Elaine Smith Writes

Anything She Wants

Tag Archives: Theatre

Play Readings

Two ways to go

When you get a reading of your play, and it’s close enough for you to attend, there is an inherent dilemma for a playwright.  Do you go to the rehearsals?  Or stay away?

The first thing to know, of course, is that the writer has the absolute right to attend rehearsals.  If you want to go, you go.  But should you?

The benefits to going are pretty clear.

  • You can answer any questions and head off any misinterpretations.
  • You can see for yourself where actors’ tongues trip over your finely crafted phrases.
  • You’ll be prepared.  If things aren’t going so well, it won’t be such a shock during the reading itself.
  • You get to hear the play multiple times–during rehearsal as well as during the reading—and that can help you enormously with an understanding of pace and plot and Thespis knows what..

On the other hand, you can make the cast and the director nervous.  When I was wearing my acting hat, there was always a little extra anxiety when the playwright showed up.  Often, for readings, the writer hasn’t been involved in the casting process and may have been assigned a director, as well.  So, they can, and probably will, be wondering if the playwright is happy with the choices.  They’ve probably got enough to handle without that.

Even if the actors are comfortable with you and eager for the writer’s input, you might be taking time that the director could more profitably spend on something else.

And, if you aren’t used to readings and the process, you can panic.  OMG, will the leading man ever get that laugh line right?  Why does the leading lady insist on whispering during the fight scene?  Chances are the director sees and hears all these problems and is biding her time to deal with them.  Good directors have an internal priority list.  Often they know the actors and know what will right itself and what needs their intervention.  It doesn’t help for you to be sitting there chewing your fingernails and tapping your foot until you get a chance to speak up.

Staying away allows you to avoid those pitfalls and offers you one invaluable upside.

You’ll hear the play fresh—or as fresh as is ever possible when you’ve written and rewritten and read and reread.  You’ll be less inclined to think the reading is going well when all that’s really happening is that it is going better than it did in rehearsal.  Your objectivity will not be compromised by familiarity with the participants.

In the end, you’ve got to make up your own mind in every situation.  I’ve done it both ways.  Early in my adventures with my play, it seemed so important to be there for every minute.  And I’m glad I chose to attend rehearsals for the early readings.

I’m also glad I chose not to go to the rehearsals for the latest readings at the Penobscot Theatre.

I think I was less distracted by my internal actor and my internal director, and I was better able to focus on the writing.

I think.

The thing about choices is that you have to choose.  Once you’ve chosen, you can’t have the other choices.  And you’ll never really know what would have happened if you had.

 

The stuff that’s going well!

Thankful Thursdays

On Thursdays, I think it might be good to talk about what’s going well.  Since it’s all too easy to focus on problems and challenges.

Today, I am thankful for all the people who have done so much to support and encourage my play.  Right now, I am grateful to the latest cast who are working so hard:  Julie Lisnet, Katie Toole, Randy Hunt and Arthur Morrison, directed by Marcia Douglas.  And Mary (whose last name I cannot remember — oh, no! — but I will find out).  Mary is doing a fine job with the stage directions.  [Update:  Mary’s last name is Clark.  Mary Clark!]

Don’t let anybody ever tell you that reading the stage directions is no big deal.

It’s a huge deal!

And, of course, I am grateful to the Penobscot Theatre Company.  Artistic Director Bari Newport, Managing Director Marcie Bramucci, and the indefatigable and unfailingly cheerful Jasmine Ireland who is the Director of Education and Outreach and the curator of this Northern Writes New Works Festival.

We’re having a blast here in Bangor!

Parking Puzzles

Wednesday’s Woes

So, I’m having a great time in Bangor, ME!  The weather is beautiful.  The people are friendly.  I’m getting some work done on my play.

Very excited to hear the little addition I made to scene 3 go in tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll never hear that question about why it takes so long for the leading lady to come back with the shotgun ever again in any future feedback session!

And it was a surprisingly easy fix.

Assuming, of course, that it is now actually fixed.

What has been challenging is parking.

It’s parallel parking.

So, okay.  I can do that.

But it’s parallel parking for only 90 minutes at a time!  (Sometimes only an hour.)

And there is a parking garage, but it closes at 9 pm–which kind of spans some of the events I’d like to attend.  So, you know, you have to go move the car during a break.

And a rental car–kind of makes it harder.  Not so sure of the exact size and shape while maneuvering unfamiliar streets and trying to squeeze into available spaces.  And, what happens if I pick the wrong spot?  And it gets towed!?  Heaven forfend!

It’s fine.  It’s all good.  I just never realized that perfect parallel parking was going to need to be in my playwright’s bag of tricks.

 

We interrupt this broadcast…

Monday Miracles

I like that.  “Monday Miracles.”  That may become a regular feature of the blog.

But, I digress.

Which is kind of the point.

We were following a train of thought about writing, originality and finding your voice.  And, I do have more to say on that subject.

But we interrupt this broadcast to take a detour into the Monday Miracle.

Today, even as this posts, I am on my way to Bangor, Maine where my play, currently titled Angels and Ministers of Grace Defend Us (and not to be forever so titled at the insistent urging of various producer friends who surely know what they are talking about) is going to be read three times (THREE!!!) during the Penobscot Theatre’s Northern Writes New Works Festival.

How’s that for a Monday Miracle!?

I’ll try to post updates on the Festival and the play and how things are going.

Never been to Maine.
But I kinda like the music

No, wait!  That’s a different song.

The point is that I’ve never been to Maine.  I’ve never been to this hotel.  Internet access may be spotty.  If I don’t manage to post for a week, please rejoin me here on Monday, June 25th, when we return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

The One Plot

Da-da-da-dah!         (Beethoven’s Fifth, remember?

Yesterday, I talked a little bit about my search for the 8 Plots, those mysterious archetypes, paradigms that I had been hearing teachers and fellow writers reference over the years without ever actually listing them.   I went searching and re-discovered something I have long known.  Humanity has a passion for lists!  Maybe we’re overwhelmed by the vast array of knowledge and feel like if we can just reduce portions of it to a definitive list, we would be able to master it.  (Ain’t gonna happen, but that’s another story.)

In the course of this, I found list after list of plots — The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, and 20 Master Plots (and How to Build Them), for example.*  Lots of lists and lots of numbers.  But, for some reason, I couldn’t come up with the more ubiquitously cited eight.

Having a pencil and paper at hand, I sat down to noodle and doodle, and I scribbled away furiously, until it suddenly came to me.  All these variations I was devising could be boiled down into one.

Every plot, at its essence, is the Quest for Salvation.  (Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, this turns out to be very similar to Joseph Campbell’s research.  Check out “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” or “The Power of Myth.”)

Test it.  Think of a book, a movie, a play.  Once you strip away the details (the mere bagatelles of setting, location, psychology, time period and so forth) and you figure out exactly how “salvation” is defined in this particular world, I think you’ll find that it works.

In all romantic comedies, Salvation = Happily Ever After.

In murder mysteries, Salvation = Solve the Crime, Catch the Murderer

In many sci-fi stories (“Independence Day,” The Terminator series), Salvation = (literally) Saving the World

The difference between a comedy and a tragedy is whether or not salvation is attained in the end.

I think that our entire body of literature can be distilled down to this one plot.

So, the good news is, you can’t come up with an original plot.  All you can do is come up with an original voice in which to write about some variation of recognizable circumstances.

And we can all do that.

 

* Lists of plots

‘Show me this world. Open me. Change me.’

“There are those rare people who can look at the world and see things the rest of us don’t see until they show us. These are the writers. There are the special few who can take that vision and turn it back into a world. These are the directors, the designers. There are fearless beings who can live in that world and show us who we are. These are our actors. There are dedicated people who know why that world matters so very much. Crew, theater staff, producers, investors, managers, marketers. And then there are the people who step forward and say ‘Show me this world. Open me. Change me.’ These are our audiences. And when all of these people come together and say ‘Yes’, there is theater.”

–Jordan Roth in his acceptance speech for Clybourne Park winning Best Play at the Tony Awards in 2012.

Yes.

And. . .we’re off!

Welcome to my very first blog post!

It’s a little scary to launch a new endeavor–especially one so fraught with narcissism as blogging.  You know those voices in your head? The ones that like to shout–or, more often, whisper insidiously–Just who do you think you are?

Well, they are working overtime today.

Who do you think you are to start blogging?  To have a website? A bookstore? Who do you think would ever be interested in anything you have to say?  What’s wrong with you?

But I’ve decided to tell the Tyrannosaurus Chatterboxicus to sit down and shut up.

I would like to point out to that garrulous TC that I am interested in what I have to say, and that’s enough. If nothing else, this should get me writing a bit every day. And if other people decide to come along, that will be great.

There may be interesting things here.

I’ll be talking about writing and creativity and what gets in the way. I’ll be talking about theatre and what I’ve learned as an actor, a director, a playwright. I’ll be talking about computers and website design and the bruises I’ll be getting from beating my head against the brick wall of trial-and-error programming.

I’ll be talking about visibility–oh, the shame of poking your head up and saying, “Here I am. Look at me.“–and having to combine all manner of esoteric business-like disciplines (marketing, pr, research, compliance, data design, accounting, etc.) with all manner of other esoteric creative-like disciplines (plot, theme, structure, imagination) into the more or less coherent whole of an Artist Entrepreneur.

Sometimes I’ll be talking about how hard all that is, and sometimes I’ll be pointing out some tricks and tools that have made it easier for me–and might work for you. And sometimes I’ll probably just be talking, and we’ll all wonder what the heck I’m talking about.

I’m learning this blogging software as I go along. Weird things will happen. The TC wants me to wait until I understand it perfectly, but you know and I know that just means it will never get off the ground.

Leap, and the net will appear. — John Burroughs

I’m leaping.

Bookmark this site if you want to see what happens next.


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