In Process: I WANT IT

So I'm writing this new play called I Want It.  It's influenced by Altman films, my time at a major ad agency, basketball and being good.  In fact, one of the character's theme song could be "Being Good Isn't Good Enough" from Hallelujah, Baby.

Here's a great version of the song sung by Lea Michele as Rachel Berry from Glee.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjyfMydFlnY

At this point, I've written about twenty five exploratory pages of the play, which deal with the creation of an idea and how that idea gets exposed.  I have a 38 page (and counting) journal which I wrote during the process of putting this play idea together.  I'm doing some things differently this time around.  I'm letting the characters find the story.  I have an idea for some set ups, but I'm not committed to a specific plot.  I know things that I'd like to have happen, but this is not a strict story-based play.  It's an exploration of larger ideas and it shows that there are things in the world happening simultaneously that have an effect on each other.

That is where this play really borrows from the Altman and P.T. Anderson oeuvre.  Probably the biggest influence on me film wise with this play is The Company, which will get discussed in a future blog post.  It's Neve Campbell, the Joffrey Ballet Company and putting on a season of dance.  That's pretty much it.  And it's fascinating because it shows the characters and the setting in an authentic way. It doesn't try to overly dramatize what goes on.  It presents instead of guides.

This is a really different way for me to write a play.  The past few plays have been laid out pretty concretely plot wise.  And that's not just so I can tell a by-the-numbers type story.  I am just so insecure about story that I like to have the story laid out.  This is a play I'm deliberately writing without a plot.  I don't know if I'm writing a collection of scenes, things that need to happen.  Maybe I do need a little more structure.  But I do know the things that I want to have present in this play.

It's funny because as I look at what I'm writing, I realize how this play is such a collective of plays I've had ideas for in the past.  This is a case where I just wasn't ready or mature enough to write the play.  I think I had a play about Jesus that was about how people reacted to him when he came back for the Second Coming.  My friend Alanna and I had an idea for a show that followed a little boy from school on his way home and the adventures that happened.  I think the idea also had a component where a conversation would happen and then we could follow that conversation.  A little like Richard Linklater's Slacker.  These ideas stick with us.

I don't think I have a lot of writer's block (or writer's blockade) because I know that the idea will get stored somewhere if I don't use it.  Or the line I wrote that I'm absolutely in love with will find its way into something else.  I learned in grad school not to be too precious about my work.  I am used to starting over or throwing stuff away.  Most of the time I think it's easier.

I know I'm a writer and I'm supposed to be all about the words.  But to me, they're just words.  I have plenty of words in me.  It's not like Kabbalah or that Eddie Murphy movie A Thousand Words, says...I don't believe we have a finite of words.  I don't think that we use all of our words up and then we die.  At least if that's the case, I hope I have so many hundreds of billions of words left.  Maybe some of us get more words than others.

I'm trying to give myself liberty in this play.  And yet, as different as this process is, this play is like all of my plays.  It comes from a place of experience.  I worked at Wieden and Kennedy straight out of school and that experience has haunted me and stayed on me ever since.  Every play I've written comes from a place of personal experience.  I'm not the person who writes about something I've read about that's separate from my personal story.  I do lots of research for my plays, something I'm now totally in love with.  But I didn't always.  I thought my personal experience was enough.  I now know better.    I like to have help.

Okay, the intention of this entry was to talk about my process in writing this play. But I'm still in process and it's still new and there are things I just don't want to share.  But a lot of things influence me and go into these plays I write.  I'm in love with writing plays in a way I haven't been in a real long time.  Because even when they are hard and they kick my ass and they embarrass me, I love them.  I don't know what I'd do without them and I love giving birth to them and raising them well.