Archive for May, 2010
I’m very fortunate to have been invited to join a playwrights’ group a few months ago. For the past few months, I have been bringing in a few pages at a time from the piece I’m currently working on. I’ve been challenged at every page, and every turn. And I won’t lie, I was resistant at first, but I’ve continued faithfully working, and putting faith in the process and the story I’m telling.
After this last round, I really took a good look at the work — separating the history I have with the piece with what’s on the page and what’s coming across (and more importantly, what isn’t).
As I wrote this morning (after more than a week of figuring out exactly where I want to go from here), I felt free to look at this with new eyes, to gain the perspective I was unable to gain on my own.
From the outside looking in, I was able to see what I’ve been missing for so long.
–Sue
May 31st, 2010
In realizing this current play, I’ve come to realize that there have been so many experiences along the way to help me write this.
When I studied in London, so many years ago, a sweet guy I met told me about La Mama once he heard I loved theatre. I wasn’t even writing plays at that point, I was writing short stories. But he obviously saw something in me that I didn’t yet see. He urged me to go and experience theatre there. Four years later, once I had written my first incarnation of this play in grad school, I went to La Mama to see a show that changed my idea of theatre.
About ten years later, I still remember that show. It opened my eyes to the many possibilities in theatre like: How physical it can be; How it can combine the theatrical and cinematic; How it can utilize technology and creativity to create an experience to remember.
Many people assume that I start writing when I sit down to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. The reality is, it takes years… and I’m still working on it, but it’s getting there.
–Sue
May 28th, 2010
One of my greatest challenges as a playwright is humanizing my characters, especially ones that might not seem so “nice” or “good.” After tossing some ideas around with Dina the other day, we came up with a landmark to use for a setting. That landmark, an ice cream shack, helped anchor the multiple flashbacks that follow one another back to back by making them site specific. It also inspired me to come up with an action, a small detail, a father buying his daughter an ice cream bar, that made him seem more human, more like her father.
Seems small, but that detail not only helps the audience understand that yes, that memory was happy for her, it also helps them see that father as a father, doing something any father would do for a kid — buy an ice cream on the beach.
I’ll say it until the very end, it’s the details that matter most.
–Sue
May 27th, 2010
Here’s a confession: When I’m not 100% confident about what’s on the page, I tend to overcompensate with stage directions. I don’t think I’m alone in this. It’s possible many playwrights use this crutch.
The fact is, they help me see what’s happening a little better. The other fact is, a lot of directors and even some actors ignore stage directions… as they feel it gets in the way of the storytelling. And there might just be some truth to that.
Though it might be helpful for me during the process, there has to be a point where I pare them down, to sharpen the focus on the story, rather than the action on stage.
So, I spent some time weeding through a few direction heavy scenes. It’s not helping my page count at the moment (I’m not a believer in page counts, but sadly, plays are classified that way. i.e. one act, mid length, full length). It is helping me get to the heart of the story…
Still not anywhere close to 100% sure, but I’ll keep going anyway.
–Sue
May 26th, 2010
“Overhaul” is the word I added to the file name of the newest version of my current project. For about a week I’ve been tossing around how I want this to open, and work. I put it on paper today, and actually think it solves some of the production problems I was running into in the context of this being solely a play.
And though the first big question I had is now “solved”, I’ve come upon my next big question… and so it goes.
The good part is, I’ committed to this now, and though the word “overhaul” sounds daunting, it’s actually very freeing. It gives me the license to turn this on its head and shape this into what it needs to be.
Onward and upward!
–Sue
May 25th, 2010
I’m reworking a theatre piece to become the multi-media piece I’ve always known it’s destined to be. A fellow playwright mentioned Roger Guenveur Smith, an artist who uses film and live theatre. His piece about the Black Panthers leader, Huey P. Newton.
Watching the piece on YouTube made me uncomfortable… I could honestly feel the risk involved. It was smart, insightful, and well done.
I was not only inspired by the character’s story, but inspired by the actor’s willingness to “go there.” And I guess that’s where I am right now.
I have to be willing to go full out, to go there…even if it’s further than I’ve ever gone. Even if I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.
–Sue
May 24th, 2010
The movie Penelope made it onto our Netflix cue. I’d never even heard of it, and didn’t put it there, Scott did, and tonight, we ended up watching it.
It took some warming up… but once it got going, it was intriguing. The reverse beauty and the beast tale involved a girl with a pig snout, a curse put on her family long before she was born. They thought the only way to break it was someone of her own “class” (i.e. upper class) accepting and loving her for who she is. Her mother thought it was a man who would one day break the curse, and planned to “sweeten” the pot with a dowry (read bribe).
But it wasn’t the role reversal that made this story interesting. What made it interesting was that she broke the curse herself, when she learned to love herself for who she is. There was no way she could find that acceptance and love without giving herself those things first.
It was a sweet movie, with a satisfying, well deserved happy ending. I wish more girls understood this same moral.
–Sue
May 21st, 2010
Some of my readers may remember this line and a whole host of others from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. This line was totally a visual gag… it’s when we see the actor playing Pee-Wee (suave, debonair… the total opposite of Pee-Wee) in the movie he wrote about his life and his big adventure, while watching the movie Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. As my hubby would say, very meta.
Pee-wee is of course the one and only Paul Reubens, and he’s bringing The Pee-wee Herman Show to the great white way, which officially opens in November, for a limited engagement run. It sounds like a lot of the old favorite characters like Chairry and Pterri from Pee-wee’s Playhouse will help my generation relive a piece of our childhood.
The secret word of the day is Broadway!!!
–Sue
May 20th, 2010
Adjudicated youth offenders rehearsed a scene from Shakespeare’s “Henry V’’ for performance in Lenox. (Nancy Palmieri for The Boston Globe)
There’s an amazing program in Massachusetts, Shakespeare in the Courts, that’s helping troubled teens (who may have ended up serving time in juvenile detention for their small crimes) find themselves through an intensive study and performance of a Shakespearean play.
It’s an intensive five week course, and some teens inevitably drop out… but for those who stick with it, it is a very tangible way of learning skills necessary for getting by in the world constructively. It’s also a way for most to see they can do something well outside their comfort zones, pushing them to stretch, grow, and (as a first for many) strive to be better.
As someone who has worked as an educator with at-risk populations, and as a theatre professional and Shakespeare fan, I can’t think of a more constructive use of these kids’ time. Better to learn hands on than sitting on their hands or twiddling their thumbs.
Education, and having someone believe in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself can turn a kids’ life around. I’ve seen it first hand, and I applaud the efforts of the intrepid facilitators of this award winning program.
Bravo! Encore! Encore!
–Sue
May 19th, 2010
Last week, I shared Broadway.com’s tenth anniversary list for the biggest trends of the decade. A new list, Top 10 Stage Superstars of the Decade, caught my attention today. It wasn’t only because I was curious to see who made the list, but because a little more than half the list (60%) were women.
Now, it’s not a contest, and I’m not trying to bait the gentlemen… I’m just excited that the ladies are finally getting the recognition they deserve. The stage, for so long, seemed like a place where the stories of men were told… but, times are a’changing… and rightly so. The stories of women (thanks to the memorable performances of some powerful and amazing women) are being told brilliantly.
Bravo, Ladies, Bravo!
–Sue
May 18th, 2010
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