Getting Started & Challenge #1
There's a whole lot to read here. Take your time.
O.K.: You’re hunkering down with your computer/pen and notepad, steaming cuppa joe/tea/something yummy at your side. Your home/coffee shop/office is quiet/loud enough to concentrate, there’s plenty of light to see by, your seat is comfy, and you’re set to write.
Now what?
What’s the STORY?? Neil LaBute’s recent off-Broadway hit, “Fat Pig,” is simply a boy-meets-girl plot (she just happens to be plus-size, and the love of his life); things get complicated when his coworkers find out about their tryst. Whose story is it, anyway? When? Where?
How basic is your plot, and does it need to be complex to get your main idea across?
Speaking of MAIN IDEAS... Usually, a play has a theme: an overarching idea that can be summarized in a sentence or two. Try to locate the theme of your story before digging in.
How HONEST can you be? An audience looks for a true representation of life on stage: this doesn’t necessarily mean a literal representation (think “Waiting for Godot”): we want real emotion, real conflict, real reaction, real words. If you’re not comfortable yet with your subject matter but it’s really pressing on your brain, try writing stream-of-consciousness, journal entries about it before shaping your play.
Who is your AUDIENCE? You may want to think twice before writing steamy, hot dialogue only to have it wind up for the folks at the nursing home. Where can you envision your play being performed, and who is listening--who do you WANT to listen to it?
What type of STAGE will this work on? Most plays are performed on the proscenium stage, but you may want your action to be seen from all sides (theater-in-the-round), or from three sides (thrust). Try to visualize this if you can, but remember that you can always revise the script later.
How much TIME do you need? Is your play worth 10 minutes (hot new genre!), a one-act, a three-act? How much action and conflict must build and resolve to carry out your idea? What can you cut? You don’t have to know...just try to think about the format once in a while.
C H A L L E N G E # 1: CREATE SOME CONFLICT!
Imagine two characters: “the first character wants something tangible [however significant]... from the second character. The second character wants something intangible (love, forgiveness, adulation) from the first. Be sure that neither character can get what they want, at least not easily.” Give your characters names and try to create a setting (even if its only noted in the stage directions.)
O.K.: You’re hunkering down with your computer/pen and notepad, steaming cuppa joe/tea/something yummy at your side. Your home/coffee shop/office is quiet/loud enough to concentrate, there’s plenty of light to see by, your seat is comfy, and you’re set to write.
Now what?
What’s the STORY?? Neil LaBute’s recent off-Broadway hit, “Fat Pig,” is simply a boy-meets-girl plot (she just happens to be plus-size, and the love of his life); things get complicated when his coworkers find out about their tryst. Whose story is it, anyway? When? Where?
How basic is your plot, and does it need to be complex to get your main idea across?
Speaking of MAIN IDEAS... Usually, a play has a theme: an overarching idea that can be summarized in a sentence or two. Try to locate the theme of your story before digging in.
How HONEST can you be? An audience looks for a true representation of life on stage: this doesn’t necessarily mean a literal representation (think “Waiting for Godot”): we want real emotion, real conflict, real reaction, real words. If you’re not comfortable yet with your subject matter but it’s really pressing on your brain, try writing stream-of-consciousness, journal entries about it before shaping your play.
Who is your AUDIENCE? You may want to think twice before writing steamy, hot dialogue only to have it wind up for the folks at the nursing home. Where can you envision your play being performed, and who is listening--who do you WANT to listen to it?
What type of STAGE will this work on? Most plays are performed on the proscenium stage, but you may want your action to be seen from all sides (theater-in-the-round), or from three sides (thrust). Try to visualize this if you can, but remember that you can always revise the script later.
How much TIME do you need? Is your play worth 10 minutes (hot new genre!), a one-act, a three-act? How much action and conflict must build and resolve to carry out your idea? What can you cut? You don’t have to know...just try to think about the format once in a while.
C H A L L E N G E # 1: CREATE SOME CONFLICT!
Imagine two characters: “the first character wants something tangible [however significant]... from the second character. The second character wants something intangible (love, forgiveness, adulation) from the first. Be sure that neither character can get what they want, at least not easily.” Give your characters names and try to create a setting (even if its only noted in the stage directions.)
-Stuart Spencer, 2002 (see below for full citation)
Keep your FORMAT simple!!!!! Look at the scripts you’ve read before, or those we’re looking at in class. Every playwright develops her/his own formatting style, but most often, scripts look like this:
MR. SMITH: All doctors are quacks. And all patients too. Only the Royal Navy is honest in England.
MRS. SMITH: But not sailors.
MR. SMITH: Naturally. [A pause. Still reading his paper:] Here’s a thing I don’t understand. In the newspaper they always give the age of deceased persons but never the age of the newly born. That doesn’t make sense.
MRS. SMITH: I never thought of that!
[Another moment of silence. The clock strikes seven times. Silence. The clock strikes three times. Silence. The clock doesn’t strike.]
Characters’ names, even in stage directions, are ALWAYS in CAPS.
Stage directions are always italicized, and often put in square brackets or parenthesis.
Make sure your name is on all of your work!!!
Good luck, and have fun!
Exercise #1 from Stuart Spencer’s Playwright’s Guidebook, Faber & Faber, NY: 2002.
posted by emmgee at 10:02 PM
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