EXTRA CRITICUM

WHY then HOW

If you stick with this artistic life long enough (and by that I mean years, not months) you will come to recognize that the act of making stuff up to share with the world is frequently cluttered with dashed hopes, disappointment (in others sure, but also in oneself) and days and days when it feels as though nobody, not one living breathing soul other than yourself, really gives a damn or is even aware of what it is you’re up to. Or that you even exist.

When you are making something for the world and the world doesn’t appear to care, that can feel like one hell of a lonely bed you’ve made for yourself.

But here’s the thing. The loneliness and purposelessness are transitory. They can arrive and pull you down into the darkest despair quite unexpectedly. Often with little or no warning. Thankfully, they can just as easily pick up and fly off with the next slight breeze.

Why my next play had to be a solo show performed on Zoom.

In March of 2020 mankind was thrust into a new paradigm. With virtually every aspect of life squeezed, stretched and stuffed into shapes that many found virtually unrecognizable, the essence of what it means to be human was called into question. And change was all but inevitable.

Change can be painful, frightening, frustrating and uncomfortable. And so for the better part of two years everyone has to some degree found him or herself wrestling with uncertainty and a gnawing question regarding all our life choices pre-CoVid_19.

I feel that my exploration of this challenging and dangerous moment in human history absolutely calls out for a presentation within the confines of the Zoom black box theatre.

Opening 2 min. of the February 7th reading to an invited audience.

This has left us at once hungry for human connection (as the oxygen of life) and wary of it. We have found ourselves surprised by our own behavior. How many friends have expressed the same confusion regarding an acute loneliness and yearning for human connection coupled with an inexplicable paralysis when it comes to returning phone calls, emails and text messages. How odd it has been to observe oneself letting 2, 3, or more days sail by while phone messages or emails went unreturned even as we wished for nothing more than the back and forth of a chat with a friend. 

Zoom is the perfect architecture for this moment.

How'd They Do It? 2021 Hear Me Out Winning Writers Share Their Secrets: Patrick Mulcahey

Over the next few weeks several of last year's Finalist Winners will share their process of getting from the festival prompt to a monologue they felt excited to submit to Hear Me Out Monologue Competition.

Today, we hear from:

Patrick Mulcahey, author of Ecce Mom (winner of the Silver Ear for long form monologues)

Here's what Patrick had to say about the 2021 Festival Theme: Borders.

For at least twenty years I’ve been carrying around a character and a story I didn’t know how to tell. A close friend who’s a physician told me about a patient of his (anonymous, of course) whose life ended in tragedy, and tragically alone, because her children refused to believe the illness she complained of was anything but a cover for alcoholism. Since then I entertained the vague notion I’d write something about her someday — which became the day Roland announced the theme of the next Hear Me Out Monologue contest would be “Borders.” 

 

Why did that bring the character into focus for me? I’m not sure I can explain it even to my own satisfaction. Yes, “Borders” as a theme had some political currency at the time, but I wasn’t thinking politically. In my own life I’ve always had an awareness of the boundaries we draw between each other, even — or especially — in our closest, most intimate, most enduring relationships. And when we make a conscious decision to breach those boundaries, those borders, we do so because we want to accomplish something: revelation, persuasion, a provocation to a response which may or may not be the response we want. What else is drama is made of?

 

I struggled with the writing at first. In the real-life story told to me, the woman didn’t conceal her illness from her grown children: they just didn’t believe her. I had no room for them and no way to explain their skepticism; maybe the reason I never could write it in another form was the prospect of creating a character group with no function but to be wrong.

 

So I invented another boundary, a full and fully concealed intimacy in which the character’s diagnosis was understood and appropriate measures taken. Which became another loss, another secret to tell, another border to cross. 

Watch Mulcahey's winning monologue as performed by Alley Mills at the 2021 Hear Me Out Labor Day Festival & Awards Ceremony. 

Don't Throw Our Baby Out with the Bathwater (or: Why We Still Need Zoom)

As we enter Year 3 of the early 21st century pandemic, it's understandable why we might all long for nothing more than a life outside... outside the walls of Zoom.

The last couple years were dominated by stories of loss -- loss of income, loss of job security, loss of essential routines, loss of friendships, confidence and, of course, the worst loss of all: loss of life.

But scattered here and there, tucked behind and alongside the wreckage lie some unexpected gifts.

You conceived, nurtured, birthed and edited your baby. And now it's up to you to share it with the world.

For too many years I held onto a childish myth about show business that cost me dearly. 

The myth goes something like this:

Artists create the work.
And the marketing and PR folks promote it to the world.

To occupy yourself with the dirty business of promoting the new works
you've had a hand in creating would be unseemly and make you appear desperate.

The truth is: there never has been, nor ever will be a show, book, movie, song, or other cultural commodity that soared to popular success without the tender loving care and devotion of its original author. The fact of the matter is there never will be another living soul as fiercely loyal and devoted and confident of your original work than you. And the sooner you get comfortable with this fact of life, the easier life as an artist will be.

You see, we can waste an awful lot of time and energy waiting and hoping and wishing and praying for someone (anyone!) to show up one day displaying the same absolute confidence in the importance, the beauty and the power of your work that you do.

Once you stop holding your breath with your ear to the wind waiting for a sign, the sooner you'll be able to see and hear the genuine and more objective enthusiasm for the work that many among your team come by honestly.

For this reason alone, you should resist the temptation to convince yourself to sit out the necessary and time consuming process of figuring out a path to bigger and more passionate audiences for each particular work.

2022 Hear Me Out Monologue Competition Call for Entries.

Announcing this year's Festival Theme & Competition Prompt:

WHEN WE NAME IT

In a world in which  social norms, political systems, economic laws and the natural environment are all facing existential challenges, the language we use to describe the world around us takes on new urgency. In order to change a thing, we first need to name it.  In order to care for something or someone it matters that we name it. If we want to understand something that confuses or frightens us, first we must name it. 

Since human beings created language, the labels we assign to things, people, places, activities, relationships, complex issues, etc. etc. have influenced our view of them. There are things we carry with us throughout life that feel so important, so powerful, that sometimes we dare not name them for fear that naming them might invite them to consume us. And yet, oftentimes the act of finally naming something we’ve been living with results in a newfound freedom. And, yes, we also name people, pets, places, projects and creations. 

And sadly, these days, our choices regarding how we identify certain things can even threaten to tear apart our most treasured relationships. 

Your 2022 Hear Me Out entry must in some way refer to some naming and its impact on the characters you’re revealing. As always we hope you will find your own way into our festival theme and we do not require the use of any specific words, language or stylistic choices.  

We only ask that your character grapples with our festival theme in some way.

And remember: your monologue must introduce us to a character who is talking to another person (or group of people). Short stories and essays will be disqualified.

Click here to get started.  Early Bird Deadline June 15, 2022 at Noon.

Title treatment for: A Nagging Feeling Best Not Ignored

So... what do you all think? How does this make you feel? Would you buy a ticket to this thing? 

How'd They Do It? 2021 Hear Me Out Winning Writers Share Their Secrets: Kate Cortesi

Over the next few weeks several of last year's Finalist Winners will share their process of getting from the festival prompt to a monologue they felt excited to submit to Hear Me Out Monologue Competition.

Today, we hear from:

Kate Cortesi, author of I Love Parties (winner of the Golden Ear for long form monologues and the Most Memorable Character Award)

Here's what Kate had to say about the 2021 Festival Theme: Borders.

The Hear Me Out invitation to think dramatically and expansively about "borders" was one of my favorite things: a call to write. I used the prompt the way I use most rules: as something to subvert.

What comes to mind easily when we hear the word 'border'? You bet that's the very thing I'm going to avoid. There are borders we cross, border-crossing as an identity or a formative experience. I found my mind wandering to those borders that call to us, that we don't cross.

I submitted a piece about an elderly woman who is assumed to be harmless, and even vulnerable, who then turns out to be the potentially dangerous transgressor. Her decision not to transgress - to preserve a border - ends up being the definitive action of my short monologue play. The ultimate action is one of restraint, that forgoes gratification in the name of love.

To the writers who submit to the upcoming Hear Me Out competition, may the prompt inspire and unleash you. And if it doesn't, throw it away and see what comes of it.

Watch Cortesi's winning monologue as performed by Marnie Andrews at the 2021 Hear Me Out Labor Day Festival & Awards Ceremony. 

If a script lands in a forest with no one to read it, can it make a noise?

In 1922, an unknown composer who supported his family by working as an insurance man, did something audacious. He self-published a collection of songs he'd been writing over several years and proceeded to mail out complimentary copies to practically everyone of some importance he could think of. His name was Charles Ives and today, thanks to the efforts of another composer of a younger generation who championed his work, he is widely regarded as one of American music's greatest composers.

It would be easy to take this little anecdote as evidence that all we need in order to succeed is perseverance and a touch of audacity but the sobering truth is that of the hundreds of copies of Mr. Ives' 114 Songs that he sent out, most sat on desks and languished unopened for years, if not decades. Had it not been for the passion of the young composer Henry Cowell who made it his personal mission to get the establishment to recognize the great leaps of imagination made by the older man, we might never have heard much of this groundbreaking music. 

Those of us who write for the stage do so in an environment in which the discovery of something wonderful and new is well on its way to becoming nothing short of miraculous. With virtually no meaningful governmental support of our theaters, there is no place really to which a playwright can send his or her script and be assured of a thoughtful read. 

The sad truth is when you send your full-length play or screenplay to the literary department of a target theatre or the development department of an independent film production company the odds are stacked against you.

My first editor was my toughest. (and we always remember the toughest)

I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the first day of fourth grade. I came home very excited by the innovative way in which my teacher, Ms. Danielson, had organized her classroom. In one back corner she'd placed a round oak table, low to the ground with about 5 chairs placed around it. To the casual observer it may have looked like a breakfast nook for 9-year-olds. 

This, she explained, was The Writing Corner.

Our teacher explained that at any time during any day of the entire year if any of us wanted to we would be welcome to leave whatever project or discussion was occupying the class at that moment and instead take a seat at the writing table and just write. That option would be available to us for the entire year and it would never be questioned.

Implicit in the arrangement was an understanding that writing no matter what it was we were working on, would always be an excellent use of one's time, so much so that it should be protected with a special status. 

I thought this was just the coolest thing ever. And I was especially excited to share it with my Mom, the writer, as soon as I got home.

It was probably no more than a week or two after that when I found myself hard at work on my first writing assignment for my beloved Ms. Danielson. If Ms. Danielson had positioned herself in my view as a champion of writing and writers, I certainly wanted the first piece I turned in to be excellent.

A Unique Opportunity to Study Songwriting with One of the Best

Some of you may recall reading about the couple of Halloweens I spent teaching Ear Training and Music Theory to a wonderful music-loving community of folksingers and songwriters gathered by my pal Cosy Sheridan in the Utah desert. I learned so much about Music, something I thought I understood in every which way, by attempting to teach certain principles of how its put together to students who did not know how to read music notation. There really is something eye-opening about diving into a language without the usual visual markers we're used to referring to. 

Anyway, anyone who has attended one of the Hear Me Out Monologues Labor Day Festival and Awards Ceremony will recognize the name Cosy Sheridan because it is she and her husband Charlie Koch who have provided our incredibly moving musical interludes in between the presentation of Finalist monologues. I consider Cosy to be one of the finest lyricists of our time. There is an economy to her songwriting that surpasses any other I can think of. When you enter into a Cosy Sheridan lyric the words will creep up on you as she chooses carefully to collect the seemingly simplest possibly prosaic words and phrases to spin her tale. And then just when you're lulled into thinking that everything there is to see has already been seen she somehow shifts our focus and the whole world is alight with something unexpected. 

In a nod to CoVid and the disappointing need to put Moab Folk Camp on hiatus these last two years, Cosy is offering a songwriting retreat called Desert Song. It'll run from Tuesday May 31st through Friday June 3rd in the gorgeous setting of Moab.

Desert Song. A Songwriting Retreat

What makes studying with Roland Tec special?

On the Roland Tec Teaching site, there's a button that invites anyone interested in possibly studying with me to schedule a free 20-min. Zoom one-on-one. Whenever I find myself talking with someone who's exploring, I find myself listening to what's not being said. Reading between the lines I try to use those precious 20 minutes to tease out for people what at their core they hope to accomplish through their art so that I might help them decide whether this is the place for them.

A couple days ago one such prospective student -- a writer I've known off and on for years, someone whose work I've admired from afar -- asked the simplest most direct question. So direct that somehow it had never quite been asked in the same way. And I thought. Wow. This really matters. I should communicate my answer to readers of this blog. 

The question is basically the headline of this post.

What makes studying with me unique?

If any current members of the Roland Tec Online Writers Workshop or the RT Private Studio happen to be reading this, feel free to offer your opinion on my answer. Did I get it right? Maybe I missed something. I'm happy to stand corrected... especially in matters pertaining to seeing myself clearly.

The Artist Child. Your Career Requires Adult Supervision.

There are people who help bring art to the world who are not artists but what they do is essential nonetheless. They are producers, lawyers, agents, publicists, managers, etc. They often create a framework upon which the artist-audience relationship is built.

Unfortunately, some of them are invested in seeing artists as children. It may be understandable in a way. To make art, the artist must be at home with play. And it's too easy for observers to conclude that the adult who is at ease with play is also less an adult than the rest of us.

Playwrights have been infantilized in recent years in countless ways. We are told not to worry our pretty little heads with details of production. We are encouraged to seek help in structuring our scripts from dramaturgs. Some even believe they cannot finish a script without the assistance of someone to offer outside wisdom.

And so some of us internalize this childlike way of being and we simply wait for corrections from "the adults in the room."

I wish all playwrights would understand that taking responsibility for every aspect of your writing will free you as an artist. You will only be free to bring your vision to the world when you stop behaving like a helpless baby and take responsibility for what you actually put on the page. 

What does this mean?

 

Here's a handy list of Absolute Musts.

It's Monologue Season.

It's that time of year. 

Time to start polishing your monologue writing skills.  On Mother's Day the 2022 theme for the Hear Me Out New American Monologue Competition will be announced along with all the submission guidelines. Now in its third year, the Hear Me Out Competition seeks to celebrate and elevate the art of unforgettable monologue. Top prizes put thousands of dollars into the hands of gifted scriptwriters.

The next RT Advanced Monologue Workshop will provide participants a 9 hr. deep dive into the craft of creating powerful character through monologue with a focus on this year's competition prompt. 

May 6, 7 and 14

Join us at our monthly showcase, Some1Speaking. On the first Monday of each month we introduce you to 5 characters through 5 monologues written by 5 outstanding writers. 

Up Next:

The Artist Who Was Afraid of Taking Up Too Much Space

So, that would be me. Big time.

In case you were wondering.

Put me in a line at Starbucks and you'll see a human being using the power of his brain to imagine (and instantly resolve) every possible way in which he might be, well... in the way.

I imagine I may be a breath of fresh air in some public spaces -- a person intently focused on not interrupting anyone else's flow, even if inadvertently. But take that same skill set and bring it to a career as an artist and...

Well, let's just say there might have been more helpful adaptive behaviors I could have picked up in childhood. 

A deep and ever-present fear of being a bother, a disruption or simply in the way has held me back in more ways and in more arenas than I care to name. The most recent manifestation of this pathology of mine (and, oh, is it ever a pathology! Trust me.) reared its ugly head in February when I decided I was ready to share the earliest version of a solo show I'm writing and will be performing (god willing).

I invited about 50 people I know and trust to attend the reading of A Nagging Feeling Best Not Ignored. And, to be honest, I can't complain because when I invite people to new work of my own, I get a pretty great rate of return. The majority of folks I invited did actually show up.

3 Broad Principles Courtesy of some RT Online Writers' Scripts

Reviewing scripts for tomorrow's Roland Tec Online Writers Workshop and three common problems I see in many many early drafts caught my eye. So I figured I'd post 3 videos to explain them. 

Take a look and see if you recognize any one of these in your own work.