“A single word can be a powerful thing. It can be the ripple in the pond that changes everything. It can sharp and biting or rich and soft and slow.”

What is the one word that defines 2009 for you? What is the one word that defines your focus? Your goals? What you want for your life?  Ali Edwards introduced this concept on her blog last year.

I love this. As a writer, I have a high respect for words. They are, to be quite flaky, my music and my muse. They need to be treated with reverence; it’s so easy to be careless with words. I love creating characters who use words in an interesting manner - maybe they make up words, or they use words they don’t understand, or they use the absolute perfect word for a situation. The words a character uses can be such an efficient and effective way to show who their personality (or lack there of!) I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the right sound of words. It’s an important part of a play’s process - what’s on the page is only the first step in bringing the world alive. Words on the page have such a tricky way of sounding completely different when spoken aloud. Words are a writer’s gold. We can’t fritter them away on useless exposition or ill conceived characters.

Not only is this a great writing exercise, it’s an awesome alternative to resolutions. Those never work any way, right?

My word for 2009 is persevere. There’s a lot of possibility for 2009, a lot of excitement, and it will be easy to become distracted and off track. I want to be steady, constant and creative in 2009.

Pinter’s death seems to have overshadowed the death of another playwright. Dale Wasserman, who wrote the play version of  One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,  and the book for the musical Man of La Mancha. He died on December 21 at 94.  Read about him here. And here.

My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

Well look at that. Another year begins.  2009. Feels pretty good so far. Hard to tell with it being the first day and all, but so far so good….

This isn’t going to be a ‘hey look what we did!’ post.  ‘2008! Whooo!’  I don’t like to look back much. The past isn’t very interesting to me because, well, it’s the past. It happened. With every day it recedes farther and farther back. The grand events lose their glitter and the painful events become less so.  The tide rolls in and washes away the lovely writing in the sand. It doesn’t make the writing any less lovely, but it is gone.

I know a couple of people who pig out on their past. No riptide ocean or swift flowing river for them.  They swim in the past pool in almost every conversation. Do you remember when? When I was in high school… when we were in university…. Do you remember? Do you? You know that story I told you the last time we were together? And the time before that? Wanna hear it again?

As if it it means something. All these people are doing is treading in standing water, which as an image is frankly - ewww.

On the other hand, I seriously dig the future. And having something in the future. I love looking ahead and seeing something there. That twinkling light. A promise. A possibility. Many a time, I’ve looked ahead and thought I’d seen something better than what really happened.  No matter.  I can’t tell the future for heaven’s sake! At least there’s been something. On occasion I have looked ahead and seen absolutely nothing.  Zero point zero. There’s nothing more frightening than a big black nothing.  Light is always better.

So in the final stages of the year known as 2008, there’s no desire to look back. It was a lovely year where a lot of stuff happened. Some great accomplishments. Some interesting survival tactics. Some peaceful bliss. A lot of bliss. But you see, it’s all over.  It’s hard to even capture the emotional air of the year. Water over sand, sand through the fingers. It’s all in the past.

Looking ahead to 2009 there’s a lot, well,  to look forward to. The potential of a very exciting year for myself as a writer and for Theatrefolk as a company.

• There’s going to be a new full length play.
• I’ll be writing a new non-verbal play like Emotional Baggage. Very exciting.
• A new vignette project which will hopefully play at the Edinburgh Fringe.
• A super secret project that’s going to involve a lot of fire (metaphorically  and physically) which is only a secret till the contract gets signed which is going to be very soon.
• A whole new process in terms of how Theatrefolk does conferences.  Exciting. And scary. Not sure which is the dominant feeling….
• Some new conferences, and less old ones. The economy will dictate….
• A whole new process in terms of how Theatrefolk markets itself. Exciting. And scary. This feeling I know, it’s more scary. But in the best possible way.  Exciting scary.  Sometimes you just have to be scared.

That’s a pretty full year already! Lots of light. Lots of future. Who knows what will actually transpire (remember that whole ‘can’t tell the future thing?) But honestly, there’s no time to look back. Full speed ahead….

1. Hamlette, by Allison Williams
2. Mmmbeth, by Allison Williams
3. Drop Dead, Juliet!, by Allison Williams
4. Circus Olympus, by Lindsay Price
5. Anne-Arky, by Lindsay Price
6. Wait Wait Bo Bait, by Lindsay Price
7. ths phne 2.0: the next generation, by Lindsay Price
8. The Canterbury Tales, adapted by Lindsay Price from Chaucer
9. School Daze, by Lindsay Price
10. Little Nell and the Mortgage Foreclosure, by John Donald O’Shea

It’s a very layered activity, writing plays, and it’s never the same experience twice - Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter died on Christmas Eve. Clearly I’m behind in the comments, the RIP, the reflection. Sometimes I need to do that. My brain doesn’t do many things quickly. I could never be on Top Chef where there’s a quick fire challenge and you need to create a dish in half a hour using a malt-teasers and smoked salmon.

I’ve been thinking all weekend about Pinter.  And reading what’s been said in the blogosphere.  I read his nobel prize speech from 2005. I love his reflection on true and false in drama, and his description (or lack there of) of how plays come about. It’s the hardest question I face as a playwright. There is no true or false answer - they just come, which is the answer no one wants to hear. Certainly there is methodology and process. But for me, particularly the creation of character, is an awe-inspiring un-explainable event. The creation of something flesh and blood is very important to me. In the speech this is what Pinter says about character creation:

It’s a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author’s position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by the characters. The characters resist him, they are not easy to live with, they are impossible to define. You certainly can’t dictate to them. To a certain extent you play a never-ending game with them, cat and mouse, blind man’s buff, hide and seek. But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort.

And then there’s this article from the Guardian, an interview with Michael Billington in 2006.  One thing that caught my eye is that the interviewer stated that there is no ‘definitive truth in art.’  The only truth, the final truth - which is very true and yet, isn’t that what audiences search for at times? The one and only truth? I wonder if this is why theatre in recent times seem less about truth (in general) and more about comfort. The truth is rarely comfortable.   I’m constantly amazed at how often mere words make people uncomfortable.

In the New York Times obit, Peter Brooks is quoted as saying that Pinter used “words are weapons that the characters use to discomfort or destroy each other.”

On another site, ( my eyes are crossed I’ve read so many sites, which is the only reason I don’t link to it) a commenter defined Pinter as ’self-indulgent and boring.’  Stamped it, no -erasies. The one and only truth, but of course it’s far from it.

In one of our past newsletters I wrote a scene analysis for ‘The Birthday Party’ which you can read here. I read ‘The Birthday Party’ when I was sixteen years old. It’s always stayed with me and I love, love, that Interogation scene.  While my version of discomfort is vastly different than his, the purposeful use of words, the use of the space between the words, the distinigration of communication certainly influences my writing.  I’m behind everyone else in my pause, but I’ll do it all the…..

The only reason to practice is to make the notes so beautiful that we care what happens to them.

Lindsay:

Today, being Monday, is supposed to be our weekly edition of Spread The Love.  But Craig and I watched this video last night, and it was so inspiring, so full of love for the possibility of conversation, of  education, so full of love period, that we had to share it with you. In keeping with the Spread the Love spirit, we’ll both offer up our thoughts…

Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, spoke at the 2008 Pop Tech Conference. He presents two conversation models: the downward spiral where everything is finite, unchangeable and anxious, and the possibility model where everything radiates into the infinite. Everything is possible. Mistakes are not negative finite things. They become fascinating opportunities.

@ Yahoo! Video

Lindsay:

The lesson in the video focuses on music, but substitute theatre for music and think about the possibilities. What if the aim of rehearsal was to make the words so beautiful we care what happens to them? What would plays be like in that situation? I tell you, it makes me swoon a little to think of the beauty of words and the possibility of their importance. It also gives me such a sense of hope to know there’s someone out there with this vision for education, and that he’s practicing it in a classroom.

Craig:

My take-away lesson from this video is monumental. Those of us involved with the arts have an extraordinary gift. We open a world of possibilities for our audiences, we can take them to places they never could go on their own. Let’s embrace this gift, keep the conversation and the possibilities flowing. And if we make a mistake, let’s throw our hands to air and loudly proclaim, “How fascinating!”

Repetition will help make sure you know the material backwards and forwards. If you want to portray life like it is in real life, you need to know it well.

The photoplayer hater player website has a number of interesting character development posts. This article is all about how repetition is going to help you ground your character, ground the material you’re working on and make it the best it can be. I’m all about character development, so anything we can do to help we’ll do! Check it out.

The problem is that this is an issue that gets a lot of talking and not so much action. I’m no better, I have no answer for the grand scheme of things. Not that the powers that be would listen to me anyway. But I do know that I can act on the small scale, here on the blog, in the one on one interaction with teachers. In my workshops with students, letting them know how important creativity is, and how creative they can be.  It’s heartbreaking when a student instantly denies they have any creativity at all.

I know too that this is not an issue to be solved today. It’s to be worked on today, tomorrow, and every day.

This is a video from the TED conference. Sir Ken Robinson too believes that creativity is a necessary part of our education system, and that the current system works very hard to strip creativity from students.  His story about the dancer is the one that hit me hardest…..