This week, we had six visitors —
·
two recommended by one of last week’s attendees;
·
two who heard about the project through the
NYCPlaywrights blog;
·
one recommended by a colleague;
·
one acquaintance
Five identified as playwrights (one also as an aspiring dramaturg,
and another as a literary scholar), and one as an actor/producer.
I was leading it solo, although
Janice Paran (last week’s guest dramaturg) stopped by between appointments, and
again shared some of her insights. There were between one and four artists
present at any one time, all participating in the same discussion, which seemed
to work effectively. (If anyone who was present is reading this, and thinking
they would have preferred a different method—say, a sign-up sheet when they
arrived for one-on-one slots—I’d be happy to hear what their suggestions are,
and why.)
The artists’ questions included
some of the same ones from the previous week, among them, more about writing
personal statements. Does this mean organizations need to do a better job of
articulating what they’re looking for in these? Two weeks in, it’s become a
(surprising, to me) recurring theme. I expected to get questions about
submitting work to theaters and finding means to get your plays put on—which
did come up again. The actor/producer brought up a discussion about some of the
challenges inherent in producing world premieres, and we chatted about less
traditional forms of finding new work (than primarily through open or even
agent-only submissions) that could take particular advantage of her strengths
and goals.
One writer spoke of being
mid-process on a play in which he’s incorporating absurd elements, but which he
wants to remain emotionally accessible. We named other plays he could
reference which had accomplished that, and how getting into a room with actors
and directors (as he was about to) was probably the best way to address the
sorts of tonal questions he had—that rather than try to figure things out alone
at his computer, the next step would be to use the workshop process to explore.
Simply having those questions sounded like a great position for him to be in as
he was starting this next step.
A writer working on a two-character play talked about having
some trouble making it feel active. I mentioned the sorts of things I
would look for when reading a script (the general basics—want, conflict, and
change—and some things that tend to be challenging in extended two-character
dialogues, such as having the power dynamic regularly shift between characters).
He also asked for suggestions of other two-character plays to read, and
the group brainstormed a few.
Again, we didn’t use the time to read anyone’s play—nobody
seemed to come with that expectation, and as I mentioned in the last blog, I
feel that this project is better suited to other things.
I’m glad to be having this time weekly to hear what is on
the minds of a number of artists—including and in addition to their specific
projects—because it’s forcing me to think about how I engage with them, and how
effective or rightly-focused the things I’m doing that seem helpful to or
supportive of generative artists, really are. I keep jotting down notes for
this blog about what it’s making me think of, but I’m going to save any big
picture-drawing for later.
New location next week! We will be at the Chelsea Le Pain Quotidien, on Seventh Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets. I'll be sitting at the communal table with my iMac and a theater book (TBD) so you can easily find me. The basement theater space at The Drama Book Shop was a
short-term solution while we figured out how many people would be showing up; and
it seems our needs might be just a tad bigger than the main floor of the shop (which
was a potential long-term solution) could accommodate. But I couldn’t think of
a better birthplace for this project. If you didn’t know The Drama Book Shop
had a space for rent, and are on the lookout for one, stop by the shop and talk
to Ric about bookings. And please, if you haven’t already, let the staff know
how much your appreciate all they offer by shopping there, and clicking ‘Like’
on their Facebook page.
Take care,
Jeremy
No comments:
Post a Comment