The reading of a new play is our opportunity hear what has been inside our heads for months or years, even. I remember having a conversation years ago with a very successful TV writer who was hearing the first play he had ever written read out loud. The funny thing was that he had written this play as a writing sample, but he wasn't a playwright and he had never heard it out loud before. But by this time, he was probably a Supervising Producer...all on the strength of the writing of that play. But he wanted to see about getting it produced. So we did a table read.
He turned to me and said, "I can't believe you do this all of the time as a playwright. I get nervous when we do a table read of a TV script I've written." That struck me as incredibly odd at the time. Here was a rich, successful TV writer who hadn't been in the regular practice of hearing his work read out loud. As a playwright, that is par for the course. It's a job requirement--to sit through 90 minutes to two hours of a play in process being read out loud by actors you may or may not be too familiar with. And then to endure a "talk back", where audience members who may or may not be friends tell you what they think of your play.
Last night, I went to a play reading for my friend Larry. Larry and I have dubbed ourselves "wingmen" for the other. We are there to support each other in our writing and make sure that the other is working. We aren't writing partners because neither of us wants that from each other. But we're there to make sure the other one is constantly putting himself out there with extra guidance and support. So as Larry's wingman, I wanted to support him in this reading of a play he's been rewriting for about a year. I couldn't make it to the two previous readings of this play and admittedly, I had some guilt about that since Larry's been a good wingman to me.
I show up to the theatre where the reading is taking place. I get there about 7 minutes late because traffic was crap and parking in Los Feliz is nutty. By the time I actually make it to the theatre, the reading was just starting. I get to the "box office", which is just a cute guy standing trying to get people to make a "suggested donation." Okay, here's my thing about paying for readings...
I just don't get it. I'm a part of a group that does an annual festival of new play readings and we charge $5 bucks to cover the cost of the theatre and snacks that are complementary regardless of whether or not you pay the $5 bucks. Okay, I'm fine with that. But this theatre was suggesting levels (yes, I said levels) of admission of $15, $20 or $25 and they even had a credit card reader just in case you said, "I don't have any cash on me." Aside from feeling ripped off if I have to pay $15 for something with no production values and that's basically a tool to workshop a new play, I think it sets up an unfair expectation. I just paid $15 for something that better be fucking good and polished. But by its very nature, it's not. That's not the point. Larry's just working on his play and needs the time to figure things out without the pressure that he's got paying customers coming to see his work. I didn't pay. Not because I'm cheap, but because I didn't want to set an unfair expectation on this work.
I sit down and I'm watching the reading. The acting is great. Larry's a great writer, so its clever and witty. I have structural and character questions, but the process of rewriting is testing out new ideas and seeing what works. The reading is about 80 minutes, which is a good length.
Then we get a questionnaire. Larry decided that he wanted to get people's responses to questions that were unaffected by a group discussion. I respect that. He wanted folks to write down what they thought and to not be influenced by someone else's opinion. The questions were pretty straightforward:
- Which character(s) did you respond to?
- What questions did you have?
- Is there a point where you fell out of the play or it stopped grabbing your attention?
So we get a few minutes to answer the questionnaire and then the moderator starts asking for us to turn them in. I'm not done yet, so I keep writing. I thought we would hand in the questionnaires and go, in lieu of doing a group discussion. But then the group discussion began. Oy.
Here's where I expose my bias to talk backs. If I had my druthers, I would just give people my email address, tell them what I'm looking for feedback on and call it a night. I don't like sitting up there, listening to people pick apart my play while it's still fresh and tell me about the play that they would write if they had the idea for the play that I wrote. It's exhausting! And sometimes it's unnecessary.
Also, I like structure. So if I have to do a talk back, then I like to have a set of questions prepared that I ask the audience. I'm not a fan of writers who just say, "Oh, just give me your general thoughts." Because then I'm going to talk about your actress' hair. Or I'm going to talk about the tiniest pet peeves that really have nothing to do with reconstructing your play.
I also need a moderator who's there to protect me. I had a reading a couple of months ago on a play that was totally overwritten. I didn't prepare any questions because the moderator had a set of questions he wanted to ask as a part of the process:
- What's the story of your play?
- What's your play about?
Two questions. Which we answered in the first fifteen minutes of our discussion. That would have been perfect for me. Fifteen minutes in and done! But no! Then he opened it up for other questions. Wait! Hold up! I'm not prepared...oh, shit. Here we go. And then I felt like he didn't have my back. Because now I was being opened up to critiques that I didn't feel were helpful to the process as I understood it. I thought this reading was about articulating the story and the meaning of my play. And now I have someone telling me that my play made them frustrated. Then we started talking about certain racial overtones and "the other" and on and on and on. All good stuff, mind you. But I felt like I was standing under an avalanche.
The moderator for Larry's reading didn't protect him either in my opinion. It kind of was a free for all. And if the point was to get people's reactions in a pure form, this discussion disrupted all of that--even though he still had those questionnaires.
I also felt like the moderator didn't do a great job at explaining what the process was. He just launched into the question portion without giving us a context for the reading. It would have been helpful to know what Larry was addressing in this reading. It would have been helpful to know that the reading was the culmination of a year long development process where Larry had to pitch a new play to his writing group then write the play that came out of the pitching process.
Why the fuck are we pitching plays in the theatre? First of all, no one in the theatre has the same sort of pitching skills that folks have in Hollywood. There are plays that are written that are unpitchable. At least not pitchable in the same way that Hollywood blockbusters are pitchable. It seems like a really dumb, ill-informed, misguided way to develop a play. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!
Anyhoo...
It would have been helpful to know that in three weeks, Larry was having another reading of this play that would be a part of this process. But none of that was discussed, so all I got from the context of the discussion was that people have heard this play before and their notes were not addressed and they were going to make sure that they brought up that "last time I heard this play, I had the same questions." Irrelevant. Especially now knowing what his process was. Because then Larry had to say, I chose not to deal with that in this reading. And out of context, it sounds like, "I'm not listening to you" or "I'm not taking that note." So I felt the lack of structure really created a disadvantage for Larry.
It's hard to sit there and take notes. It's tempting to speak up and explain everything. There was even an audience member who then said, "I'd like to hear from Larry about what he intended..." At which point, the moderator should have said, "No!" or told Larry not to feel any pressure to respond.
Everything I learned about the way I like to hear notes and give notes came from the great theatre educator, Gary Garrison, a guy I worked for and took classes from when I was at NYU. The whole theatre universe knows Gary. He's an amazing guy and he's amazing that nurturing writers and supporting them. I was his assistant in graduate school and he taught me how to run discussions because sometimes I had to run them when he had a conflict. His method is one I use now when I teach because I think it's the most respectful to everyone involved.
The moderator for Larry's reading didn't protect him either in my opinion. It kind of was a free for all. And if the point was to get people's reactions in a pure form, this discussion disrupted all of that--even though he still had those questionnaires.
I also felt like the moderator didn't do a great job at explaining what the process was. He just launched into the question portion without giving us a context for the reading. It would have been helpful to know what Larry was addressing in this reading. It would have been helpful to know that the reading was the culmination of a year long development process where Larry had to pitch a new play to his writing group then write the play that came out of the pitching process.
Why the fuck are we pitching plays in the theatre? First of all, no one in the theatre has the same sort of pitching skills that folks have in Hollywood. There are plays that are written that are unpitchable. At least not pitchable in the same way that Hollywood blockbusters are pitchable. It seems like a really dumb, ill-informed, misguided way to develop a play. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!
Anyhoo...
It would have been helpful to know that in three weeks, Larry was having another reading of this play that would be a part of this process. But none of that was discussed, so all I got from the context of the discussion was that people have heard this play before and their notes were not addressed and they were going to make sure that they brought up that "last time I heard this play, I had the same questions." Irrelevant. Especially now knowing what his process was. Because then Larry had to say, I chose not to deal with that in this reading. And out of context, it sounds like, "I'm not listening to you" or "I'm not taking that note." So I felt the lack of structure really created a disadvantage for Larry.
It's hard to sit there and take notes. It's tempting to speak up and explain everything. There was even an audience member who then said, "I'd like to hear from Larry about what he intended..." At which point, the moderator should have said, "No!" or told Larry not to feel any pressure to respond.
Everything I learned about the way I like to hear notes and give notes came from the great theatre educator, Gary Garrison, a guy I worked for and took classes from when I was at NYU. The whole theatre universe knows Gary. He's an amazing guy and he's amazing that nurturing writers and supporting them. I was his assistant in graduate school and he taught me how to run discussions because sometimes I had to run them when he had a conflict. His method is one I use now when I teach because I think it's the most respectful to everyone involved.
- The playwright has to have questions. They can't just say, "Just whatever general impressions you have."
- The playwright has to take notes.
- The playwright can't talk.
- The discussion has to be about what you're seeing and hearing, not about what you wish was there.
- You can't rewrite someone's play for them.
- And it can't just be a blanket negative statement, "That sucks" or "That was not good" or "I didn't like it." You have to be constructive and support your criticism.
And G would step in and correct you if you weren't following the guidelines. Everyone had to be engaged in the process. I think some of these guidelines would have been helpful in the reading I saw over the weekend.
The first rule every moderator should bear in mind (which is inherent in G's guidelines):
Protect the Playwright.
Come on now, moderators! Get it together.
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