 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
jump to:
statement of purpose
What is “work”?
“Work” includes, but is not limited to, the following: plays, music-plays, theatre experiments, scripts, films, screenplays, songs, fiction or nonfiction essays, performances, and performative events. I create new work when I write, produce, direct, choreograph, coordinate, perform, record, sing, dance, or whip up.
What is “the world”?
“The world” includes, but is not limited to, the following: anywhere outside my house, unless my house contains five (5) or more spectators who have arrived expressly to witness my work, such as at a staged reading or performance. I put my work out into the world when I produce, present, perform, or allow someone else to produce, present or perform my work in a public way for the benefit of an audience.
I have succeeded when my actions produce any of the following results:
I begin new work
I progress in the creation of new work
I complete new work
I engage with an audience via my work
I engage with collaborators via my work
I notify potential audiences and/or collaborators of my work’s existence
The eight elements I want in all my plays are:
Narrative. Not necessarily conventional or rational, but some thread that will lead us through the wilderness.
Surprises.
Intimacy.
Bold design.
Movement.
Music.
Full, inventive use of the space.
Satisfying resolution.
Here are my three core artistic values in order of importance:
- Honesty: Tell the truth.
- Responsibility: Use my powers for good.
- Accessibility: Make work for audiences that don't necessarily have advanced degrees in work-making.
things I like
I like theatre that is fun and smart. I like theatre that asks questions.
Art is all about questions. As an artist, my job is not to provide answers, but to ask questions and share my discoveries with my audience in hopes that they in turn will ask their own questions.
I write my plays for the Simpsons crowd.
I like Brecht. I like his theories and philosophies, I like how his theories are misinterpreted, and I like what a pompous badass he was. Even his rampant plagiarism now seems kind of cute.
I used to really like Artaud, but I’m over him.
I like Clifford Odets. I like the thought of riots in the theatre.
I write my plays for the people who, when they come to a production, whisper a secret prayer that this time, this time, their heart won’t be broken and their neck won’t be stiffened by induced catatonia.
More about the Simpsons crowd: they're really smart. And it's a mistake to underestimate them, just as it's a mistake to think we have to write our plays like TV in order to get to them. The Simpsons crowd knows all about metaphor and absurdism and theatricality. They'll go where we ask them to go as long as we don't bore them. That's the one snag: they're easily bored.
Here are words I like applied to my plays (reviewers, take note!).
Fantastical. Engaging. Dreamy. Chilling. Magical. Surprising. Resonant. Syntonic. Honest. True. Awesome. Electrifying.
A sample review could be, “Gogerty’s electrifying and magical new play, [INSERT PLAY HERE] was both fantastical and chilling, surprisingly resonant and engagingly honest to its dreamy, syntonic core. Truly awesome!”
I had breezily dismissed naturalism in the theatre as a dusty genre fit only for historians until I saw a breathtaking production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? last year. Now I’m maybe not so breezy.
Godspeed to the soldiers in the field! God’s blessing rain down on the practitioners! Let the universe rejoice for the unshakable faith of the crusaders!
theories about music on stage
2. Songs don’t lie. We accept music and songs (and singers) at face value because we know it’s virtually impossible to lie in a song without also revealing the lie. If a character sings, “I love you,” we buy it. We don’t question it. In Oklahoma!, Laurey and Curly sing, “People Will Say We’re In Love,” a laundry list of things the other mustn’t do to avoid the rumors that they’re a couple. Protest all they want, we know those crazy kids are goofy for each other from the first measure, because songs don’t lie.
Even ironic musicals like Chicago have trouble lying in song. In “Funny Honey,” Roxy espouses all the reasons she’s fond of her husband Amos. We know that normally Roxy doesn’t give two figs for Amos, but in that song, in that moment, she does. Why? Because he’s taking the rap for her crime. And then when he gets wise to her manipulations and rats her out mid-song, the music reflects and communicates her change of heart with perfect precision.
3. Songs propagate the paradox of the stage. Before I get into the paradox, let me define some terms. Webster’s defines “naturalism” this way: “Realism in art or literature; specifically: a theory in literature emphasizing scientific observation of life without idealization or the avoidance of the ugly.” This is the opposite of “theatricality,” which Webster’s defines as: “Of or relating to the theater or the presentation of plays; marked by pretense or artificiality of emotion; an extravagant display or exhibitionism.” So if a play is naturalistic, it feels like a straightforward representation of real life, and if a play is theatrical, it feels like an artificial representation of real life. I agree with this. Theatricality is inherently false. Therein lies its power.
Theatre is metaphor. Everything on stage is representative of something else. The power of theatre is the power of metaphor, which is the power of a lie that tells the truth. And the paradox of theatre is the more it lies (the more false, the more artificial, the more incredible), the greater its potential to tell truths.
People don’t burst into song in real life (at least, not with full orchestral support). It’s false, unrealistic, theatrical. It’s one of the most theatrical things an actor can do on a stage without the help of spectacle. Which is why it’s so compelling to watch, and why an audience is so willing to trust its honesty. Because a song distances us from the naturalism of a moment, it paradoxically draws us closer into that moment’s honesty and emotional reality. It’s an extremely powerful tool for theatre artists.
4. Sung text carries more weight than spoken text. If a character says, “I hate you,” and then sings, “I love you,” we’ll believe the song. Songs don’t lie; speeches are riddled with lies. So in terms of truth telling, of which conveyors an audience will believe, the formula breaks down like this:
sung text > spoken text
Anyone can lie in a speech, but somehow a song feels truer, more pure. Because:
5. Music carries tone, and we react to tone emotionally. Music (and I’m talking Western, popular forms – for theories on atonal experimental pieces, ask a music scholar) works like a fire wire cable: it plugs directly into the listener’s brain and conveys huge amounts of information very quickly. Music gives cues to the listener about how to feel, how to interpret images, what the lyrics mean, etc. On stage, music tells the audience, in no uncertain terms, what the tone of the play is.
Listen to “Hey, Big Spender” from Sweet Charity, and we know exactly how those taxi dancers feel about taxi dancing. The lyrics are lies (and we know they are lies – see above) and the music tells us the truth. They hate their jobs. And we sympathize with them for hating their jobs and also maybe respect them a little because they’re revealed to be con artists, and America loves a con artist.
(Aside: the first act of Sweet Charity is so brilliant and daring and thrilling in how it wrestles with thorny second wave feminism issues, and so in the second act, when the play is shoehorned into a love story, it’s one of the more disappointing missed opportunities in the history of the American musical. “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” is so resonant with rage and longing and frustration! But no: she really wants to settle down in a little house with Oscar. Bleah. End of aside.)
So now our formula is updated this way:
instrumental music > sung text > spoken text
Filmmakers have been using music to convey tone since the beginning: scary music, chipper music. In that first scene of Punch Drunk Love where Adam Sandler’s character discovers the harmonium, there’s no musical underscore at all, and it’s completely disturbing: is this a comedy? Is something bad going to happen? Tell us how to feel, P.T. Anderson! Which brings me to my last point:
6. Music is weirdly comforting. Even scary music is kind of comforting, because at least we know where we are tonally. As any Pinter scholar will attest, silence breeds tension. Music calms us, or at least gives us something to latch onto that we trust, that won’t betray us in the end (because music doesn’t lie), something that will lead us through the wilderness and deposit us on the other side, safe but maybe also, if we’re lucky, changed.
Conclusion: Who cares? Theatre artists should. We should take these ideas about music and use them, exploit them, in our plays. We should craft some experiments out of these theories by turning them inside out, applying them or undermining them as we see fit. We shouldn’t let “but then we have to pay a piano player to come to rehearsals” be the excuse that keeps us from embracing a fundamental and extremely powerful tool of theatricality. Sing out, Louise!
advice for new writers:
a playwright's rights & responsibilities in a development workshop
A development workshop is an extended chunk of rehearsal (say, a week or so) with actors and a director and a midwife where the purpose is to explore and discover exciting new resonances in your script. Its entire reason for existence is to help you, the writer, to more fully understand the metaphoric systems and story arcs in your play so that you can bring your work to a higher, cleaner, more whetted level. You do this through readings, discussions, improvisations, or whatever crazy exercises and tomfoolery you and your team can devise to shake out the truth and shake up your ideas. In this spirit, a play can benefit from a healthy development workshop at any number of points in its life. It's best not to have one too early in the process when your ideas are fragile and visceral and instinctive, but maybe after your third or fourth draft both you and your play might be hearty enough for a vigorous examination of its inner workings.
Does this mean a theatre will give you a professional development workshop after your third or fourth draft? No. It does not, unless your name is Susan-Lori Parks or Edward Albee. A professional development workshop is not actually a development workshop. It's a finishing school for plays. Theatres want plays that are eighty-five percent of the way there, and they will celebrate and (let's face it) take partial credit for helping you take it the rest of the way.
Only you know how to write your play. Other people may seem smarter or older or better looking or more heavily degreed, but when it comes to their well-meaning advice, they are only guessing. They have no idea. It’s your play. You write it.
If one of these well-meaning people ask you a question about why you wrote what you wrote, you have the right to say, “I don’t know.”
The more you can communicate and defend your reasoning to the fine people assembled to help you (director, dramaturg, actor, whomever), the stronger your play will be and the more useful you will find the development workshop. Therefore, it is your responsibility to be clear and specific about what you want.
No one can read your mind. Don’t assume your truths are self-evident, unless they are. The more you can articulate your gut impulses and instincts, the better these wise people can help you.
You are in charge because it’s your play. Everyone is assembled to help you. You are their leader – you set the tone and the pace and the schedule. The director may seem like the leader; this is a collective fiction designed for efficiency. If you want to see a scene done three different ways, fine. If you want a reading, great. If you want to cancel the reading, also fine. A word to the wise: if you can logically explain why you want these things so that you sound rational and not crazy, the others will applaud your maturity and your vision. If you can’t or don’t explain your reasoning, they may label you “difficult.” You have the right to be difficult – I don’t always recommend it, but you do have that right.
You are not your play. Others will – and must – critique your play in order to make it stronger. They are not criticizing you.
You must listen. Even if people tell you things you don’t want to hear or that you disagree with, you must listen with an open mind. You don’t have to follow their advice (in fact,sometimes you should throw it out the window), but you owe it to yourself to at least consider their point of view.
You can’t “fix” your play. Stop trying. You can only hope to make your play more purely itself.
These others are not your teachers or your parents – and even if they do happen to be your teachers or your parents – quit trying to please them. It can’t be done, and if pleasing them is your priority, you will lose sight of your play very quickly.
Everyone assembled is here to help you. Be sweet and thankful instead of defensive and mean. You can be sweet and thankful while still being empowered. In fact, you’ll probably be more empowered if you can talk about your play without getting all defensive and snippy.
You don’t have to have a talkback. After a public reading, you may welcome a talkback with the audience, but you don’t have to have one. And if you do choose to have one, you have the right and the responsibility to decide on what specifically you want feedback. They are here to help you. Help them help you.
The question is not, “Does it work?” The question is, “How does it work?”
If, during a public talkback, someone says something completely asinine, nod thoughtfully and write in your notebook, “What an ass.” Then go out for nachos and talk about that idiot who said that stupid thing. You could call them an ass to their face when they say that stupid thing at the talkback, but then people may not want to come to your public readings anymore.
on midwives
In America and if they’re lucky, playwrights take their plays through three distinct periods of growth – periods of gestation, if you will. The first gestation period is the writing of the thing. Then, the play enters the ambiguous “development” process. The final – and elusive – stage is the production of the work. Let’s call these stages the three trimesters. (I could argue that some plays go through a few other stages before they are forgotten: publication being an obvious one. But by that time, the playwright’s role is curtailed. The play is all grown up and must more or less fend for itself. The world may change, audiences will reinterpret the thing, it will grow more or less relevant, but the play stays fixed. Usually.)
The “play as baby” metaphor is not new. (Anne Lamott spends a paragraph or two discussing writing as birthing in her excellent book, Bird By Bird.) Nonetheless, I think it’s the best metaphor I can find to talk about the special and tricky relationship between writer and text. My plays are my children. They are from me and of me, but they are not me. I am ferociously protective of them, and I will submit them to rigorous scrutiny and occasional cruelty if I think it will help them become better. Even plays that have grown up, graduated, and moved out of the house still have a claim on my heart. And I catch myself staring out the window, mourning for those plays that miscarried and died, wondering what kind of life they could’ve had, what they might have achieved in this world.
Birth can go any number of ways. Through the centuries, women have been birthing babies in fields and caves and streams and with no drugs or forceps or stirrup tables. A woman’s body is designed to withstand the brutal punishment of childbearing. Women have a higher pain tolerance than men, not to mention a conveniently broad-set pelvis. (Aside: I recently discovered that pain tolerance actually has to do with factors unrelated to gender. But since that screws up my metaphor, I am disregarding that inconvenient fact for a broader truth.) Playwrights also must have a higher pain tolerance than other people. Hips are optional.
I think all theatre artists have a high pain tolerance. (Many theatregoers must also have a strong tolerance for pain to sit through some of these doozies we sometimes foist upon them, but I digress.) Take the actor: a brutal career. The actor’s pain, though, is like getting stabbed by a wild rhino while on the hunt. It’s vicious, it’s potentially deadly, it’s over quickly, and it takes an actor of incredible constitution to wake up the next morning, clutch his side, and go on to hunt the rhino again. After a few years of this, an actor may wake up one day and say, “Screw this! Hunt your own damn rhino. I’m going to write plays.”
But beware, actor! A playwright’s pain unfolds over hours, days, years. It comes in waves and takes many forms: nausea, cramping, anxiety, bloating, personal discomfort, wild fluctuations of mood and appetite, and capped by a prolonged and steady agony. There are no remedies for this pain, only methods to distract the mother: deep breathing, perhaps, or drugs. A playwright is committed to her pain indefinitely. The result – the child, the play, apple-cheeked and frolicking in the surf – is the reason and the reward.
And also, the mother is rarely alone. In the field, the cave, the stream, the hospital, the homeopathic whirlpool, the tribe does not abandon her. Someone else is there, mopping her brow and giving her a stick on which to bite down.
No, not the father. Please.
The midwife.
The midwife is crucial. The midwife is vital. The wrong midwife can bungle things terribly, but even so, nobody really wants to have a baby without one. Or they shouldn’t, anyway, if possible.
The midwife brings many advantages to the table. First, and most importantly, she’s not the one having the baby. Labor pains are not clouding her judgment. Also, she can see what’s going on down there much better than you can. You can only feel it out – this feels right, that feels wrong – but she can see when it’s crowning, if it’s facing the wrong way, whether or not the umbilical cord is threatening the baby’s first breath.
A good midwife has seen it all, knows all the herbs in the forest to aid the process along. Sometimes a midwife will have undergone special training; sometimes she will rely solely on her experience; sometimes, she’s as ignorant as you. But she’s there: her presence calms you, makes you feel less alone in this process. You still have to birth the baby. She can’t take your place. But she can help you immeasurably. She can hold your hand and order you to walk around for a while. A canny midwife can tell when it’s time to push and when it’s time to back off. She can put her ear to your belly, which you can’t do.
And – I’ll say it again – she’s not the one having the baby. When you’re all panicky and sweaty, she alone has the wisdom and presence of mind to give you what you need, whether it’s reassurance or a sobering analysis you don’t want to hear (“It’s not ready to come out yet” or, “It’s twins”).
The midwife is your best friend and ally when it comes to childbirth. The midwife (let’s hope) likes babies. She loves to help bring them forth into this world. She’s with you at all stages of the pregnancy and sometimes for a while after the baby is born, just to make sure everybody survived intact.
Okay, enough metaphor for the moment. Let’s talk nuts and bolts: the theatre midwife’s job description.
She must read your play. Start with your first draft. You can see why trust and mutual respect are so key. I’m talking about your very first finished draft – your first, incredibly stupid draft that starts on page one and goes until page The End. This is the draft she must read. (Don’t bother passing on scraps and scenes before you finish a draft – she can read those, if you simply have to share your writing, but she shouldn’t say a word about them except, “Great! Keep going!” It’s your job to write the draft, buddy, so write it.) And she has to read it with a completely open mind, with the understanding that by the time this baby gets to term, it may be a completely unrecognizable and complex organism. She should read the draft with the curiosity of an anthropologist, and with as little judgment as possible. (Here’s where having a midwife who actually likes both you and your writing comes in handy, because this draft is going to stink to high heaven, and if she doesn’t already have some tiny investment in your happiness, she may abandon the play as worthless after the first draft, leaving your ego crushed and broken like a dead pigeon on the highway.)
And after she’s read the draft, here’s the very first thing she should say:
“Congratulations! It’s great! Really, really exciting! And you finished a draft – that’s huge! Whoo!”
And after your ridiculously fragile and needy ego has been stroked sufficiently, she should say this:
“What do you need from me?”
Playwright, be specific. She cannot read your mind. Have a list of questions ready. This might be the place where you discuss what you’re trying to do, what you’re exploring, what are your fears and suspicions. It’s the start of your conversation that will last throughout the play’s development. Sometimes I’ll ask my midwife for her “general perception.” This is my highfalutin way of saying, “I don’t know what I want.”
The midwife may, at this point, want to offer prescriptive advice. The midwife may want to ‘fix’ your play by offering ‘ideas’ like, “I know! This character shouldn’t go to Denmark, he should start his own cobbler shop!” or, “Does he have to be a sex offender? What if he were a cat burglar?” The midwife may feel this type of advice is helpful. The playwright may think it’s helpful. Listen to me: it is not helpful. It is damaging. The second the midwife starts offering prescriptive advice a line is crossed. Now everybody’s writing the damn play, the playwright starts doubting her own judgment, the integrity of the thing is punctured, the process and product ceases to belong to the writer and that’s how Hollywood movies are made, and is that what you want? No. That way lies disaster, bleeding, and death.
Now, maybe, maybe, if the playwright and midwife are very close and the playwright is very secure and confident in her ability to tell the midwife to lovingly screw off if she has to, and maybe if they have a long enough history together and they’re three or four drafts into the play and if the playwright explicitly asks for it, maybe then the midwife can suggest a prescription. Maybe. But both parties have to tread delicately.
The midwife’s job is not to tell you what the play could be, what it should be, or what it must not be; her job is to tell you what it is. Dr. Suzan Zeder says we should ask not if a play is working, but rather how it works. That’s the midwife’s most important task, offering a sober analysis of what the hell is going on in your play. The midwife tells you straight if something is confusing or intriguing. The midwife can signal what parts of the play are zipping around the room and which parts are just lying there on the page, and maybe offer a guess as to why it’s just lying there (so valuable). The midwife can point the playwright to territory hinted at, but not yet fully explored in the script. The midwife can pick up the subliminal cues the playwright leaves in the text far more quickly than the playwright can. It’s like dream analysis. Conclusions that seem obvious in the morning are mysterious and elusive at night. And as long as the play is in development, the playwright is still dreaming.
Some people call midwives “dramaturgs.”
I don’t. The word ‘dramaturg’ sounds rather austere and scholarly, too austere and scholarly for the kind of bloodied intimacy I’m talking about here. A dramaturg – a stranger – is certainly looking out for the play, but a true midwife cares for the health of both mother and child.
A director can be a midwife. A director is preoccupied with the baby once it’s born, what he’s going to make the baby do or how he’s going to dress the baby up. And directors can be dangerous: their primary allegiance is not with you. They are beholden to other forces. If they don’t like the baby, if the baby doesn’t behave like he expects, a director might just abandon the baby. Stuff it down a garbage can at the prom and keep dancing. They won’t all do this, of course; some directors are excellent caregivers. I’m simply pointing out that directing a play and midwifing it are not the same thing at all, and can in fact stir opposing needs. A director’s job is to get a play in shape, on its feet, born and ready for the world, not to leave it stewing in the womb for another month or more because it’s not ready to come out yet. I don’t know how my midwife metaphor extends to the director; perhaps the director is the eager gym teacher at the town prep school. Or not.
I don’t think an actor can be a suitable midwife to a play if he’s acting in it. A designer, maybe. Another playwright might make a good midwife, as long as she’s not going into labor herself any time soon.
Above all, there must be trust. A midwife must be your partner, your sister, your equal. She must love you while holding you accountable, respect your process without revering it, trust your instincts while valuing her own. And the other way: your midwife is not your god or your teacher, she can be and will be wrong about some things, and as a playwright, you must always remember that out of the two of you, you’re the one having this baby. You cannot abjure your authority or your responsibility.
Your midwife is your colleague. Your midwife is your co-conspirator. I guess technically, your midwife doesn’t have to be your friend, but how can she not be, in the end? How can you create such a trusting, intimate, profound and revelatory relationship with someone you don’t like? I can’t imagine it.
Now, I’ve been throwing around the gendered pronouns a lot, referring to both the midwife and the playwright as a ‘she’. Just for the record: of course a man can be a midwife, or a playwright, or a firefighter, or a nail technician. Let us not discriminate against the poor men: they are already denied the privilege of being mothers in the literal sense; let’s not deny them the metaphorical chance to nurture.
At the end of the day, we theatre artists are making something complex, miraculous, and unique. It is a very long and laborious process, and anything we can do to increase our chances of coming through alive, we absolutely must do. As writers, we cannot quietly sit in our rooms, timidly puzzling out our scripts, and then meekly slip them under the door and hope somebody comes along, picks it up, and humors us with a production. Theatre is collaborative. It’s collaborative at the end, in production, and it is collaborative at the beginning, when a script is conceived. Writing, I’ll grant you, is a solitary act, but as playwrights we are more than writers. Our plays are not simply written; they are made, built, crafted, fashioned, wrought. And they are called into being intentionally for the purpose of interacting with others. The midwife is simply the earliest and most crucial artist invited into the playwright’s process.