playwriting

Entropy is Not Your Friend

/ Steve Patterson / Leave a comment

The following is from a post I made on the blog of a playwriting group I belong to. Thought I’d toss this out to get feedback from you writers/artists out there. I think it’s also preying on my mind since, having purchased that fabu, lab-quality Canon printer, I’m thinking more and more about selling photographs, and I need to figure out a few strategies to track inquiries, submissions, and (maybe) sales.

Or maybe it’s one of those ugly signs that I’m growing up. God. I hope not.

Steve

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Having recently spent a whole weekend looking for a packet of research materials (which I never could find), I kind of went: “This is ridiculous…this office looks like a grenade went off in here.”

I know the adage that ‘creative people are rarely tidy’ (a journalist friend of mine used to have that tacked up over his kitchen sink), but there’s a certain point where entropy starts to take over and screw you up, particularly when it comes to keeping track of submissions and deadlines. So I’m planning to revamp my files so each play has its own Pendaflex hanging folder, and within each of those folders are three- or five-tab manilla folders for:

1. The script.
2. The synopsis.
3. Samples (for query submissions).
4. Reviews/press/photos.
5. Correspondence.
6. Info on possible markets.
7. A CD with files for electronic submissions.

I already track my submissions using an Excel spreadsheet (though it’s hard to keep it updated), but I need to do something more detailed, especially since more and more I’m taking advantage of electronic submission opportunities. Outside of a plain old calendar, I still haven’t quite figured a way to anticipate submission deadlines for stuff like festivals and contests.

Anyway, I thought I’d toss this topic out for discussion, partly to see if anyone has tips or suggestions or if anyone wants to talk about how they approach the business/submission end of playwriting/art.

Advice to the Budding Playwright

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Over on the playsandplaywrights listserv, playwrights have been debating endlessly the importance of stage directions (hint: your director will just cross them out anyway). Folks have been taking this very seriously, so I thought I would drop in my two cents, drawn from years of expreience as a mature playwright. To wit:

Once they have a contract signed, writers should always feel free to insert extraneous stuff into their works, just to see if the director’s paying attention. Ask for “a flying electric Lynx” or insist there be extras in black who briefly wield automatic weapons (that fire blanks) for no apparent reason, then are never seen again. Particularly if you’ve written a heavy drama or a frothy comedy. There’s no reason to do so except to cause the director anxiety. They’ll either figure out a way to do it and be beside themselves with joy or they’ll break down just before opening and admit that there’s no way to pull off what you want. Either way, at that point the proper response is: “Eh, whatever. I don’t know what I was thinking. Forget it.”

Also, if you have a really funny or heavy scene, just before its climax, insert a meaningless acting direction in capitals. (GRIMLY AND WITH FORETHOUGHT!) or (THE MOST IMPORTANT WORDS OF THE SECOND HALF OF YOUR LIFE!) or (WITH VAGUE APPREHENSION AND LEVITY!) The purpose of this is not to help your actor but simply to cause trouble. Wait until this causes great consternation and then go, “Shit. Did I leave that in there? Nevermind.”

Finally, if you really want to endear yourself to the cast and crew, two days before opening, tell the stage manager (not the director) you expect to finish the rewrites that evening.

The technical term for this is “being eccentric” (though others will call it “being a holy pain in the ass”), and it’s of no purpose other than your own entertainment. Don’t take it too far and bring a large flightless bird to opening. Unless they’re papering the house.

Steve

P.S.: One thing I forgot to mention. Whenever the director calls 10 for a break, the playwright should jump up and yell “Sexytime!” and run from the room.

Roots

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Until this winter, I hadn’t worked as a producer since 2003, when Pavement Productions, my little indie production company, staged my play “Altered States of America.” We were still riding high from producing a hit–“Delusion of Darkness”–and figured we’d kill, we had a good rep with the critics, we were doing a big “important” show dealing with big “important” topics.

And we died. Critical reaction was lukewarm. Audiences were small. A couple times we cancelled shows because the cast outnumbered the audience (learned my lesson there–we run even if we’re empty to keep the chops up). There were a multitude of reasons the show failed, none of them artistic, which just kills your soul more than doing a show that sucks. I’d go home each night and listen to “Wild Horses” over and over until I was exhausted enough to sleep. At the end of the run, for the first time working as a producer, I couldn’t pay my cast or reimburse my backer. It was no fun. (“Altered States of America” went on to be a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, so there was some vindication there, but it was bittersweet.)

So I hung up my producer hat, not really knowing if I’d ever wear it again, but I ended up taking it off the shelf because the time was right, the situation right, I had the right collaborators, and because of the reason I got into the theatre in the first place: there was a show I wanted to see done and no one else in town would do it (for plenty of good reasons that had nothing to do with the piece). So we did “Dead of Winter” on a small scale, at the right ticket prices, and we did very well, sold out a bunch of nights, spent some wonderful theatre time together with a sweet little theatre family, and, indeed, had a bucketful of fun.

I was going through my archives this weekend, trying to find some documents, and it certainly didn’t feel like 17 years of work, the impressions and memories of productions back to the beginning still vibrant. And it struck me, having now been produced in theatres big and small, with padded seats and metal folding chairs, with state-of-art instruments and clip lights, that what theatre really comes down to is a one-to-one transaction between production and audience member. Whether you’re getting a nice paycheck or you’re writing the checks, what matters is the transmission. And that can happen in a fantastic performing arts center with a carpeted lobby and brass water fountains or it can happen in a tiny dance studio around the corner from a barbeque bikers joint. It can be a big weighty drama that burns the audience down or fun, entertaining stories. What matters is the experience. The relationship. It’s intimate and intense, and it’s different every time. And then it’s gone. Over. Never to be repeated the same way. You give it life then let it go.

I like having my work staged in big professional theatres, and I like getting a check and not having to be anything but the playwright (like that isn’t enough work). But it’s good to go back to the place you started because it reminds you why you began, why you’ve kept at it, what it’s all about.

What is it all about? Well, hell, if you could name it, you wouldn’t have to do it.

The Casket Opens….

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Pretty blown out–this’ll be short, but Dead of Winter opened very successfully last night to a sold-out house and a very enthusiastic audience. All the cast and crew really pulled amazing things together this week–I remain in awe of all that actors and techs do and the elegant solutions designers come up with for problems that leave me clueless. (Though having been a producer for quite awhile, I occasionally resolve an issue or two.)

From a playwright’s point of view, it’s extremely satisfying to watch a play connect with the audience, to feel them leaning in, drawn by the story. And, in the case of this show, occasionally shrink back. It tells me the stories are solid and engaging.

And fun. You get so damned wrapped up in details that it isn’t until opening night that you remember what you enjoyed about writing the pieces and the enthusiastic response the piece originally prompted from your actors.

This journey began on a beautiful summery day, sitting in a coffeehouse garden and knocking ideas around with my partners in Pavement Productions and my new co-conspirators, The Bluestockings, and it took me to a literally dark and stormy night, with a full capacity crowd and extended applause.

Doesn’t get better than that.

Pre-Production Fever

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One week out from Dead of Winter, and that weird, rising feeling of anticipation keeps crawling up my neck and taking me by surprise. I’ll be having a conversation with an ordinary (non-theatre) human being, and suddenly I’ll be in a darkened theatre, watching light cues to be. Or I’ll be taken by a sudden panic: whose bio do I still need? Did I forget any props? What about…?

What about everything, pretty much. Tomorrow we move into the space, build a set, hang lights and sound tech, and pretty much enact all the planning, e-mails, telephone calls, notes scribbled on Post-Its, intentions, visions, and compromises production entails. The funny part is just about the time you’re feeling the most tired, the production begins to feed you back. You give to it, it gives to you. The thrill of realization, of an idea in your head becoming reality (or at least theatrical reality).

It’s a strange moment, speaking as a writer. Because, once upon a time, you sat by yourself (or, often in my case writing in coffeehouses, in the company of strangers), and this dream, these series of images, these voices, came to you, and you wrote them down. You experienced them along with the characters. And then time passes for the fever to subside, and you look at the script again with a little distance. You can still feel the place it came from, but you can also be a bit more objective, and you begin to fix mistakes, clarify, shape. Then you begin the long process of sharing it with others, taking in their impressions, and adjusting further.

Finally, you give it to a director, actors, and techs, and the process sort of reverses. From text on a page, distilled from the mind’s images, images begin to take shape in real time. It’s like watching your own dream come to life and immerse you. It can let you down, but it can also sweep you away, your eye and mind synching up into a hyperreality that leaves you high.

We’re not quite there yet, but we’re getting there. We are indeed getting there.

One week to launch.

SP

P.S.: Check out the Dead of Winter video teaser at The Bluestockings and, if you like what you see (and/or it unnerves you), please pass on the link. You can, of course, buy tickets there too.

Just Plain Dead

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There is no fatigue like theatre fatigue.

It’s like getting caught in a riptide. At night. In cold water. You just have to ride it and hope you’ll stay afloat until it lets go of you, and you can drift back to shore, which, depending on the show, will be opening or closing night.

Which is to say, I’m deep in the wild of rehearsals, press, phone calls, e-mails, and errands for Dead of Winter and, actually, having an absolutely wonderful time. (Only people who have been there understand the pleasure of hearing themselves say, “Do we have enough gels?”) If you don’t fight the riptide, you can enjoy the ride…like you can enjoy riding a motorcycle on wet pavement. It’s still tough, tiring work, but it has its pleasures, and one of those is watching the play (or plays, in this case) take shape, rolling into focus, the actors taking your words and building people out of them. I’ve been doing this for…for some time, let’s say, and I still marvel at images and sounds swirling around my head ending up as words on a page, then becoming characters who you care about, hate, laugh at, or, in the case of these ghost stories, creep the hell out of you. It’s seriously weird to be watching something I wrote and feeling the hair rise on my arms. At one point, if anyone had been looking at me instead of the actors, I probably would have seemed stricken because I was pretty much thinking: Jesus, what kind of sick bastard wrote this?

All good signs, but I’m way too close to it to judge. I do marvel, however, at the director’s craft, which makes all these various elements somehow come together. I have an idea how it works and I’ve directed a time or two, but it’s just fascinating to watch someone who knows what she’s doing (in this case, Lisa Abbott) make it synch up, connect, and work. I can roughly imagine how it’ll look, sound, and feel, but the director knows, and she’s shaping the clay in four dimensions. It’s amazing.

And I know my company, Pavement Productions, is the co-producer (with Portland’s The Bluestockings), but damn if this thing doesn’t feel like it has potential. The actors are working like hell, the designers are coming up with great stuff, and, well, I’ve said my piece about the director. When all the elements come together….

Though it sounds like a cliche, given that these are plays about ghosts, it feels like there’s something spooky going on here. Some kind of…voodoo. And that’s what theatre’s all about.

Now if I can just keep my head above water.

Nineteen days to go….

The Long Fade

/ Steve Patterson / 5 Comments

The other day, I heard myself ask another theatre practitioner, “So how many dimmer packs do you guys have?” And it kind of struck me what an utterly obscure question that is to the majority of people. “Uh, you mean a dimmer switch?” Kind of. I’m not even a lighting guy. I’ve hung a few lamps, moved some barn doors around, but the whole of black cables and gel combinations remains some weird alchemy to me.

But I do love the lights. When I go to someone else’s show, after I’ve finished checking out the program, I sometimes find myself looking at the grid and counting instruments, trying to figure what’s focused where. And I think that’s because I’m hooked on the fade. It’s just so damn beautiful when it’s done right. The way the color drains and carries your emotion from one place to another. And a perfect crossfade? It’ll sometimes take me right out of a play because I’ll be thinking: my God. Go back and do that again.

It’s curious because it relates to where you are when you write a play. Are you inside the characters, looking out, or are you among the audience, looking in? That shifts around for me. But when I write fade in the stage directions, I am most definitely in the audience, and I can feel those lights moving me.

A number of years ago, I saw a one-man show that had, at the end, the longest, most achingly beautiful fade I had ever seen. I mean, staging a fade that long was sheer nerve, somewhere between utter arrogance and genius. Here’s why: the piece was about a character with all these different opposing facets to his personality, and, as the light so slowly drained, the effect tired the viewer’s eye so it seemed that the actor’s face itself was shifting, rearranging itself, over and over. Forever changing without resolution, which was the point of the piece. What else so reflects the human condition but unstoppable change? Yet the act itself, essentially just slowly turning off a light, was so simple.

That image is still in my mind’s eye. It’s still changing. And so am I.

Gore-Tex Dreams

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Traditionally—and who knows if tradition applies to weather anymore—the Northwest rainy season begins on Halloween night and ends April 15th. Oregon children trick-or-treat in Gore-Tex. That doesn’t mean it rains every single day, but…well, yes, it does.

And though it’s said true Oregonians don’t squint in the rain, the rainy season is really not all that much fun, and consecutive gray skies lend themselves to a certain introspection. Maybe that’s why so many Oregonians write. I knew a handsome old gent in Oregon logging country who said it was too risky to go to town because “there’s a widder behind every stump.” Much the same can be said of Northwest writers.

So it’s not surprising that we’re home to Powell’s Books, possibly the best independently owned bookstore in the U.S. (unlike The Strand, you can find things) or that winners of the Oregon Book Awards consistently produce work of such quality. But it may be surprising to know Portland is increasingly known as a home for new stage works. There are some very fine playwrights here—many of them are friends of mine—and artistic directors around the country are looking to Portland Center Stage’s JAW Playwrights Festival as a source for hot new plays and playwrights, with JAW plays and authors being picked up by the regional theatre circuit. My suspicion is that trend will not only continue but grow.

Another notable Portland characteristic, which I think fuels new work development, is that there’s a very strong DIY spirit here. Toss any three people together at a Portland coffeehouse—and we are rotten with coffeehouses—and you’ll end up with either a band, a restaurant, or, possibly, a theatre company. You can produce a play here for a fraction of what it costs elsewhere, and, if the local critics slaughter you, you don’t have to throw yourself in front of the MAX train—you just mope for awhile, listen to too much Elliott Smith, then begin writing again.

Oregon’s mountains, particularly the Coast Range, are unbelievably verdant, overflowing with life and pocketed with thickets rich with mood and mystery. If there’s a relationship between environment and psychology, perhaps it’s no surprise that Northwesterners inhabit equally complex inner worlds that sprout ideas the way fall rains breed mushrooms: overnight, whole landscapes change.

Guided by Voices

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No one asks me to teach playwriting. That’s probably because my academic credentials qualify me to shout rude questions at weary press secretaries, not misguide young minds. It’s just as well since my answer to inquiries such as “How do I get a play produced?” is “Write a good one.” That’ll be _________ dollars.

But if some misguided administrator actually asked me to teach a seminar or something, I guess I’d title it “Listening to Voices” simply because I know a play has a chance if I can hear the voices of distinctive characters.

That’s all a playwright has, really. You can develop any number of scenarios, but how those play out depend on what kind of people your characters are, and the only way you can tell them apart is by the way they speak. Suppose your character stows away aboard a spacecraft. You’re in for one kind of play if, when discovered, your character says:

Please, man, please. All I ever wanted to be was an astronaut. But everybody said I was, you know, stupid. I won’t touch anything. Honest.

As opposed to a character who says:

Well, hell, you found me. Guess we’re stuck with each other. Might well rock’n’roll. Have a snort. But be careful. I get stingy with my supplies when I get past the Van Allen belt.

Not that I’d recommend writing either play; we have too many spacecraft stowaway dramas as it is, right? It’s just that in a dialogue-driven medium such as theatre, voice is destiny. Once it was customary to refer to playwrights as the “gods of theatre” (and a lot of us are irritated about being demoted to “necessary evil” in some quarters), but the truth is we’ve always pretty much been stenographers to the unconscious.

Which is to say, at least for me, I don’t have the slightest idea where the voices come from. I can tell, however, when they aren’t cooperating because everyone ends up sounding the same. It’s one of the most common problems I see as a producer reading scripts; not only do the characters not have distinct personalities, but they’re not speaking to each other. Reading those plays is rather like getting cornered at a party by a monomaniac. Pretty soon, you can feel your smile muscles cramp as you glance at the clock or oh-so-casually look around from someone to rescue your ass.

A play’s a play, and an essay’s an essay.