EXTRA CRITICUM

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.

 

 

 

 

 

This play has legs: THE INTERVIEW by Faye Sholiton turns 25.

In 1997 a modestly titled little play by Faye Sholiton was a winner of Dayton Future Fest. If you just heard the title, THE INTERVIEW, it's possible you'd make the mistake of expecting a simple narrowly focused piece about an interview. But Faye Sholiton's play is full of surprises and runs deep and wide. It reminds me a bit of another Holocaust play, Ida Fink's brilliant one-act, also modestly titled, THE TABLE. Both plays will creep up on you and will not let go. That may explain why today, some 25 years later, THE INTERVIEW continues to be produced all over the map. 

On the occasion of the latest production, at Sarasota Jewish Theatre, I wanted to celebrate the accomplishment of this play by putting a few questions to the author. Sholiton was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule to speak to some of the elements of THE INTERVIEW that caught my eye.

My not-so-hidden agenda here is that this quarter century success for this play might remind all the writers reading this of two important truths:

1. The play that we care most deeply about will usually be the one that outlives us 
   and...
2. There are plays being produced all the time that are not playing in Broadway houses and those plays can have long lives making a lasting impact on thousands of theatre lovers all the same. 

brief synopsis:

Fifty years after her liberation from the Nazi death camps, Bracha Weissman still suffers the  aftermath of her old trauma. When she allows Ann Meshenberg, the child of other survivors, into her suburban Cleveland home to take testimony for an archival video project, Bracha reviews the legacy she has left her own daughter. THE INTERVIEW is a story about mothers, daughters and memory – about forgiving and being forgiven.

The Interview took top honors in three national new play contests and won a coveted Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence grant. It is featured in Gene A. Plunka's book Holocaust Theater: Dramatizing Survivor Trauma and Its Effects on the Second Generation (Routledge, London) 2019. The play has been performed more than three dozen times around the U.S. since its premiere at the 1997 FutureFest in Dayton, Ohio.

Questions for the author:

Tec
You wrote this play in the 1990s? And it's been produced dozens of times in theatres of different shapes and sizes. Now, for the first time we are entering a world which pretty soon won't have any Holocaust survivors left. How do you feel that fact changes the way the play is understood?

Feeling like the only one in the room.

*by Yvonne Delet

In these days of being PC and 'picking a political side' as opposed to talking about what one is actually seeing and knowing as true is befuddling to say the least. I find my comedy, in writing and performing even further from the mainstream than it's always been. I just watched the documentary, "Can We Take A Joke" and I was pleasantly surprised at comics discussing what Lenny Bruce and George Carlin did for us back in the day.

When I write or perform comedy I take George Carlin's advice: Find what the line is, cross it, take everyone with you and make them be glad they went. I recently hosted a comedy gig in Brooklyn NY where I came onstage wearing a jacket covered in 'boosters' and flashed my V passport which went all the way to the ground while saying, "this should be good for a month". I am happy to report there were both V'd and non V'd people there (I assume, I don't know for sure because you know 'mandates'), and EVERYONE LAUGHED. How wonderful that humor is alive and well, sort of.

I crossed the line and that night all or most of the audience came along for the ride. THAT is what creativity is supposed to be about. Inspire, stimulate, awaken to more than one idea. It reminds me of the movie "Quills' where the Marquis de Sade wrote with feces in a windowless cell at the end of his life, because he had to write what he was inspired to write no matter what the 'authorities' did to try to silence him.

Whether it's Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, The Marquis de Sade or the like speaking their truths, it seems like we are again in a time where the visionaries (used to be 'witches' as well), are trying to be silenced by the 'authorities'. Don't agree with my views, but please please please don't silence 'our voices', because we'll find a way and in the end it's very likely much of what we say you will find was / is true.

Your Mission (should you choose to accept it)

Certain fundamentals touch us so deeply that it's possible to sort the actions of humans (our own and those we observe around us) into two simple columns: Productive vs. Destructive.

Take, for example, the situation in Ukraine. Sometimes there's no better remedy for murky indecision than bombs falling all around you. I don't mean to compare the topic at hand to real life war and war crimes. But we can learn from the split-second decision-making we're now witnessing on a day to day basis. There are no guarantees that the road uphill will take us to safety but choosing a road and following it always beats staying in bed and fretting.

I don't know how exactly it came to pass but somehow over the past 25 years or so the American playwright has been tamed into believing she is wholly operating at the mercy of an elite and opaque cabal of gatekeepers who will decide what is and what is not worthy.

I am here to tell you that this is one of the most dangerous and destructive transformations ever to have overrun an entire art form: theatre.

And American Theatre (Yes indeed, with a capital A and T!) will continue to circle the drain of disposable fungible ephemera until the people who write for the stage stop playing the part of humble servants and instead learn to embrace the responsibility that comes from being the wellspring of everything else.

That's right. It all begins with you, the writer. And until you accept responsibility for the role you play in shaping the future of our theatre we will continue to face ever dwindling interest from a distracted and ambivalent audience.

It's not easy to acknowledge our power. But we must.

What makes so many writers feel powerless?

This one's personal. Some1Speaking tonight.

In November 2020 one of the most important people in my life finally lost what had been an incredible 11-year battle with Stage IV Ovarian Cancer. At the time of her initial diagnosis one of the docs she consulted urged her to "get your affairs in order. I give you six weeks."

And so I've been remembering things I either overheard or that she confided in me about various battles she fought and have been turning them into monologues. Jenny Bacon read one of the first ones at a Some1Speaking last year and I must admit that sometimes when I miss my friend just a little too much I head on over to Hear Me Out YouTube just to spend a few minutes with her words, her energy, her fire. 

I don't think I've ever quite had this kind of intense umbilical connection to a script of my own. The only thing that sort of comes close was when my play The Wreck Behind Us filled the upstairs space at the Duplex for a summer. The play explores the impact of the sudden death of actress wife and mother, a family I grew up with, the mother of my best friend growing up. I guess it felt like it was a tragedy I knew in my bones. I'll never forget how David's older brother came up to me at the end of a performance, shook my hand and suggested that I had given him an extra 30 minutes with his late mother. 

It's a strange thing for me now. In a way I feel I'm still having a relationship with her, although unfortunately her ability to surprise me has suddenly vanished.

If you're free tonight, please come by and check it out. The fabulous Marnie Andrews will be breathing life into the text. And for that I am already grateful beyond my own understanding.

House opens at 5:45PM which is when ticket sales stop. Some1Speaking usually runs about one hour from 6PM to 7PM and a ticket'll set you back $5.  Click here for tickets and more info.

The sign reads: Welcome. You are safe here.

When Ukrainian refugees first disembark into the train station in Przemysl, Poland, the first thing they see is a huge sign that reads:

WELCOME. YOU ARE SAFE HERE.

The sign is meant to be a comforting gesture of goodwill. And for the time being it most certainly is. But if the tragic history of Europe in the last century is any indication, safety will surely ebb and flow like the tides.

When my father was in medical school in the Polish city of Vilna, the rising specter of a Nazi-fied Germany was troubling but not an immediate threat. Then in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland and WWII could no longer be wished away, an unexpected thing happened to Vilna. 

It found itself suddenly the capitol of the newly independent neutral country of Lithuania. A kind of a trade off had occurred. Lithuania would be given its sovereignty and Hitler would be allowed to plow through the rest of Poland with impunity.

And suddenly Vilnius (as it was referred to in Lithuanian) found itself welcoming wave after wave of panicked Jews from Poland. They flooded into Lithuania because Lithuanian neutrality would protect them from Hitler's brutality. And they came to Vilnius referring to it as Vilna (its Polish name), perhaps also clinging to its informal nickname as "The Jerusalem of Lithuania."

In 2007 I had the rare opportunity to live and work in Vilnius for 3 months while assisting Edward Zwick in the production of the film adaptation of my mother's book, Defiance: The Story of the Largest Armed Rescue of Jews by Jews during WWII. My parents and sister Leora came to visit the set for a weekend. On my day off, Dad gave us a tour of the parts of the city that were still recognizable 70 years after he had volunteered as a waiter in the pop-up soup kitchen of the Jewish Relief Agency.

this Judy Grahn poem was our inspiration

foam on the rim of the glass
another wave breaking

foam on the rim of the glass
another wave breaking
she once wanted to be a sailor

now she sits at the bar, drinking
like a sailor

 

rolandtec · 05 Sailor Song

Delightfully surprising documentary on a much misunderstood figure

David Geffen is so maligned. And there's so much more to him than meets the eye. I highly recommend this documentary which opened my eyes to the depth and breadth of his contributions. Too often in this culture we have a knee-jerk negative reaction to bald ambition and ego. But consider what this larger than life figure has managed to do for the culture. It's inspiring.

All these years of accomplishments under my belt and still can't stop humming that familiar tune of self-denial

The other day I hosted the first session of Demystifying the 10-min. Play with Gary Garrison, in which 12 scriptwriters (and me) get to learn the essentials of the craft of writing the 10-min play from my friend and colleague Gary, who happens to be the authority on this form. The workshop is turning out to be even more fascinating and eye-opening than I imagined and I'm confident we'll all come out the other end much better craftspeople. Remember. The word is playwright, not playwrite, for a reason. Plays are wrought. With much blood, sweat and tears along the way. That is one key to their unique alchemy.

But I digress. 

What I wanted to address in this post is my annoying and sad little habit of reflexively retreating to self-denial in the face of praise.

Jean-Paul Yovanoff Interviews me for the BE OUR GUEST show on Musical Theatre Radio

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Jean-Paul Yovanoff to talk about my approach to teaching, my philosophy about the performing arts and a whole lot more. I had such fun talking with Jean-Paul for his podcast BE OUR GUEST. I wanted to share the interview with you all here. 

 

Curiosity about the work of others is the most undervalued commodity. Cultivate it in yourself.

Many years ago in a not-so-distant century (the 20th) in a not-so-distant city (Boston), I was in a writers group. There was a core group of about 10-12 members. We each paid dues to rent a space where twice a month we met to read and hear each other's work. Most of us were playwrights and so when scripts called for many roles, we brought our bestie actors in to help bring pages to life. 

Now if you've ever been in a writers group you know that 10-12 members means that no one member will be hearing work of their own every single time. By definition, each member is more likely to get a turn at bat ever third or fourth meeting. 

About six months in, I couldn't help but notice that a certain member writer seemed conspicuously absent on days when his work was not being read. Then, when his new pages appeared on the calendar -- surprise! -- he'd somehow managed to rearrange his busy busy busy schedule to join us.

I'll call him Bigby.

I'm here to tell you this once and for all.

Whatever you do in life, do yourself a favor and make sure you never become a Bigby.

Bigby is an asshole because Bigby has joined a writers group. But he has done so dishonestly. Because a writers group is by definition built on one core principal: that writers can support one another with their eyes, ears and minds. By not showing up on nights when he's not going to hear his own work, Bigby offends us doubly: First, by dressing himself up in the accoutrements of mutual support without really walking the walk and Second, by abstaining from his obligation to actually do some work for fellow artists. What work am I referring to? The work of sitting and listening and offering your honest feedback.

The problem is, without honest curiosity about the work of others, you are doomed to a life as a Bigby. 

What Bigby didn't understand but you and I do, is that in the end the artist who shuts out the work of others is slowly tamping down the tap of his own creative well. 

So, more than 25 years later, I can report with certainty (and no small measure of glee) that the Bigby stopped writing and is currently employed as a part-time donut frier in South Boston. 

Well, okay, I maybe made up that last bit about the donut frying but none of the writers I know have heard from him since the Clinton administration.

Whenever you get up and out to sit and observe the work of someone else and then offer your honest thoughtful feedback, you are doing a bunch of things that matter so much to how your own creative life is going to endure.

1. You are building a little bridge between yourself and another equally frightened artist who needs you.
2. You are taking a much-needed break from worry and fretting and tinkering with your own stuff. 
3. You are gaining a little more perspective on a landscape we can't possibly live long enough to wholly fathom. (the theatrical landscape of new work)

Note to Hollywood: Your rush to in-theatres-only releases is going to bite you in the ass.

It is absolutely unconscionable how many films are currently only available in theatres. Hey, idiots! You may wish the pandemic were over but it ain't and rushing right back to pre-pandemic marketing axioms like release one platform at a time is only going to win you more irate customers.

After spending the better part of two years at home alone only to have had maybe two months during which we were dipping our toes back into the waters of "normal life" to now find ourselves home alone during the fourth CoVid wave without access to the latest titles is pretty fucking irritating.

And have you seen this annoying PSA by the cast of House of Gucci? Could this be more tone-deaf to the current cultural moment?

On Friendships: Are you a Gardener or a Discarder?

The pandemic has, I think, begun to teach us all to see our lives with fresh eyes. Patterns we'd acquired or developed over time were suddenly interrupted and--lo and behold!--hamster off the wheel has a different view of the wheel.

I have noted with a variety of emotions--some sadness, some wonder, a lot of curiosity--how some of my relationships have endured, others have morphed into something altogether new while one or two have simply died.

I wonder about that. What is it that makes some relationships evolve within new and challenging environment while others disappear?

I think in large part it's all a matter of how we see ourselves in relation to other human beings.

I think when it comes to friendships and most other meaningful relationships, there are two types of participants: Gardeners and Discarders.

Gardeners see themselves as fully autonomous contributors to every relationship they're in. The Gardener sees each relationship as something she is helping to build and so it is something she can alter should the need arise. If a problem arises in a friendship, the Gardener's first inclination is to ask: What can I do to fix this?

Discarders see themselves as victims of circumstance and if a problem arises in a friendship, they tend to see the source of the discomfort as external and potentially dangerous and will look for ways to free themselves of whatever outside force they imagine to be causing them harm. Discarders do not build their relationships (at least not consciously anyway). They are controlled by them. 

The Discarder's most common fallback question is: Why me?

The Gardener's is: What am I going to do?

Recently, I was left by a Discarder. We'd been friends for nearly 20 years. Every 1-2 years our friendship would hit a crisis point and we'd not speak to each other for 3-6 months.

Still Fighting My Most Unhelpful Inner Skeptics

So I started working on a new play not so long ago and decided to gather some of my favorite members of the RT Inner Circle to hear me give it a read and see what's what. It's a solo Zoom play and for now at least, while I figure out what shape I want it to take, I'm reading/performing it myself.  Because the play is a kind of response to the January 6th Insurrection I had the inspired idea to schedule its first reading for 1PM, Thursday January 6th, exactly one year to the hour when the angry mob breached the Capitol. 

On Monday, riding a wave of confidence after a particularly good day of writing, I hit SEND on an email to the Inner Circle inviting folks to preregister for the private Zoom meeting which I decided to frame as a lunchtime first read. Within less than 24 hours I heard from a significant number of folks begging me to pick another day due to various prior commitments, many related directly to efforts to mark the historic anniversary.

As often happens with me, on the first whiff of complaint hitting my InBox I began to consider moving the date. And I fell right into seriously unproductive self talk along the lines of:

What were you thinking?

Who do you think you are offering people barely enough lead time?

Could you possibly have handled this any more poorly?

And those thoughts quickly morphed into:

What do you think is so great about this piece anyway? 

If it possibly just belongs in a drawer you might be better off saving yourself the humiliation. 

Maybe its best you cancel the thing entirely.

I got myself so tied up in knots over it that the only thing I became certain of was that with each passing hour, there was little to no chance in hell I was going to be able to perform the thing. 

I wrote an email apologizing for the inconvenience and letting folks know I'd be looking for a better date since so many had complained about the inconvenience of January 6th.

Almost within minutes of my hitting SEND on the correction about 10 people emailed asking if it was too late to register for Thursday's play reading.

Arrgh! I wanted to scream. But instead of screaming I let the anger and frustration turn inward as I told myself I must really be wearing out my welcome with members of the RT Inner Circle. 

I was just about to move the date  to January 18 or 19 when Suzanne, my director, asked if I really wanted to start something new with Mercury in retrograde. 

Without really quite knowing what that meant, I heeded her advice and picked Monday February 7th also at 1PM, EST. 

And now, looking at my calendar recognizing that I have just stumbled into 3 weeks of extra lead time, I find myself having to consciously resist with every fibre of my being the urge to trash the whole thing and start the play over from page 1.

However I will say this: I had the main character's journey moving in one shape and as of this writing I decided that he needs to end the hour in a completely different emotional and moral position than what I'd originally mapped out for him.

So, I suppose if I end up pleased with this absolutely fundamental revision to the piece I will only have one person to thank: my deeply neurotic and fearful inner child.

Any writer who's taken one of my workshops knows how relentless I can be in reminding anyone who'll listen to please never make the mistake of stopping the initial writing of a first draft to consider the first few pages.  And, like an idiot, I recently did that before I had properly fleshed out the last scene of the play. So I am here to fess up to the magnetic power of this, to acknowledge just how tempting it can be to stop, turn to page 1 and take stock of what we've got so far. 

The moment I noticed that I had sort of started to do this on this play, I really had to make a conscious effort to very intentionally write my way free of that burden. How did I manage to write and escape the crushing silence of having just taken a peek under the hood of scene one?

I told myself I had to write at least two completely different paths to the finish line. And by doing so, by giving myself an assignment that contained within it the absolute certainty that at least one of my solutions would end up tossed into the circular file, I was able to shrug off the crushing burden of wanting desperately to insure that whatever I might be creating would eventually find its way to absolute brilliance.

There is no greater enemy to a writer's creativity and productivity than the determination that for whatever ego reason, this piece you're working on must be brilliant. Once I tell myself I'm just playing with ideas, just writing something cause I want to have it laid out. Period. Then the real work can begin. And it happens in my peripheral vision when it might seem as though no one at all is even looking. 

If you're wishing you could join us Feb 7th to hear this first draft of a play I'm tentatively calling Now is the Time For All Good Men to Rise to the Aid of Their Country, you should join the RT Inner Circle. It's free and painless and you may unsubscribe whenever you like. 

In workshop, as I turn my laser focus to helping solve something in YOUR work, my own pathway to fixing MY WORK starts to take shape.