Should a Theatrical Play Be Again

Will Dunne is a playwright, scriptwriter, and teacher whose plays take received many international, national, and local honors. I got to know him when I copyedited his book, The Dramatic Writer's Companion: Tools to Develop Characters, Crusade Scenes, and Build Stories, for the University of Chicago Press.

Volition was one of those dream authors: he submitted an immaculate manuscript, quietly corrected my editing lapses, and indulged me when I challenged him to reduce Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to a haiku. (I would share it with y'all, simply it contains a plot spoiler.)

A couple of times recently I was invited by playwright or manager friends to nourish staged readings of drafts of new plays. Both times, the audience was made upwards mainly of actors and writers, and later there was a rather intense postmortem, with a moderator guiding the criticism while the writer listened and squirmed. I was curious nigh the procedure and thought you might be, as well, so I asked Will to talk about information technology.

Ballad: Have staged readings e'er been a part of play development? This seems so different from the process of developing a novel or short story.

Will: I've been writing plays for almost 30 years, and readings and discussions of the script have always been part of the development process.
Unlike fiction, a play consists of much more than the words that the playwright puts into the script. Before the play tin be fully realized in front end of an audience, actors will bring their insights and emotional life to the characters, designers will flesh out the many different physical elements of the story, and ideally the director will work to go on all of these different talents in balance with the playwright'due south vision. Considering so much else is involved, almost playwrights invite others to help them sympathise the full dimensions of the work underway. As others reply, feedback begins to menstruation and, for the playwright, this can be both a good matter and a bad thing.

Carol: So explicate the good, beyond the obvious gaining of ideas of how to improve the work, and the bad, across the potential devastation by criticism.

Will: At its best, feedback does two things. It sheds light on what yous're trying to do and information technology provides a manner to measure out how well yous are accomplishing that. A word of a play within these parameters can help you uncover specific elements that are not working the manner you had intended. More importantly, such discussions tin can aid you dig deeper into the choices you've already made. Equally a outcome, you may notice dimensions of your work that were non credible to yous at showtime and, in doing so, discover new directions for your characters and story. In other words, feedback is not virtually pointing out "what'due south incorrect."

At its worst, feedback steers you into other people's ideas of what your play should be about and how it should exist written. In many mail-reading discussions that I accept observed, both as a playwright and as an audition member, I have found that the feedback from the audition tends to run the gamut from helpful to destructive, is oft dominated by ii or three people who wish they had written the play instead, and needs to be sorted through carefully before any changes to the script are fabricated. I have also found that, while some playwrights resist criticism and make no changes based on it, most lean likewise far the other way. They endeavour to accost almost every criticism they receive and end upwardly pleasing everyone but themselves. Of course, it tin can be devastating to get criticism, but fifty-fifty worse is to cease up with a patchwork that no longer serves your reason for writing the play in the get-go identify.

Carol: I get information technology. The writer tin can rework or eliminate parts that don't serve his purpose, and run with promising parts that aren't yet fully realized.

Resisting criticism is piece of cake to understand, but have you lot ever resisted using a great suggestion from someone at a reading because it wasn't your own?

Will: Good ideas oftentimes result from discussions of plays and, if I received a slap-up suggestion from someone else, I would certainly requite it a attempt. In the stop, information technology'southward not the idea that counts so much as how the thought is executed.

Ballad: Ah, yeah—truthful for all kinds of writers. So what usually happens later on the author uses the feedback from a reading to revise the piece of work?

Will: That depends on the nature and telescopic of the revisions. If the changes take been substantial and the playwright still has significant questions about the work, he or she may wish to have another staged reading in front of an audience. It is not unusual for a play to get through more than than i reading before it is fix for production. If a second or even third reading does occur, unlike actors may be enlisted to read the roles so that the playwright can hear the characters through unlike voices. This is particularly important if whatever of the actors from the first reading were non suited for the roles. Sometimes a trouble with a character may be due simply to the actor who read information technology. When having more than than i reading, it'southward also a good idea to find new audience members so that at least some of them will be hearing the material for the first fourth dimension.

If the changes after a reading have led the playwright to feel confident about the work, the play may exist fix to send out to theaters and competitions. When the play is selected for production, the rehearsal process will begin with yet another reading. This time it volition be a "table reading" where the actors who will actually play the roles read the script aloud in the presence of the playwright, director, and designers, and another set of questions gets asked. At this betoken in the play's evolution, the feedback is normally more practical, focusing on cutting and clarifying the script rather than making huge changes. In add-on, script adjustments often must be made to run into the real demands and limitations of the production. For that scene when the aunt arrives from Austria, for example, practice we actually demand to show a life-size train pulling into the station?

Carol: Whoa—let'south support a minute. Nosotros made a bit of a bound there, betwixt the readings and a play existence selected for product. Can you say something nigh how a writer decides where to send a play and what the odds are of having it chosen for product? Are there dos and don'ts for submitting a play to a theater or a competition? And at the other end, do producers commit to a play before they hear it read by actors?

Volition: For nearly playwrights today, it's difficult to get work produced. Particularly in tough economical times, many theaters are struggling to make ends meet and producing a new play, specially by a new playwright, ways taking a risk that could lead to significant financial loss. As a result, larger theaters tend to piece of work with playwrights who already take rail records. Smaller theaters are more than likely to accept on the gamble of new work because less money is involved, but, for the same reason, production quality may fall short of what the play really needs.

The skillful news is that there are a lot of theaters in the United States (more than 200 in the Chicago surface area lonely) and they produce plays all the time. You only have to find the right theater for your work and the opportunity to go your play read by the correct person. Many resources are bachelor to help playwrights tackle this daunting quest. At the national level, The Dramatists Club provides a powerhouse of support for playwrights, including the annual Dramatists Club Resources Directory (sometimes referred to every bit the "Playwright'southward Bible").

Before submitting a play anywhere, you demand to know what producers want and don't desire, how they expect to receive a submission—for example, synopsis and sample pages versus full script, electronic submission versus hard copy—when exactly to contact them, and whom to address. The Resource Directory puts all of this information at your fingertips and includes in its scope non just theaters, but also festivals, conferences, contests, colonies, residencies, grants, fellowships, and other career opportunities. No playwright should be without it.

Here in Chicago, we are lucky enough to have Chicago Dramatists, a 32-year one-time "playwright's theater" devoted to nurturing new voices for the American stage. Playwrights gain many resources—classes, workshops, private script consultations, reading opportunities, business organization advice, industry panels, and more—to help them not simply develop plays, only become them upwards on stage. And you don't have to alive in Chicago to take advantage of many of these resources, such as script consultations. Like types of organizations include New Dramatists in New York and the Playwrights' Center of Minneapolis, among others.

How do theaters select plays? Like each playwright, each theater is unique and so there is no one set of guidelines or communication that will utilize to them all. My experience has been that an unsolicited script has a meliorate shot at getting a good read in a playwriting contest than it does in a stack of scripts that accept been on the desk-bound of a literary managing director at a theater for the by year. My experience has also been that, on that same desk, there are two stacks—the tall i and the short one—and that information technology is really important to try to get into the brusque stack. That means getting out and coming together other theater artists, becoming familiar with theaters that feel like the correct match for you, and finding ways to get yourself known there and drum up involvement in your piece of work so that it is not "unsolicited" when information technology arrives. I know many playwrights who created their own career opportunities by volunteering to piece of work at a theater and getting to know the staff that mode. Playwriting conferences, such every bit the O'Neill'south Us National Playwrights Conference, Vii Devils Playwrights Conference, and PlayPenn also offering opportunities not but to develop your work merely abet for yourself every bit a playwright, though showtime you accept to be accepted.

Speaking of creating your own career opportunities, there is a lot to be said for making a real commitment to your work and producing it yourself. This doesn't need to be a Broadway product. If you can assemble a good team of theater artists, you can mount a streamlined production of your play in a small venue without spending a ton of money. You might also check out the fringe festivals in your expanse. Many provide the venue and handle the marketing for you. Whether you lot produce the play lonely or through a festival, you will be getting your work upwards in front of an audition and perhaps a few critics and, if the response is good, it may open a door elsewhere. Fifty-fifty if it doesn't, yous volition accept learned a lot nigh your play and yourself in the process.

Carol: Will, this has been amazing—yous've shown u.s. the whole play-development process from first draft to acceptance for production. Cheers so much.

The comments to this entry are closed.

dominguezhime1997.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.subversivecopyeditor.com/my_weblog/you-wrote-a-play-but-now-what.html