Not Knowing How to Hide My Sources*

And how did my little play get selected?

The amazing woman who directed my play was on the selection committee and liked it a lot.  Part of her background is as a choreographer and she saw something in my script that I had not.  She picked my play.

The Out of Ink festival, that my play was a part of, has a very limited rehearsal schedule.  Four rehearsals of an hour and a half a piece, plus a tech rehearsal and a dress rehearsal.  The actors and directors and techs are paid, so they keep it tight.

The director and I met and talked before the first rehearsal.  She told me that the vision of the festival was to give the playwright the final decision about the elements of the play.

This was not my vision for what I wanted from this experience.

My mentor had given me a book, The Art of Dramatic Art by Theodore Shank.  The first four chapters (which is as far as I'd read by the time of the production) talked about the art that each member of a play brings to the collaboration.

That's what I wanted to experience, the collaboration.

During rehearsals, the director and the actors would add something or try something and turn to me to see if it was alright.  First, this was my first time at a rehearsal as a writer.  I was scared and uncertain.  Second, the actors and directors consistently had great ideas or great instincts.  Because of their ideas, my play became an wonderful chaotic dance.  They brought a physicality to the production that I had not imagined and it added so much to the piece.

I would like to publicly (as "public" as this blog is) thank the actors and directors for the creation they added to my creation.

But beyond that, the production of my play instantly changed the way I write.  I found my voice!  Those of you who are writers understand this and what a big deal this is.

Since the play closed less than a month ago, I have already written a new short one-act that incorporates much of what I learned from the good people who created the production of "Proclamation 4311."

I will write about that next week.


*adapted from Albert Einstein