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But is it more important to see plays or to read plays? The see plays argument is extremely valid. Plays are meant to be seen and heard. They are written to be performed instead of read. In order to get a sense of how theatre works, a playwright needs to experience it as an audience member: hear the dialogue, feel the rhythm, be able to distinguish what works and what doesn't, see how lengthy scene changes take one out of the world of the play. These elements are not necessarily evident from merely reading a script.
It's also so important for a writer to see their own plays. What happens inside the writer's head is not always what happens on stage.
When I teach playwriting classes, I can say “a thirty second pause is a long time for the audience,” or “that scene change is going to break the rhythm you've built up,” or “the audience isn't going to believe that character would do such a thing” till I'm blue in the face. The writer has to see it for themselves and make that realization.
Having said that, I truly believe in the importance of reading plays. I think it is just as important, particularly when starting out. When I was a teenager and thoroughly in love with the theatre, I didn't have a lot of opportunities to see plays. But I read a lot of them and that's how I became inspiried to try my hand at writing one.
Reading a play gives a familiarity with how plays are supposed to look like. Again in my classes, it is often the exception rather than the rule that a student knows what proper form is. I can tell who's read a play and who hasn't by the way they submit their first scene. They almost always (because it's what they're more familiar with) try to write dialogue as it appears in novels. To succeed as a certain type of writer, it is essential to be familiar with the form.
Playwrights are very specific when it comes to structure. Reading a play gives a unique window into how different playwrights use structure and form. Who is traditional and who is not? Who writes using traditional sentence structure? Fragmented sentence structure? Who uses an abstract form? How does David Mamet use punctuation? How does Tennessee Williams? Caryl Churchill? Do you like it? Dislike it?
A playwright needs to know how other playwrights treat structure and form so that they can come up with their own method. I know as a young writer, I became attracted to and wanted to try to write like absurd playwrights because of how the plays looked on the page. I wanted to try what I read. My play Tuna Fish Eulogy came about because I read a play in ladder format.
Lastly, reading a play allows a beginning playwright to see how stage directions look on the plays. Most beginning writers I've come in contact with try to use stage directions as descriptive paragraphs that tell the inner workings of the characters. What do different writers put into their stage directions? I try to be as sparse as possible - only giving what's necessary to deliver what's in the dialogue.
In the opening ofA Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams gives an incredibly detailed description of the set and the dress of the characters. Edward Albee gives quite a few emotional directions inThe Zoo Story, but there's not a lot of physical action suggested. In fact at one point in the play, the following stage direction appears before a long speech:
“The following long speech, it seems to me, should be done with a great deal of action, to achieve a hypnotic effect on Peter, and on the audience too. Some specific actions have been suggested, but the director and actor playing Jerry might best work it out for themselves.”(p. 29, Signet, New York, 1959)At the end of the day though, reading plays is just one part of the puzzle. It's a great way to get started, a great way to learn from other playwrights and find out what style, genre and form creates an interest. But beginning playwrights still have to work at all three elements: they need to see plays, read them and of course most importantly, write!
Mark Levine ( The Prodigal Cow)
All In The Timing - by David Ives
Not a play, but a collection of short plays. Since I deal in short plays myself, they're what I'm interested in. This is the best collection of short plays I've ever read.
The Dining Room - by A.R. Gurney
Also really a collection of short plays, all set in the same location. And brilliantly written, and nicely woven together.
A Thousand Clowns - by Herb Gardner
I've got a soft spot for this play, since my first acting role was playing the boy, Nick, in it. It's a great play, and has wonderful characters and quotes in it.
Linda Eisenstein ( Pig Patter)
As a teenager I loved going to the library and reading plays. Maybe because they were short, and I could read them cover to cover in under an hour? After I became a playwright, I became much more aware of how important it is to see plays, not just read them. Here are 3 pieces that beg to be seen as well as read:
The Colored Museum - by George C. Wolfe
Wolfe's brilliant vaudeville-like satire, written in short scenes and monologues, shows the clash of inner and outer contradictions that African-Americans deal with. How do you form your own identity while dealing with all the cultural and historical "baggage" of your race, history, and how the world sees you? The material is specific, but the theme is universal. It's killer-funny -- there'd be no "In Living Color" if this hadn't come before it -- but it's also bone-chilling and true.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? - by Edward Albee
I don't know if I would have become a writer if the "shock and awe" of Albee's boozy game-playing couples hadn't seared themselves on my brain. How could this be anyone's first full-length play? There's a daring in it that is still breath-taking. It's a great read, and even greater on stage.
West Side Story - by Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim/Arthur Laurents
I write musicals, and this is the one that set me on fire. The music is thrilling, the dancing is thrilling, the very idea of morphingRomeo and Julietinto New York street gangs is thrilling. Even thinking about the dissolve into the "Dance at the Gym" or the "Tonight" sextet sends the hair up on the back of my neck. I could watch and listen to this forever.
Allison Williams (Miss Kentucky)
Closer - by Patrick Marber
By starting scenes late in their action and ending early, he keeps the play moving and allows the audience to know much more about the characters' lives and worlds than we actually see on stage. He's also a master of telling the audience how much time has passed and what happened since the last scene without spelling it out. After reading Closer, I think most plays could cut about six lines off the beginning and end of every scene.
ANYTHING - by Mary Zimmerman, with Metamorphoses being the easiest to find.
Mary Zimmerman does a great deal of arranging of text - she takes classical writing, cuts and pastes and adds her own words, and then stages the resulting scripts in ways that are profoundly simple and deeply powerful.
Even a bad production is moving because of the power of the text and the level of simplicity. As an actor, it's like reading letters from war veterans or Holocaust victims - there's not a lot you can do to screw it up. Read her work to see how it doesn't take lofty language or particularly deep characterizations to make a story that grabs the audience. Playwrights talk all the time about "actor-proofing" their plays - this is how it's done.
Top Girls - by Caryl Churchill.
Her dialogue notation is brilliant, with a simple system for getting actors to precisely overlap conversations in a very natural way. And while it's sometimes hard to tell through the British-isms, her characters have very unique voices. Their word choices and what they talk about really separate them from each other on the page as well as on the stage.
Sherry Bishop ( Crystal and Shay)
A Streetcar Named Desire - by Tennessee Williams
A great example of really well-developed characters.
Hamlet - by William Shakespeare
An excellent example of dramatic structure.
Any play by Christopher Durang
Durang doesn't follow any sort of rules with regards to structure, format, etc. - and despite being "non-traditional" - his plays work. A great example of how to work "outside the box."
Barbara Lindsay ( Sally Sees the Light)
I don't know that I would be presumptuous to say what three plays a playwright should read. I think playwrights should be reading all kinds of play all the time by every possible playwright of every possible era. But here are three plays of many that have had a strong effect on me.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead - by Tom Stoppard
This is the play that is completely responsible for my desire to be a playwright. I saw a production when I was in high school, and can still remember sitting upright in my seat, thinking "I want to do that!" All my life I had wanted to be an actress; this was the first time I wished I could have written a play instead of wishing I could have acted in it. The way Stoppard played with ideas of fate, destiny, luck, chance; the fact that he took one of the world's best known plays and revisited it from a compltely other point of view; the dazzling brilliance of the dialogue. All of these elements absolutely galvanized me, made my pores open and my brain go berserk with awe. I know this all sounds terribly gushy, but I am merely giving an unfiltered and unenhanced report of my response to this amazing piece. It tops the chart for me and always will.
The Crucible - by Arthur Miller.
This play turns me upside down for a number of reasons. First of all, I don't know that there is any more gripping story than of a man grappling with his own principles, coming face to face with the conflict between the survival of his body versus the survival of his own moral code. The story of John Proctor and the Salem witch trials is gripping, chilling, provocative just as it is. But the fact that it is also a profound denunciation of the McCarthy Communist hunt makes it an important play for anyone interested in 20th century American politics, and the fact that the play accomplishes this without making the slightest overt reference to the situation it exposes and analyzed makes it important play for anyone who is interested in extraordinary dramatic writing.
A Walk in the Woods - by Lee Blessing
I just saw this play for the first time a couple of days ago. I include it now because a) it is beautifully written b) it is extremely current in its themes, even though was written during the Cold War c) it is a terrific example of how intense, compelling, and interesting a play consisting purely of conversation can be.
So many come to mind: August Wilson's Fences is one. Oh, wait, I know what else I want to mention.
The Vagina Monologues - by Eve Ensler
I had the chance to meet Ensler last year while she was working on the development of her new workThe Good Body. I learned from her that V Day fundraising celebrations, in which The Vagina Monologues are presented by communities around the world, have raised more than 28 million dollars, all of which has gone directly to organizations that prevent abuse of or violence against women or provide shelter for abused women. That's a hell of a thing for a work of art to have that kind of direct impact, to make that kind of difference on that kind of scale, to provide so much more than a good evening of theater. It reminds me that art matters, that the world needs its artists, and that each of us has the opportunity to make a difference.
Lindsay Price ( Bottle Baby, Swimming with Sins, Sandy is an Eggplant, Shannon is a Pretty Girl)
Barefoot in the Park - by Neil Simon
It's a nice solid traditional character comedy. Great comedic use of setting with the apartment being on the top of a building with no stairs. (Now that I'm writing this, I'm realising this is probably where I borrowed the convention for a play of mine that take place in a buildng with five flights of stairs and no elevator). You need to know what's traditional and decide if it's something to work with or away from. Though dated, it still makes me laugh as the Simon's from this era do. Again, solid character comedy. ( Brighton Beach Memoirs is another one to check out)
Cloud Nine - by Caryl Churchill (tied with Top Girls )
Churchill often makes me want to throw in the writing towel. I really admire her plays. I like the way she uses structure, character and theme. I admire that there are very recognizable characters in often completely whacked out situations - like the fact that the characters fromCloud Nineare in Victorian Africa for the first act, and then the same characters are in modern London for the second. Odd with a purpose, which is an important distinction. Writers sometimes get caught in a trap of wrting bizarre stuff for bizarreness sake - which can't connect with an audience. I connect with Ms. Churchill's characters, no matter what bizarre situation they are in.
The Caucasian Chalk Circle - by Bertolt Brecht.
I was quite influenced as a teen by writers such as Brecht who broke the fourth wall - the fact that everyone knows it's a play and shouldn't pretend otherwise. I'm always having characters talk to the audience, although for me it's an inclusion thing. I want to draw the audience further into what's happening onstage, which I'm not sure Brecht would approve of!
And I can't leave this without mentioning Thorton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth . He plays wonderfully with structure and form.
The Eavesdropping Exercise
Creates instant dialogue
Ideas can come from anything, anyone and anywhere. I think the most successful writers are those who are keenly observant to the world around them. To that end, use theIdea Search Worksheet(download below) to push your students into looking for ideas in different places. Instead of just coming up with five ideas, they have to look in a specific place for an idea, how it inspiried the idea and why the idea would make a good play. It's one thing to have an idea, but you have to know why you want to pursue it.
Maybe. But that's not exactly the way it works. I have to say, I've never been in a conversation where someone said that, and I went “you're right!” and wrote a play. I might hear a fragment of a conversation and that takes me somewhere. Or sometimes it's the person who's talking who I know would make an interesting character.
When I asked Allison Williams to contribute three plays for the Reading List section, she also offered some insight on where she finds ideas for plays:
I am a constant gatherer. Whenever I travel, I acquire torn out newspaper articles, scribbled-on receipts, sections of ripped-out paper tablecloth, each with an idea or a phrase or a sentence or a story that I think should be a play. For fifteen years I've been carrying a worn bit of newspaper that says "He had too much dignity and too much life to die on the floor of a gas station." One day that will go in a play.
I also carry a tiny notebook in my purse and write down scraps that come into my brain - "Thought balloons on a safety helmet." "Niki's hurt because no-one will sign her yearbook." "Taxidermy and paintings of boats." I also note structural things - "Put the big laugh before the chorus because the audience drowns out the next line, so it has to be information they already know."
One of my biggest inspirations as a playwright has been Alec Guiness's comment about doing Hamlet. When asked what he did to be so good, he said, "I just copied Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, and I'm such a bad mimic that no-one can tell."Miss Kentucky(soon to be published in our GIRL TALK collection) is a mimic - I read another author's play about two people trapped on a roof, broke the play down into beats like, "A makes a physical move on B. Comedic moment. B takes the lead and brings out new information" and then I wrote my own play with two different people trapped in an alley, fighting over a different problem, but following the road map laid out by another playwright.
Miss Kentucky was then published in the same magazine where I had seen the first play!
West Side Story is an example of sticking even more closely to an existing plot structure and even using parallel characters to retellRomeo and Juliet. And of course, my own Hamlette and Mmmbeth draw strongly from their sources.
Observation
I think some of the best plays come from simply looking at the world around you and seeing what's going on. Look, listen, use all the senses. Write it all down.
Playing with structure/form
I love challenges. I love saying, “what if I wrote a play without dialogue , or where the characters only get one word for the whole play, or where the format of the dialogue runs from the top to the bottom of the page , instead of left to write.” It's thrilling to set up a structure challenge and work through it.
Issues
Since I write for teens, there are a multitude of teen issues to explore. I'm working on a pregnancy play at the moment.
My warped brain
I have a big imagination. And a strange one. It's certainly a blessing as a writer, but the same brain made me scared out of my mind when I was twelve years old and I wouldn't sleep on my back because I had just watched Friday The Thirteenthand I was sure a killer with a knife was going to get me from under my bed. Never mind that there was no underneath, underneath my bed.
I had a very interesting observation experience on my way to a conference in Georgia recently. As a example of how I go from idea to play, over the next two issues I'm going to take my observation, show how an observation becomes an idea, show how an idea becomes developed towards writing and then write a first draft.
The Observation
When we drive to Georgia, we always spend the night in Knoxville, TN. The place we stop is great - reasonable clean hotels, a ton of restaurant choices, a Staples if we have office needs, and so on. However, it's extremely pedestrian unfriendly. There are no sidewalks. The cars drive fast. It's a trying task to cross the street.
In the past when we've stayed here, we've crossed the short side of this particular intersection and it's worked well because there's a median and we can skuttle to the median, wait for a break and skuttle again. This time, we decide to go to a restaurant where we have to cross the long side. The long side does not have a median. We figure, as long as we go fast, we'll be fine. BUT, as we find out the hard way, the lights at this intersection are not actually long enough to allow someone to cross the long way. Because no one ever does. No one ever walks here (as a walker, this drives me crazy). And the guys in the cars are stunned that someone is trying to cross the street. Because no one ever does. And it doesn't help that it's dark and we're totally dressed in black. And we almost get hit. Crossing the street.
The Restaurant. It's a BBQ place. A Christian BBQ place. How do I feel about that? I don't know. It feels odd. But why wouldn't Christians make BBQ or own a chain of restaurants? The portions are huge. The people are huge. My husband and I laugh over the whopping big platter they offer… then we start to look around the restaurant and see how many of these whopping big platters there are on different tables.
The two guys at the table across from us are having trouble with their waitress. It turns out they don't speak English. They're Swedish.Two Swedish guys walk into a Christian BBQ restaurant in Knoxville…
Over dinner, which is AWESOME, my husband and I actually have to plot a strategy as to how we're going to get back across the street and back to our hotel so we don't get killed. Next time, we vow, we'll drive. Across the street.
And as a coda, the next morning we go for a run around the Staples/Best Buy parking lot. We notice there are a lot of people sitting glumly in their cars. It seems a bit creepy. Then it hits us: they're all waiting until the last possible minute before they go into work. No one goes in early. Guys sitting along in their cars, smoking cigarettes and drinking huge sodas.
The Idea
Where does an idea for a play come from the above? The first thing to do is write the observation down. Get it down as soon as possible. I can't keep anything in my head. If I don't write it down, it's gone. I always carry around a notebook with me and of course, I love that hotels have note pads!
As an exercise, take a journal and go to the cafeteria and write down what you see. Go to the mall and sit in the food court. Write what you see. Use all the senses. Look for ordinary. Look for the pecular and out of place.
When I'm looking for something to write about, I look for interesting characters, images that would work well onstage. For example, I get a really strong image of two guys sitting in the front seat of a car at 7:45 in the morning with great big sodas, waiting till the last second before they have to go to work. A title even comes to mind - 7:45 Mountain Dew. Two guys with big dreams working in a little world with no future. Might be a ten minute play, might be a scene in something bigger. It's an instant image.
I also really like the idea of a place where no one crosses the street. No sidewalks because no one walks. Maybe there's a guy who's going to cross the street, to the ire and dismay of those around him. What if it's a rite of passage? Once a year someone tries to cross the street. Having the play take place on a street corner is very intriguing - easy to produce, all you need is a bare stage. I could also see some unique characters - the family of the guy who wants to cross the street - his girlfriend, crying as he prepares to go. Could be an absurd war parallel. Young men off to cross the street. Could be a nice competition piece. Is there a twenty minute play here?
Developing the Idea
I always do research for my plays. It's fun, it gives me ammunition, builds the world of the play, helps fight writer's block.
Where do I look? The internet of course. I also have some pretty interesting resource books: The Book of Lists, aPhrase and Fable Dictionary, and something called a Word Menu.
For example, the Book of Listsgives me the 11 most unusal street names: Road to Happiness in Vermillion, OH; Ewe Turn in Kaysville, Utah; The Living End in Austin, TX; None Such Place in New Castle, Delaware.
In the Word MenuI learn that a “rite” is a prescribed ceremony for specfic purpose, which certainly fits. Also, a Street is something that is wider than an Alley or a Lane and usually includes sidewalks. An Avenue is wider than a Lane but narrower than a Boulevard. There's a whole list of different roadway terms - a Corniche is a road that is built at the top of a cliff running along the coast. These could be very useful.
On the internet I typed in “streets without sidewalks” and came up with some stopping restrictions: “On streets without sidewalks vehicles must not be stopped within 9 metres of the nearest edge of the pavement of an intersecting street,” Something called a “Complete the Streets” program, to make streets safer for pedestrians and bicylists. A story on the “dart out” behaviour of children who don't look both ways before crossing the street, and that parents usually overestimate their children's ability to cross the street safely - lots of interesting stuff.
I typed in “crossing the street” and a lot came up on fear - are you afraid to cross the street? So and so was killed crossing the street and the driver was never charged. Dromophobia is the fear of crossing streets. How are you supposed to cross the street - very detailed instructions. A cute thing on the origin of jaywalking. Places that have big fines for jaywalking and which ones don't.
And so on… I also plan to look up some other rites of passage for young men and also young men going to war. Specifically WWI and II where young men were lying about their age in order to fight. I was briefly on a website which stated over 250,000 underage British boys signed up during WWI - some as young as 13.
I also make notes in terms of story: Conflict? Characters? Girlfriend, Family, other young men, the guy who's a veteran of crossing the street and is disabled. The important thing is to make sure there's a strong conflict, that has more than one thread to it. It can't just be about a guy crossing the street. That's a five minute sketch. What else is happening? What relationships is the guy involved with? What makes him want to cross the street? Who's trying to stop him? Who's egging him on? What will happen if he doesn't make it across? Does he get a parade if he does?
How much does the parade mean to him? To his girlfriend? Will his life change forever? Will his life change not at all?
Does the guy make it across the street? If he doesn't, does he die? Is Jimmy (guy feels like a Jimmy) on stage, or off during the play?
Starting to Write
Basically, I keep writing notes and doing research until the characters start to speak. Sound a bit ooky-spooky but it's not. I start with character and dialogue, that's all. Sometimes it's the beginning of the play, sometimes the end, sometimes just an outside conversation. More often than not, I don't have even have character names. It's just really important to get the play out of my head and onto the page. Here's the first bit of dialogue that came to me:
When you gonna do it?So that's the start! For the next newsletter, I'll write a first draft of this for you to read.
Don't know.
Percy Williams lost his leg.
I'm not gonna lose my leg.
Are you sure? You're not that fast. Thanks.
I'm not gonna sugar coat things Jimmy. If you die, I'm the one who'll have to tell Emily.
I know, I know.
She'll blame me if you die.
I'm not gonna die.
They all say that.
I'n not gonna die. I've been watching. Watching's not the same as doin'.
How would you know? You've never done it. (is grabbed by the collar) Hey, man! What you doin'? Let me go!
Don't you ever say that to me. You hear? You didn't see my brother splattered all over the place. You didn't see my mother crying. You don't know what it did to my family.
Ok, ok! I'm sorry.
( letting him go) Don't you say nothin' to me. You know nothin'.
I'm sorry. ( he sucks in a big breath and lets it out) I'm nervous.
Good.
( Voice from offstage)
Who's that?
Damn. It's my mother. She found out.
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