EXTRA CRITICUM

2021 Gratitude Roadtrip: Day Zero

Wednesday November 24, 2021

For as long as I can remember, travel of any kind has always caused me an unusually high level of anxiety. I fret over what to pack. Make lists. Worry that my lists are incomplete. And when it comes time to move from one environment to the next, my body kicks into overdrive and I start moving faster than anyone interested in not bumping into things should ever move. 

So, as I prepare to head out of my apartment, I'm a sweaty zig-zagging mess. Typically I lock the front door three or four times before I'm satisfied that I've not forgotten anything essential. And this is not related to my age. When I was 17 our senior Drama class took a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon and London to immerse ourselves in 10 plays in 7 days. I forgot my passport and had to shuttle from JFK to my childhood home in CT, missing our flight and meeting up with the group a day late. 

In an airport or a train station, I'm like a chipmunk checking and re-checking my ticket, water bottle, snacks, bathroom breaks, blah blah blah. And when the All Aboard announcement comes, watch out because I might just mow you down.

A friend of mine once suggested that my extreme freak-out around every transition from here to there can be traced to my mother's Holocaust experience which imprinted on her a simple equation: Packing up and moving = life-threatening danger. I find this theory of the case occasionally persuasive but usually it strikes me as just a little too obvious.

So, it might seem odd then that I've decided to spend the Thanksgiving holiday this year on the road.

Scriptwriters: Beware the confessional monologue.

 

 

Dave Frishberg dies and I miss Blossom Dearie all over again.

Dave Frishberg (Schoolhouse Rock) died the other day. And that sent me looking for video of Blossom Dearie singing some of his great hits like, My Attorney Bernie. Here she is singing Peel Me a Grape.

 

And while we're on the Blossom Dearie train, why not enjoy this brilliant song, not by Frishberg. This one's by Francesca Blumenthal.

My 2021 Gratitude Tour. Boston. NH. VT. Western Massachusetts.

Thanksgiving, 2021.  A largely-vaccinated public is slowly returning to life as it once was. Families all over the U.S. will be celebrating Thanksgiving as they used to -- gathered round the dining table passing the gravy and cranberry sauce enjoying the company of friends and family. 

But I will not. 

I'm not there yet. I'm still too anxious about CoVid to do that despite my booster. And so, I'm taking to the road and heading north to Boston, New Hampshire, Vermont and Western Massachusetts in pursuit of the one thing I most ache for: the company of dear friends.

To keep things absolutely safe I'll be meeting them for 30 min. walks outside. No indoor meals with anyone but myself. When I eat indoors it'll be takeout in my hotel room. But it's powerful to me, the idea that in a few short days I'll be reconnecting physically with some people who have meant the world to me.

In the end we are not what we eat. But we are who we love. Or that's how I see it. I hope you'll drop by. I'll be posting entries on my experience -- written and possibly a bit of vlogging as well. Please join me. And join the discussion by posting a comment.

A Black Teacher of White Children in 1954

I heard the amazing backstory for this poem The Children's Moon by Marilyn Nelson on Krista Tippett's NPR show, On Being. Give this a listen.

 

It's especially moving, I think, hearing (here), both the backstory behind the poem and then the stunning poem itself. 

 

 

PLAY AUDIO CLICK HERE FOR AUDIO

 

 

Marilyn Nelson's book Mrs. Nelson's Class includes the class picture of the 20 seventh graders her mother taught that year and poems written in their voices by a collection of Marilyn Neslon's poet friends. 

Get Outta the Road! You wanna get yourself killed?

It was a mild sunny early Summer day. As my friend David Heath took this picture of me (which I now use as the Roland Tec Inner Circle email banner) a woman walking by shouted that to me with great urgency. 

Get outta the road! You wanna get yourself killed?

I had just asked David to snap my pic. We'd been walking along one of the sleepy blocks around Yale in New Haven, CT, on our way from lunch to a favorite gelato spot. As soon as I saw the stencil along the edge of the sidewalk, I was in love. 

In love with the message.

In love with the image of some transgressive artist marking up the streets and sidewalks of New Haven with a message of peace.

In love with the alignment between this found moment and my overarching philosophy of how to be a creative person in this fractured world. 

And in love with the joy of sitting down on the street for no reason other than the wonder of stumbling upon something that inspires you.

Now that this image has morphed into a kind of logo for my brand, the shouted warnings of passersby take on new meaning.

Get Outta the Road! You wanna get yourself killed?

For anyone making their own way as an artist these days, the road can often feel treacherous. 

We might sit in the road of our careers waiting years for even a bicycle to ride by.

Or we might sit in the road and enjoy a steady flow of pedestrians and traffic coming this way.

Or--god forbid!--we may just have found a spot that suits us when around the bend--boom!--a delivery truck mows us down and we lose everything.

So I suppose you could choose not to get in the road, not to risk rejection, criticism, the disdain or derision of your peers. But I'm pretty sure that getting in the road, at least for a few minutes, beats the hell out of standing at a distance, safely protected from the potential danger of oncoming traffic, never having risked a thing. Until one day you die, never having even tried.

Take a seat. If you're uncomfortable, you can always get back up. But you'll go to your grave knowing that at least you gave it your all.

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.

 

 

Quiz: Name 3 or 4 musical or dramatic elements of this song that make it amazing.

Put your songwriting know-how to the test. Listen to this song 2 or 3 times and then either post a comment or shoot me an email with your thoughts on what might be a few of the most interesting, smart, special or unforgettable things about this song.

I happen to think it's a pretty wonderful song. 

What do you think?

And why do you think I love it so much? And am I right or am I wrong? Be opinionated!

Memo Roland vs. In-person Roland

Tomorrow Tammy Ryan and I have the first session of the 6-month Roland Tec Online Writing Workshop. Although I've been offering some form of this online workshop for scriptwriters all across the country for years, each time I find I need to slightly revise the rules of the road. 

And because experience has taught me that workshop participants need clear rules of engagement for the simple logistics I create documents with answers to questions like:

How many pages can I have read each time?

How do I offer feedback on other people's work?

When will my work get read?

etc. etc. etc.

And as I've been revising this year's documents to adjust for this new format -- this is the first time I've invited another writer to co-lead the workshop with me -- I've noticed something interesting.

I sound like a bit of a prig in my Rules Memos. And I've been told my in-person persona is pretty welcoming and upbeat.

Why is this?

I think it's cause my number one concern when running one of these workshops is:

Fairness

And I've had too much experience in the world watching pushy people elbow time and attention away from the shy among us and it really pisses me off.

So I've made a bunch of rules intended to protect the mild-mannered among us from bullying -- overt or inadvertent. 

And probably my tone in these memos reflects my fear of letting any one of the shy or less confident among us get railroaded.

So to all you who may be reading one of these memos tonight and wondering: What have I gotten myself into with this guy?

Please know this: I've got your back.

The Ebb and Flow of Full Days and Open Days

I'm just finishing up a 4-day run of almost back-to-back appointments, each day having been just a bit more fully booked than the last. And I've noticed a few things.

I have a natural resistance to tightly scheduled days. I find that when I have a day composed of 8 or more appointments, there's a part of me that starts to feel a bit stressed. The stress probably comes from the natural human tendency to arrive at any encounter with another human being (one that isn't our lover, brother or mother) with a touch of apprehension. Fear of the unknown. After all, we humans are reservoirs of the unexpected. Put two human beings in a room together and there's no predicting exactly how things will unfold.

So a day full of appointments can be stressful even if not on a purely conscious level. It can take its toll just beneath the surface.

And yet, I find, because at my core I do love other human beings and always emerge having learned something, if I power through, if I ride the waves from one to the next and the next that in the end I may be exhausted but I am inspired.

And that's when I think--especially for writers--it's essential that we schedule a day or two of space. Space in the calendar. Space in our heads. Space for quiet time with nothin' but me thoughts.

After a couple days in isolation with me and my inner voices, the next time I see another human being I arrive hungry. Hungry to absorb anything that isn't borne of my unconscious. Hungry for the unexpected unpredictable sound and fury of another human being with their own history, their own biases, their own passions and obsessions.

And it's off to the races again. 

When life's working, there's a natural ebb and flow to all of this. One that works well to support my own creativity and happiness. Sometimes it feels as though I'm forever tinkering to find just the right balance. But sometimes if feels like I'm almost there.

How 'bout you?

My Flip Phone Experiment

A few weeks ago, inspired by another smart phone failure, I decided to try a return to the flip phone.

 

Here's what I've noticed so far.

Day 1:

 

Day 5:

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.

Dear Radio, Television & Podcast Producers: Please take your jobs more seriously. Do the work.

It has become routine to see/hear/read an interview with the same book author/film director/songwriter etc. etc. on not one, not two, but 5-7 supposedly independent unique shows or columns. 

You know what I'm talking about.

Terry Gross will interview the author of X book.

Two days later I'm hearing Allison Stewart interview the same person.

Another day or two go by and--oh, look who's being interviewed again! (Will I learn something new this time?)

What does this tell us?

Producers of these shows are either lazy or underpaid/over-extended or both. 

The programming producers of radio, television and podcasts need to step it up a notch.

This is ridiculous. We live in a country with thousands and thousands of artists and projects and there is no reason (other than casual semi-conscious sleepwalking through your job descriptions) for us to be learning of 3 or 4 new projects when we could be discovering 40 or 50.

And while we're on the subject I would like to report that having just promoted a production of my own, I was repeatedly amazed at the degree to which coverage I read in newspapers or online sites simply repurposed entire paragraphs from our press releases with zero editorial input.

This is all yet more evidence of the fact that we have allowed our media outlets to be starved to near extinction.

What the hell are we prepared to do to save them?

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