere from $50 for a local recreation class to hundreds or thousands of dollars at a college or university. Your first job is to figure out what you need and if a classroom is the right place for you.

Are you a first-time or novice playwright looking for a class that will provide structure to your writing regimen? In that case check out what classes may be offered through your local parks & recreation, community center, or library. Oftentimes these classes are run by playwrights residing in your community who teach workshops to supplement their income.

A class like this will introduce you to the basic concepts of theatrical storytelling and provide you with a peer group of similarly interested community members. It will also provide a structure whereby you will have to write each week in preparation for each week's class. Many first-time playwrights find this kind of class very helpful.

If you've been writing a while or are seeking a more focused environment, then you may want to look into college or university programs. How do you find a good one? Step one - you read new plays. Why new ones? Because you are seeking out emerging artists whose work engages you.

Next, start Googling. Where did they study and with whom? Better yet - are they teaching anywhere? Maybe they're running a two-week workshop at a conference or a guest lecturer somewhere. Find out.

Start targeting their former professors. Read those professor's plays. Did you really dig them? If so, find out how you can study with them too.

Along the way, read interviews and articles, download podcasts, sit in on lectures and talks, and take notes. These sorts of resources can be as valuable as sitting in a classroom. You can use an interview in The Dramatist like a forty-minute master class. Think of it that way and there's no limit to who you can study with, anywhere, anytime.

It is possible to find a good playwriting class. It's up to you to do your research and find where that classroom is.

Visit the Playwright Zoo Archive.

Finding the Spot

2007-10-14T10:00:00.001-07:00

From the mind of Kato McNickle

Where do you send your play? How do you find theaters? Who wants to read it?

First off, you're reading this at the Playwrights Zoo, linked to hundreds of theaters in the USA that accept unsolicited plays and queries. Start clicking links and see what theaters like to do.

You click. What next? Do you go straight to the "Submission Guidelines" page? I hope not. Take a look at the theater's current season. After that, go to their "About Us" page. Read their mission statement. Find out what their primary goals are. Does your play jibe with that?

Check out their production history, what sort of community do they serve? All of this information will help you spend your postage and printing dollars best, and save the valuable time of the people in the trenches trying to find the next great play for their production company.

After all of that investigation, if you're still thinking, "I gotta work with these people!" then find out how you can get your script in the door.

How else do you winnow down the best place to send your plays? Create your dream list. Where are 10 places that you'd die to work in? Think big. Think best. Now think, "How do I get them to notice me?"

Start a plan. Notice who's who in that theater. Pay attention to what kind of plays they are doing, what kind of actors do they cast, what are they about?

Send them a querie and track what happens. How long does it take to get your first response? Did it take a week to get a rejection from an intern? Did it take six weeks to get a rejection from an assistant? Did it take two months to get a positive response from an associate or a manager? All of this matters.

Keep a log of every place that you send to. Track when you send, what you send, when you heard back, how you heard back. Make notes: How often does the literary office experience turnover? How often do you get a personalized letter? Are you getting the kind of responses that let you know that they are genuinely considering your work?

You've got to think about this like the bussiness person that you are (or are on your way to becoming.) Or, if making it a business really kills the buzz, approach it as a scientist. You've got data to collect, patterns to observe, and adjustments to make to initiate your desired outcome.

Featured Playwright: Caridad Svich

2007-10-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

BEST QUOTE: "Performance is always about life or death, whether it is sports or theater"

Caridad Svich is as much a major force in any American theater landscape as she is at the center of the Latino/Latina playwright world. Her plays and adaptations are only part of hr contribution to the theater. She is a prominent arts advocate, interviewer and publisher. She participates in multiple spheres and works as hard to promote and propel the works of colleagues as she does her own.

Bio:

Caridad Svich is a playwright-songwriter-translator-editor of Cuban-Argentine-Spanish and Croatian descent. Her works have been staged across the US and abroad at venues as diverse as Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, INTAR, The Women's Project, 7 Stages, Cleveland Public Theatre, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Dad's Garage and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her plays have been workshopped by Actors Touring Company in London, Mark Taper Forum, The Public Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre/Hedgebrook, Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Royal Court Theatre, and Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, among many others. Awards include 2002-2003 Bunting Fellowship from Harvard University/Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, a TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist Residency, an NEA/TCG Playwriting Residency, and Rosenthal New Play Prize. She is editor of Trans-Global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries (Manchester University Press), and Divine Fire: Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks (BackStage Books). She is co-editor of Conducting a Life: Reflections on the Theatre of Maria Irene Fornes (Smith & Kraus), Theatre in Crisis? (Manchester University Press), and Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latina/o Theatre and Performance (TCG). Some of her translations are collected in Federico Garcia Lorca: Impossible Theatre (Smith & Kraus). She is founder of the pan-American theatre collective NoPassport, is contributing editor of TheatreForum, and on the advisory committee of Contemporary Theatre Review (Routledge/UK). She holds an MFA from UCSD

Read her PLAYS.

Read an ALL ABOUTher.

Check out New Dramatists.

Featured Playwright: Ann Marie Healy

2007-10-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Ann Marie Healy

BEST QUOTE: "I like the idea of voices divorced from context, characters who create their universe through speaking, carving it out with language."

Ann Marie Healy is a wiry sort of woman with insanely curly hair that nowadays is often restrained in a knot at the base of her head. Her plays are eerie assemblages of patter and repetitions that create worlds that are wholly theatrical. Ann Marie works with language, often spun with regional overtones, like, well, Minnesota for one. She is currently part of the Brown MFA program.

Ann Marie Healy's play Dearest Eugenia Haggis received a workshop production with Clubbed Thumb's Summerworks 2005 as well as a development reading with The Cape Cod Theater Project. Her two latest plays (When He Gets That Way and Have You Seen Steve Steven) were recently developed through the support of Soho Rep and MCC's Playwrights Coalition. Now That's What I Call A Storm was produced by Edge Theater Company last spring. Somewhere Someplace Else was produced in 2003 with Clubbed Thumb in New York and with Frontera/Hyde Park in Austin (winner of two 2002-2003 Austin Critics Table Awards).

Her writing is published through Playscripts, Inc., Samuel French, in various Smith & Kraus anthologies, and in The Kenyon Review. She is a five-time finalist for Actors Theater of Louisville's Heideman Short Play Award and a finalist for The Perishable Theater's International Women's Playwriting Festival. She is an affiliated artist with Clubbed Thumb; a member of MCC's Playwrights Coalition; a member of 13P; a former member of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab; and a writing fellow at New River Dramatists in North Carolina. She was recently awarded a NYSCA commission for her new play entitled The Story Of Minnie Willet.

Read her PLAYS.

Read an INTERVIEW.

Check out Doollee

Featured Playwright: Sheila Callaghan

2007-08-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

Sheila Callaghan

BEST QUOTE: "Funny. I can't recall if I told him before or after I put my shirt on."

Sheila Callaghan's plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, and Moving Arts, among others. Sheila is the recipient of a 2000 Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a 2001 LA Weekly Award for Best One-act, a 2001-02 Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a 2002 Chesley Prize for Lesbian Playwriting, a 2003 Mac Dowell Residency, a 2004 NYFA grant, a 2005 Cherry Lane Mentorship Fellow, a 2006 NYSCA grant, and the 2007 Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Norway, and the Czech Republic. She has been commissioned by Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, and EST/Sloan. Her full-length plays include SCAB, THE HUNGER WALTZ, CRAWL FADE TO WHITE, CRUMBLE (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), WE ARE NOT THESE HANDS, DEAD CITY, LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING, and KATE CRACKERNUTS. Several of her plays are published by Playscripts, Inc. She has taught playwriting at The University of Rochester, Spalding University, The College of New Jersey, and Florida State University. Sheila is a member of the Obie winning playwright's organization 13P and resident of New Dramatists.

Read her PLAYS

Read her BLOG

Read an INTERVIEW

Who?

2007-08-30T21:05:00.001-07:00

If you're writing plays for anything more than a puppet show in your kitchen, then you've run into the realities of the marketplace.

Sure, we've all heard folks moan, "It's all about who you know," like there's some magic cocktail party to attend with a pocket full of business cards and two months later you'll be viewing a production of your play.

I believe there's something more radical (and more obvious) than the "who you know" syndrome.

I think it's really, "Who have you worked with?" That's the one that's your foot and your play in the door.

So, the million dollar question - "Who are you working with?"

Letter rip! Part 2

2007-08-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

Organizing your cover letter

You’re sending your play or a query to a theater. What should your letter say?

Let’s look at what your letter is not:

Your letter is NOT your resume or bio.

Your letter is NOT a synopsis of your play.

Your letter is NOT just a place for you to list your contact information.

Starting your letter with, “I am a playwright whose work has been produced all over the world and has received rave reviews in Cleveland…” and continues for a whole paragraph before even mentioning the title of the play is a turn-off. No one cares at this point if you’ve won the Pulitzer Prize. Okay -- maybe if you've got a Pulitzer you can put that at the top -- but you get my point.

You have sent a PLAY – put the play – and not your bio – front and center in this letter. Your bio and resume should be included on separate pieces of paper in the package. If they like your letter they’ll continue on and read your bio and resume. If your letter has turned them off right from the get-go, how much attention do you think they’re gonna pay to anything else you’ve sent them? Not much.

Let this organizing principle guide you: Every word in this letter should be related to this particular play being sent to this particular theater by you.

Begin simply, with the basics:

"Enclosed is the new one-act play Blah Blah Blah for consideration in your Best of Blah Festival. After deciding that her life is totally blah, a woman finds herself on a beach in the South-Seas and must cast off her shell of blah or die trying. It requires two women, two men, lots of sailor hats and a beach ball."

See? That could be your opening – it can be that simple. Who ever is reading your letter knows immediately whether this play fits their requirements – a one-act with a cast of four – no set – lots of sailor hats. It also included a one-sentence description, not really a synopsis, more like a log-line that grounds the reader in time/place/and genre. “Perfect, so far,” says the reader, so they continue on.

What’s next? Remember the organizing principle –

THIS PLAY=THIS THEATER.

The next paragraph is about the play, but not about the play’s action – it’s about why this play? Why was it written? What is the play’s history?

"This play began as a real-life trip that I took to the South-Seas. After life-time in New York working in various art venues including many Off-Broadway, Off-Brodway, and Off-Off-So-far-off-You’re-In-Jersey-Broadway, I needed a vacation. Having a chance to breathe, I began to write…"

or

"This play began as an exercise for a class at the Best Ever School or University in Existance…"

or

"This play was written for your festival. When I read about the theme I immediately thought about the impact of Blah on society and how it extinguishes any hope of a fulfilling life. In my many years of playwriting I have always wanted to write a piece exploring Blah, and your festival gave me the perfect platform."

In each example there’s a way to bring who you are into the letter connected to why you wrote this play. It’s better than a bio, or listing your experience, because it brings you – the human being – into the room with the human being reading your letter.

What is unique about you writing this play? If there’s a story to it, put it in the letter. You are, after all, a storyteller. Write the story of why you wrote this play. Why was it important? What did it mark for you as a writer?

Find that thing and put it in your letter.

Why this play/this theater/this writer right now?

That’s the question your letter needs to answer.

Do that, and the folks at the other end will want to read the rest of your play, or they at least will know that your play is not right for them and you will not have wasted their time. Either way, your letter has done its job. It has worked.

Letter Rip! Part 1

2007-08-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

Letter rip!
by Kato McNickle

When you send an unsolicited query package to a theater you are an unknown quantity. Within the multitude of other packages that arrive each week you are nearly invisible. Invisible in this business means unremarkable.

In a market flush with unknown and undiscovered playwrights, how do you set yourself apart?

First off, it's not really "yourself" sitting in that pile of queries; or is it?

How have you put "yourself" in that great big pile o' manila that's sitting in the literary managers office? Did you follow the submission instructions? Things like, did you include the requested number of pages; did you include your resume; did you bind or staple or leave free the pages as per request? Did you check the website to make sure you have the most up-to-date information for your package? Did you?

Did you spend time composing your query letter? Is your letter just a functional, nondescript front piece that says here's my plays and phone number, or did you take the time to create a one-page sheet that puts you in the room with the reader.

With the exception of the play itself, the letter you send is the most important piece of paper. Your letter sets the tone, it represents you, it is the first act in an important drama-the struggle for you to get your play read and considered by a real-live-professional-theater-company. Without a strong letter, your play may not be considered.

Does your letter represent you and your play? Does it express why you write for the theater, why you have written this play, and why you have sent it to this kind, passionate people? If it doesn't, or if it does other things - like presenting your credentials or other details that are not pertinent to - this play - this theater - right this minute - then you have some work to do on writing your cover letter.

Your letter is the gateway to your play. It is also the tool you have to state why you wrote this play for the theater. Don't waste that opportunity. Communicate your passion through that letter-- why is it important right here right now to this theater? That's the work of the letter. Put it in there.

American Theater's Failure of Nerve

2007-08-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

The Pacific Playwrights Festival showcases what's going wrong
By STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 11:00 am

...The beginning of our theater's failure of nerve starts with the fundamental, historical shift in the relationship between the playwright and the theater, which was treating its scribes like screenwriters long before "developed to death" became a mantra in the regions.

Read the whole thing

Get to know Adam Bock

2007-08-10T11:45:00.000-07:00

Adam Bock

BEST QUOTE: "Hmm. What would happen if a guy fell in love with a shark?"

Adam Bock is a wizard of zany. His plays summersalt charm, unexpected romance, set with a tinge of sadness, across a madhatter's field of sideways dreams. The playwright himself is whimsical and animated as he twists his arms and his being explaining a plot point or turning point for himself in his career as a theater artist.

Adam Bock's plays include Swimming in the Shallows, Five Flights and The Typographer's Dream. His works have been produced in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, London, Toronto, and Edinburgh, and have won the Glickman, Clauder and BATCC Awards. Mr. Bock is an Artistic Associate at Shotgun Players and Encore Theatre and a member of MCC Theater's Playwrights' Coalition.

Read an interview with Adam Bock on OUTzone

Find plays by Adam Bock

The Fall Will Probably Kill You

2007-08-05T14:57:00.000-07:00

or you could be squished to death on the rocks
by Kato McNickle

Remember that scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Butch and Sundance are on the cliff, the bad guys shooting are at 'em, and there's no place to go but down? Sundance wants to shoot it out, even though this means death or capture because they're running out of ammo and they are vastly outnumbered. Butch wants to jump off the cliff into the rushing river. Crazy, right? But it's better than the alternative, sitting and waiting for the other guys to bring you down. At last Sundance admits his hesitation about the jump:

SUNDANCE: I can't swim.
BUTCH: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.

The other day I was talking to a playwright friend. I had sent him an e-mail about a fellowship opportunity with a prominent theater in New York. He said he didn't finish reading it because he got to the part about monthly meetings in the City (we're 3 hours outside of the City), so he stopped even considering it.

"You're probably not gonna get in. Just apply!"

That's what I said. Pretty loud. Sheesh. He laughed.

With this kind of opportunity, if by some fluke, some magic alchemy, some trick of talent, he should actually get in - he would figure out a way to make it work. A friend of ours attended Brooklyn College while holding down a professorship at a nearby college for several years. We do what we gotta do to make it work.

He could make the train ride into the city once or twice a month as needed. Hell, his girlfriend is an actress and she gets her butt into the city for auditions and work - he could figure out how to get himself to the most important career opportunity of his life thus far.

What was stopping him? He couldn't swim.

By taking the jump, you are taking the chance of being squished to death on the rocks. Sure, the fall will probably kill you - but if it doesn't - it could be the greatest adventure of your life.

Gunning for Womprats

2007-07-31T11:14:00.000-07:00

“It’s not impossible. I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters.”

--------- Luke Skywalker, taking on a skeptic regarding the rebel’s chances of destroying the Death Star.

Sending out your play to a theater and getting a production out of it is a lot like the chances the Rebel Alliance had in destroying the Death Star, but they had to try. For them it was a life or death battle. For you and me it’s a matter of credibility and identity. Will my life as a playwright survive? Without that production coming along, the answer is “no.”

How do you get that production? First you have to bullseye a whole lotta womprats in your T-16 back home.

Gunning for womprats

Where are these elusive creatures? They take on a variety of forms, from reading books on playwriting, to taking a class, to going to the theater, to reading new plays, to local readings of your latest play, to 10-minute play festivals, to concert and staged-readings of your work. Womprats are everywhere. So why can they be so hard to see?

First, there’s the T-16. You gotta learn to fly that vehicle, take her out around the block, see what she can do. Then you take her for a spin in Beggar’s Canyon. Before long you're blasting at womprats as you tool along.

Learning to fly the T-16 is you sitting down and reading plays, going to local theater, and reading a few books on the craft of playwriting. It might also include taking a class, either through a university or an informal class through your local parks & rec. What’s available to you? Start at your local library. They will have a collection of drama and some instructional guides. They will also have information about local theater groups and classes.

By going to see plays you will not only learn about theatrical form and conventions, you also become acquainted with your local acting-talent pool. Keep the programs and mark the names of actors who might be able to help you read your play to you. Try volunteering with the theater groups that are doing work that interests you. Whether you’re helping build the set or handing out programs at the top of the show, the experience will help you understand the mechanics of theatrical production while it introduces you to the people who make theater happen in your community.

Write a short play and invite some of your new actor friends to come read it out loud. Take notes either during or after the read through, and do whatever rewrites are needed.

BLAM! You just blasted a womprat. Score one for you.

Now, you start looking for places to send your short play. There are many theaters that host short play festivals. A few minutes a day searching the web and you’ll have at least ten or more places that will be willing to read your work.

BLAM! Another womprat bites the dust.

Send out the play.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! More womprats.

You get a play into a festival! BLAMMO!

You're working on a few more short plays, having them read, rewriting, and sending them out.

BLAMMAMUNDO!

You’re knocking off womprats left and right.

Try writing longer works. Get ‘em read. Send ‘em out. With your new and improved resume, and the theater experiencing you’re garnering with your group, you are starting to feel more like a pro. You are making a dent in the womprat population in your community.

See if there are other playwrights in your community and start organizing sessions where you bring in pieces of new work and read it out loud for each other. You can all share resource information, like where to send your plays. You can also begin organizing local reading series of your plays. See if a local theater, library, art gallery, church, or civic agency might be interested in donating some space for you guys to show your art.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

You’re knocking off some impressive womprats.

Before long you’ll be ready for the big challenges, but they won’t seem so big anymore because you’ve been primed by taking out all of those womprats.

Death Star…Shmeath Star. You’ve been bullseyeing womprats in your T-16 back home, and they’re not much bigger than two meters. It’s not impossible at all.

Monkey House Musing #1: Get That Play READ!

2007-07-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

Get that play READ!

You've got a new play? You want to know if it works? There's only one way to discover what you've got, and that's to hear it out loud.

Call some of your actor friends, get them over to your house, and have them read your play to you.

What? No actor friends? In case you weren't paying attention when you started writing your play, these things happen in the theater. How can you not know some actors?

Well -- this does happen sometimes, but it is a situation that must be resolved. Go to some local shows, small non-profit theaters, community theaters, college theaters, to see who's doing what in your area. Next -- volunteer to help with whichever group you liked best.

This sounds like a commitment? It is. You are a playwright that has to become committed to your local theater scene. There's no way around that, so quit stalling and COMMIT ALREADY! Involve yourself. Then start collecting actors' contact info.

Not only will your commitment bring you actors, it will bring you additional knowledge about theatermaking, and this will enrich your playwriting. See the benefits of the cycle?

Now, invite some of thoe actors to your house to read your play out loud to you.

Be sure to have refreshments on hand. Also have some snacks, but I recommend staying away from salty/crunchy for a reading. Try fruit or soft candies. That way people gnoshing won't interupt the sound of your play. Also fruit is good for the vocal cords.

Now that you've heard your play it's time to rewrite. Begin by cutting the things that sounded ackward or were redundant. Then start the work of revision. Some plays need only a little tweeking, but more likely your play will need some retooling, rearranging, and new material now that you've lopped off the first half of your play (sometimes that's what happens).

Then you're ready for phase 2: The concert reading... but that will have to wait until another musing.