You write for the theatre. That pretty much guarantees that you are like me in at least one respect. You stand or sit in a darkened theatre as the curtain goes up on your latest play and every fibre of your being is tense as you wait for the verdict to come in. Did you manage another bullseye aimed squarely at the universal truths of human nature or did you miss slightly, just enough that the people sitting all around you in the dark, your audience, are not buying the characters you're selling.
Sounds stark but you know it's generally that simple. With each passing moment of the play you've written, you (perhaps with more certainty than any other member of the creative team) you know whether you've hit or you've missed your mark. It's the playwright who cannot help but grimace and sweat at the first false note, at the first sign of a play shaped more in the head than in the heart, or to put it even more plainly, the difference between the words on the page and the lives on the stage.
So when the pandemic hit, it hit you right where you live because in an instant you found yourself cut off from your oxygen supply. Without the barometer that is a living breathing audience, the script writer is left to make her best guesstimates based on experience with characters and circumstances similar to the current one but not identical.
Truth is, there's no more volatile, intimate and alive relationship between a writer and their audience than the one that ties the playwright to the audience and vice versa. Think about it. When we writers for the stage see our work performed before a live audience we enjoy the catbird's seat of catbird seats for we see and hear in real time exactly which moments are ringing true and which are not quite landing. A novelist is not invited to peer over the shoulder of each reader. But in a sense, the playwright is.
The result of this unique geometry is that over the course of a career, playwrights understand their gifts, their superpowers as individual artists most vividly. We have access to the essence of who we are as communicators -- where we generally soar and where we're frequently in danger of overstepping, under-developing or some deadly combination of the two. But this clarity about our own talent is inextricably linked to our lifeline, our audience.
When I see and hear and feel my audience seeing and hearing and feeling my play, I'm alive and awake. The audience is my oxygen. Take it away and I quickly lose my bearings.
Enter the monologue and Hear Me Out.
Sitting in a Zoom theatre is never quite the same as sitting in a IRL one. And yet, with audience unmuted a big piece of the puzzle is hitting me with feedback moment to moment as a play I've written--albeit for one person speaking--unfolds in a space in which we can all hear each other laugh, sigh, weep, yelp or gasp. I've spent much of my time since Spring of 2020 encouraging writers of considerable stature as well as gifted ones with less life experience under their belt. I've encouraged them all to reconnect with the indisputable truth of their ability to move audiences.
And how have I been doing this?
Through monologue. On the first Monday night of each month, we present the monologues of 5 gifted writers. And in so doing, we offer the dramatist a lifeline, a renewed connection to their own craft unfolding in a roomful of active listeners.
If you're eager to take a simple action to prevent your hit-or-miss barometer from atrophying, join me and other playwrights and screenwriters for a 3-day monologue workshop that will put you back on solid footing for whatever 2022 and beyond has in store.
Advanced Monologue Weekend with Roland Tec is an 8-hour interactive workshop held over three days.
Friday October 1st: 6PM-8PM, EST
Saturday October 2nd: 1PM-4PM
Sunday October 3rd: 1PM-4PM
$100 discount available until Friday September 10 at 11:30PM. After that, tuition is $225.
REGISTER TODAY. SPACE IS LIMITED.
