EXTRA CRITICUM

Recently Asked Questions re: RT Advanced Monologue (Dec. 26-28)

Registration is open for the upcoming installment of my popular workshop, ADVANCED MONOLOGUE.  And over the past week or so several questions have made their way into my InBox that have the potential to become Frequently Asked Questions so without further ado, here are a few Recently Asked Questions about the workshop and my answers.

Q: I noticed that on December 26th, the workshop begins at 4PM and runs for 2 hrs. If there's a chance I may have to miss all or part of this first 2 hour session would I still be able to participate fully?

A: The Advanced Monologue Workshop always begins with a 2-hour session followed by two 3-hour sessions on the following days. Day One is devoted primarily to an introduction to Roland Tec's theory of the case, sharing the 5 Essential Ingredients which I've always found to be present in the strongest most enduring examples of monologue. Days Two and Three then get down to the fun and excitement of you putting these principles to the test through targeted in-class writing prompts. Because all three sessions are recorded in Zoom and made available to you as a participant, you could easily miss the first 2 hours, watch the video before Day Two's session begins and not be at any great disadvantage in terms of your ability to understand and implement the approach.

Q: It says on your website that the last six hours of workshop are devoted almost entirely to participants' writing. How much of our writing will be done in class vs. at home as homework between sessions?

A: Most of the writing you'll be doing will be fast and dirty in response to targeted prompts I've developed over the years to address what I see as some of the most common problems in the generalized approach to the form.  However, you're definitely invited to take something first created in workshop and develop it more fully in the time between Day Two (Dec. 27th 5-8PM, EST) and Day Three (Dec. 28th 1-4PM)

Q: I've taken this workshop before (and loved it!). Would it be silly for me to sign up again?

A: The first 2 hours of the total 8 hours might be similar although I'm always evolving in my remarks. The bulk of this workshop is devoted to your writing in session so absolutely, I encourage people to repeat whenever they like. And, if you are planning to take Advanced Monologue for the second or third time, please first send me a private email so I can send you a repeat offender discount code!

visit RolandTecTeaching.com for more info.

Scriptwriters: Beware the confessional monologue.

 

 

A Must-View Interview with Victoria LaBalme on Write Out Front

I met Micheline Auger when she was putting together a fun and kind of audacious experiment: placing a desk and lamp and chair in the window of The Drama Bookshop to be a weeklong installation which she called Write Out Front. Installed in the window in 2 hour time slots playwrights were invited to just do our thing... allowing our playwriting to be projected above our heads for all passersby to stop and read if they liked.

Micheline is one of those artists who can't or won't stop asking probing questions, challenging our assumptions about how things are supposed to go. Everything she touches seems to call upon us to ask ourselves why we do and how we do what we do. The result is there's often a lot of interesting and inspiring stuff swirling around her. And lately the form this takes online is her delightfully positive interviews with super smart and generous writers on her website.

This one I just stumbled upon really hit me at just the right moment. I needed to hear Victoria Labalme's clear-eyed reassuring message. And the questions Micheline tosses at her friend are pretty wonderful. Take a look.

 

 

A funny thing happened on the way to the Bodega.

I'd run in to grab some peanut butter (confessed addict. I know, I know...) and there was a woman on a cell phone having a conversation.

In 2021, no less!

And she was not happy. But she was taking great pains to appear calm while her thumb and forefinger did a little dance which seemed to be more about chipping the nail polish off of her thumb than anything else.

It was clear she was talking to a man. One she'd slept with. A lot. And also one that she clearly regarded more as a boy than a man. 

And he was really asking a lot of stupid questions.

At the Core of Every Workshop I Teach is a Choice

One of the many workshops I've offered over the years to playwrights and screenwriters is a weekend intensive called Cracking the Producers Code. The goal of the 11-hr crash course is to arm script writers with some of the most important questions a producer will ask as she gets acquainted with your script and thereby comes to see it as more than a script but actually a property.

What do we mean by "property" in this context?

Something that can inspire the public to purchase tickets and thereby form an audience for the work. When talking to distributors or foreign sales agents regarding a small indie film, the most common question any writer/director will have to contend with is: Who is the intended audience for this film?

Most people who read between the lines of any one of my course descriptions understand a fundamental core of my approach to empowering writers.

I believe that writers are some of the most mistreated taken-for-granted unappreciated artists on the planet.

And because of this fact (and it is a fact) most of the structures that hold our theatrical ecosystems together are built on the assumption that writers are a dime a dozen and anyone who produces your work is doing you a huge favor.

Of course the opposite is true; writers do the world a huge favor every time we put pen to paper. Sadly, most writers (myself included) who are fortunate enough to ever write something remotely commercially successful generally don't recognize this fact until it's way too late for them to make requests or demands remotely in line with that value. This pattern continues from generation to generation for reasons which are deeply important and alarming and beyond the scope of this post.

Suffice it to say, the world is built with countless hidden (and not so hidden) signs which say to writers:

Edward Albee wrote Zoo Story as a 30th birthday present to himself.

A couple months before Edward Albee turned thirty, he decided to write himself a birthday present. He sat down at his kitchen table and typed the first lines of dialogue of the play that would become ZOO STORY.

I've been to the Zoo. I said, I've been to the Zoo. MISTER, I'VE BEEN TO THE ZOO

I take a few lessons from this turning point in this man's life.

1) If there was a shift, it was a shift in his approach to writing plays and a shift in his thinking about himself, not a shift in his relationship with the world. The world didn't change overnight. He did. He took himself seriously. Seriously enough to get out of the way of his characters and let them speak and also seriously enough to doggedly pursue getting the attention of people who might be able to help him get this play up on its feet.

2) One of the first VIPs he sent the play to was Thornton Wilder who, I think, later admitted to being ashamed of his utter inability to see the importance and mastery of the play he'd been sent. His letter to Albee in response serves as a useful reminder that not everyone will understand what it is we're attempting and if we take one person's "meh" for an answer, we may be making a terrible mistake. 

3) Edward Albee did not stop sending his play to VIPs for comment in the wake of Wilder's disappointing lack of enthusiasm.

4) Edward Albee did not stop sending his play to VIPs for comment in the wake of even less enthusiasm from William Inge.

5) Edward Albee took a risk and sent the play to a David Diamond, a composer with whom he'd had a rocky and bitter history, someone who would have had every reason (given their history) to have tossed the package into the trash. And Diamond surprised Albee with what anyone who's a true artist hopes will greet their next work: generosity and urgent action. 

6) Community was responsible for getting Zoo Story up on its feet (first in German translation, by the way!) as was Edward's dogged pursuit of every potential avenue for the work. 

Don't give up on yourself. Take bold risks. Know the value of your work and honor that value with action. 

Inaction is an insult to the characters you've birthed on the page. If they're going to breathe air in the world, you're going to have to be there to smack their behinds to set them on their way.

How do you do this? Start by picking up the goddamned phone.

 

Roland Tec and Tammy Ryan are accepting work sample submissions for the Roland Tec Online Writers Workshop until Saturday October 23. https://www.rolandtec.com/rtoww-22

Possibly the most overlooked and essential step in creating each new work. (or: What's my play about?)

Anyone who knows me well, anyone who's been in workshop with me has heard me say that I firmly believe that:

Writing is intuitive.

Rewriting is analytical.

What does this mean? Well, I can say that when I start writing a new play or screenplay, I may have a kernel of an idea but I don't yet really know entirely where I want to go with it. 

I'll give you an example by way of the origin story for my play, Bodily Function.

The idea began stirring within me during a brunch with my dear friend Jerry and some friends of his I didn't know too well. One of them was working for a multi-national corporation headquartered in Boston. During the brunch this person casually described one of his middle level  managers who was visiting the restroom so often that it had started to raise eyebrows among other members of his team. And he was in the process of strategizing for ways to limit this employee's time spent in the john.

For whatever reason I was just bit by this offhand remark, for it really barely took up more than 2 minutes of our brunch conversation. And I found I could not shake the idea of a corporation monitoring the bathroom schedule of its employees.

For weeks this idea haunted me until one day I sat down to write what would become the backbone scene of the play, a one year review of a midlevel employee, a scene in which Suzanne Goodman, V.P. of Human Resources sits down with Donald Trieblasser to deliver the delicate news that some of his colleagues have noted his frequent bathroom breaks and the threat they presented to overall workplace morale.

Now that was all I had at the time and as I wrote I had no idea who the protagonist of the play would be.

As it turned out it grew to be clearer and clearer to me (only through writing the first draft of the play) that it had to be Suzanne. She became my obsession and the focus of the play. But when I began I may have mistakenly assumed it was Donald.

My friend Molly is giving up playwriting. After three decades. And I'd like to understand why.

First of all I should probably mention that Molly's a pseudonym. And she gave me permission to blog about her situation on the condition that I not reveal her identity. And so I've changed her name.  But the facts of the case I present as they came to me.

So a few weeks ago my friend told me she'd decided after much soul-searching that after nearly thirty years writing plays she was going to quit. 

Naturally, because I love my friend and also happen to have loved  a lot (not all but a good portion) of her work over the years, I took the news hard. Why? Why would you feel you need to make such a drastic change?

She said it was a lot of things.

I asked her to be specific.

She rolled her eyes at me.

I asked her for a list.

She balked. A list? For what?

I told her I would only let the subject go if she could provide me a list of four reasons she was giving up writing for the theatre.

In about seven minutes an email flew in with her list. Here's her list, exactly as it came into my InBox.

To the woman who answered "Unsure," I'm here for you.

My online workshops are always interactive. So whenever someone registers to attend one, the order form includes one or two simple questions designed to help me get acquainted with the collection of artists that will gather in the "room."

Recently, I asked the following of my registrants:

What do you think is your greatest gift as a writer?

I think it's an important question. And I'd go further than that. It's important for writers to answer this question and to ask it of themselves frequently. Chances are, the answer will change as we change. 

People's answers vary from the super specific (I write terrific death scenes.) to the general (Talent, babe. Isn't that what it's all about?) But nothing could have prepared me for one woman's answer. 

I cried when I recently came upon her one-word answer.

Attention Playwrights! That monologue does not belong to you.

So, if you read this blog much you know that since the dawn of this pandemic I've been on a kind of OCD Mission Impossible to encourage playwrights and screenwriters--really anyone who writes scripts, who tells stories this way--to give monologue a closer look because, well... as the pandemic shutdown demonstrated so well, when the expensive and time-consuming elements associated with productions disappear and the community at large finds itself communicating via Zoom, the unique work of the playwright becomes more essential than ever. 

No lights. No sets. No costumes. No stage. Yet still feels like theatre. How come?

If people are waiting for something akin to theatre (as we once knew it) to find them and move them through the Zoom box, then who is more equipped to provide this than the playwright?

After all it's the playwright who engineers our catharsis. If I am pummeled to my core at the final curtain that's because the playwright wanted it. It's the playwright who understands, perhaps more keenly and more viscerally than any of us, the bond between life as we live it and life as we wish it to be. Our refusal to acknowledge that there might be a difference between these two things has been selling theatre tickets since man discovered fire and gathered everyone around to talk about it.

 

The Festival of Playwrights Making Lemonade from Lemons

This Labor Day marked the one-year anniversary of Hear Me Out Monologues, which produces the Hear Me Out New American Monologue Competition & Labor Day Fest. 400 entries from around the world were read and evaluated by a

My How These Limits Can Set You Free. Join me for Advanced Monologue Weekend Oct 1-3.

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.

How Zoom Forced us to Build Back Audience Better (One Unmuted Microphone at a Time)

In the Spring of 2020 as a pandemic rose to take center stage, theatres everywhere shuttered in the face of clear evidence that crowding indoors with hundreds of people could cost us our lives. 

So, what did we do, ever-resourceful artists that we are?

For the most part, we took our theatre to the Zoom box. 

Only pretty quickly I noticed a problem.

Several times during the first 7- 8 months of Pandemic Pause I found myself attending a reading of a play written by a friend who I know to be extremely talented.

Yet the plays felt stale.

Without exception these Zoom readings of new plays were falling flat. Hardly a moment felt alive. In fact, I'd argue, plays were being killed by the Zoom platform.

Why?

It took me a few weeks before it suddenly dawned on me.

The Benefit of Our Doubt (or: Dear Writing Contest Judge)

Dear Writing Contest Judge:

Before you open the document to encounter my submission, a few words of advice, one writer to another:

If something appears to be, at first glance, bland or flat or without context, hang in there and how about you give me the benefit of the doubt that I might see what you see and might be placing this or that in your way, coming between you and the central purpose of the piece for a reason.

And if you feel the central purpose of the piece is not 100% crystal clear, consider the possibility that this writer may prefer his audience do a bit of the work rather than spoon feeding them his thesis sentence stuffed into the mouths of his main characters.

And if you find one of my characters to be deplorable, perhaps even unspeakably so, and it makes you sick to have to consider this kind of evil, let's remember to remind ourselves that the writer is not the character and the character is not the piece and, thankfully, neither is the reader nor the writer so they can both expect to safely fall asleep at home in their own warm cosy beds tonight long after the final moment of disturbing theatre has passed.

Sometimes what first appears to be a mistake is no mistake at all. All good things come to those who wait.

Oh, and if at the end of my piece you are disappointed with how it all turned out, please consider the possibility that an unsatisfying ending is not necessarily a bad thing. 

And if you doubt this assertion, I have a two-word rebuttal:

Hedda Gabler.

Finally, please know that if in the end you find my craft and creative spark to be lacking, I guarantee you this: I did not set out to do poorly. I tried. Very hard. Nobody sets out to write a monumental piece of crap.

So please, whatever you do, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't crap all over my... crap.

Sincerely,

The Author of Entry #3627

Written on the final day of tabulating scores for the 2nd annual Hear Me Out New American Monologue Competition. Finalist Winners' Pieces to be performed at the Labor Day Festival & Awards Ceremony. HearMeOutMonologues.com

Our pasts -- recent and distant -- collide on E. 4th Street

Members of New Opera Theatre Ensemble (the opera company I founded in 1988) have been meeting once a week for an hour via Zoom ever since the pandemic arrived. During the hour we spend together online, we often improvise musical etudes. One great byproduct of the pandemic has been reconnecting with this bright brilliant endlessly inventive musical family that I've missed but that now live scattered here and there. Pictured clockwise from upper left: Vicky Pittman (Keene, NH), Mary Ann Lanier (Northampton, MA), Jon Rosenthal (San Francisco, CA), Roland Tec (New York, NY), Merle Perkins (Boston, MA), and Sylvie Stewart (Nashua, NH).

During Pandemic Pause, I've been consciously pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone artistically. What does this mean for Rolando Teco? Well, I've always enjoyed performing to a point but I do suffer from exaggerated stage fright. Sometimes my performance anxiety grabs hold of me mid-morning and doesn't let go until the moment I'm taking that final curtain call at night. It's one of the many reasons I never seriously considered acting or performing music as a career. The nerves (mine, to be exact) might've consumed me.

To a degree, the safety of the barrier that is Zoom by way of my laptop has let me experiment in this arena more than I might be comfortable doing otherwise.

Anyway, when the first email from Gaven Trinidad came in inviting folks to participate in a virtual open mic co-hosted by New York Theatre Workshop and Poetic Theatre, I didn't immediately move on as I might have were it any other year. Let me pause here to observe that just about 6 months before the pandemic hit my friend Yvonne Delet and I had gone to a Moth Slam at Housing Works and I'd put my name in the hat to tell a story. And I was a bundle of nerves. The beer I had did little to calm me. They pull the names out of the hat at random and throughout the evening. When the first name was called that began with an "R" I almost choked from fear. "Don't call my name, please don't call my name" I heard myself whispering.

But then an interesting thing happened. 

They called my name. And in that moment when I registered that they'd said "Roland" I was filled with an unexpected emotion.

Joy.

And I got up and told my story and it went well and I was runner up and when I got home, I grabbed a big 5x7 pink index card and scrawled on it in Sharpie: 

As nervous 
as I was, the moment they called
my name, I was
T H R I L L E D

How'd they do it? 2020 Finalist Winners and the 'Me & My Masks' Prompt: Jeff Dunne

Over the next few days 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:

Jeff Dunne, author of "A Change in Nature" (2020 Hear Me Out Finalist Winner)

When seeing the prompt of “Me & My Masks”, I was immediately reminded of a monologue that I’d written a while back called A Change In Nature. The piece centers on a raccoon as the archetype for a masked bandit of selfish, but not ill-intending, nature. It plays with the realities of how we often give in to our base urges despite recognizing that they often lead to poor choices, and how we then later justify those behaviors – to ourselves (by painting them as needs) and to others (often by trying to shift the blame away from ourselves).