As mentioned on numerous occasions in this blog, patience isn't one of my strong points. This usually doesn't work in my favor especially when it comes to waiting for updates/news regarding the fate of my plays. Many of them took cyber trips to numerous geographical locations around the globe in the hope that they would see a stage but so far, no response one way or the other.
According to the various playwriting related sites where this topic is discussed and digested, this is not a good sign but perhaps no definitive decision has been made as to their stage-a-bility. At least that's what I tell myself.
There is a pattern as to my follow up process, which includes avowing to myself that I will wait to receive "the word."
"Gotta give it time," I tell myself. "People don't respond because you want them to. Your plays are among hundreds, maybe thousands, that are submitted with dreams of production."
Patience today, patience tomorrow, inevitably, and when experiencing a particularly discouraging "why do I bother" or "maybe my plays suck" period, a follow-up e-mail is sent out. Usually, the end result is no response followed by a period of "why didn't I wait."
Upon reflection, perhaps a follow-up questionnaire to the submitted theatres would facilitate the process. Something to the effect:
Dear blah-blah (insert theatre name/producer/to whom it may concern),
Recently, (insert date that play was submitted), you were the lucky recipient of my play, blah-blah (insert name of play).
It has been (number of days/weeks/months/years/who remembers) since there has been any updates as to whether said play strikes your fancy. Perhaps the lack of communication on your part is a result of (pick one) a) stunning dialogue requiring further thought b) seeking a period of time in which to program the play to optimize audience participation c) unable to open file.
When could a decision on its fate one way or the other be expected: a) days b) months c)years d) never (please circle one)
Yours forever in hope,
A. Playwright
It's worth a shot. Am I right?
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By: scriberess,
on 3/26/2015
Blog: A. PLAYWRIGHT'S RAMBLINGS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: play questionnaire, theatre, humor, play, show business, playwright, playwriting, stage, a. playwright's rambling, Add a tag
By: scriberess,
on 7/27/2014
Blog: A. PLAYWRIGHT'S RAMBLINGS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: playing cards, play development, writing, humor, characters, funny, play, playwright, playwriting, stage, Add a tag
CHARLENE
MITZI stands up with hands on hips, leans forward until her face is directly in front of Brenda
MITZI
Blog: Scribble Chicken! Art and Other Fun Stuff (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: illustrator, children, publisher, children's books, Illustration, animal, cute, dance, book, pet, pets, ballet, nature, outdoors, weird, painting, child, children's book, silly, grow, vintage, audience, stage, ferrets, ferret, outside, sign, performance, dancer, costume, publish, strange, growth, outdoor, Oil Style, perform, Add a tag
By: scriberess,
on 5/8/2012
Blog: A. PLAYWRIGHT'S RAMBLINGS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: story, editing, play, playwright, stage, BBC International Playwriting Competition 2012, "Neighbors" - play entry, Add a tag
SOME REVISIONS AND RE-THINKING REQUIRED
*UPDATE NUMBER 3
Last night and this morning I did some more editing on "Neighbors." Can't call it a play - yet - since it's still inthe revision stage. I've encountered a problem.
Having reached sixty pages, there is still no resolution. This makes me think as to whether there is a problem that can be resolved or whether there is a problem, period. It's obvious at this point that I'm going to have to do some major editing and change of direction. One of the characters may have to be eliminated since his contribution to the story line really isn't necessary. In other words - the story could survive without the character.
I've got a dramatic ending in mind but this can't be accomplished unless the story line is shortened somewhat, so it can play out. If I should go along with this, the female character would play a major role.
I'm also toying with the idea - strictly at the idea stage - of having something dramatic occur in the bar i.e. a hold-up...something. That means two possible endings. Perhaps one of the characters would save the life of the other, something totally out of character...
Lots of choices and directions to go and time is marching on. But am I?
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By: DIANE SMITH,
on 3/25/2012
Blog: DIANE SMITH: Illo Talk (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: mural, stage, garage, MDO board, Add a tag
...very carefully (and you park the car on the driveway)!
The panels are really heavy, so I won't be able to move them around without help. I've disabled the garage door opener and lined most of them up along the garage door. The 2 end panels are angled or turned along the side walls. Not the ideal, but I'll make it work.
 |
| Almost ready for the fun stuff! |
Ready to transfer the design, but until then, it will serve double-duty as a stage (show's over for her once the paints come out)!
By: Maryann Yin,
on 8/3/2011
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: stage, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, Cassian Elwes, John Gregory Dunne, Matt Palmieri, Michael Mailer, The Deer Park, film, Adaptation, Add a tag
In the 1980s, novelist Joan Didion collaborated with her late husband John Gregory Dunne on a script for Norman Mailer‘s novel, The Deer Park. The adaptation has collected dust ever since.
Now Mailer’s son, film producer Michael Mailer, wants to shoot the Didion-Dunne screenplay. According to The Daily, Mailer will collaborate with producers Cassian Elwes and Matt Palmieri on this project.
Here’s more from the article: “The Deer Park chronicles two romances during Hollywood’s Red Scare era. It was rejected as obscene by Mailer’s publisher in 1955.” Norman Mailer (pictured, via) adapted The Deer Park into a stage play. It opened off-broadway in 1967 and ran for 128 performances.
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By: Maryann Yin,
on 2/4/2011
Blog: Galley Cat (Mediabistro) (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: short stories, Adaptation, theater, Roald Dahl, stage, Jeremy Dyson, Polly Findlay, Tales of the Unexpected, Twisted Tales, West End, Add a tag
Five stories from Roald Dahl‘s Tales of the Unexpected have been adapted for the stage in the UK. On January 14th, Roald Dahl’s Twisted Tales opened for previews on the West End.
Jeremy Dyson wrote the script and Polly Findlay directed the play. The production website should be 14 or older since it is based on short stories with adult material.
Dahl first published the collection in 1979. The sixteen stories inspired a television series that lasted for nine seasons. The video embedded above features the show’s theme song. (Via the Daily Mail)
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By: Julio,
on 3/3/2010
Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Literature, Art, Philosophy, A-Featured, stage, Leisure, performance, Paul Woodruff, The Necessity of Theater, Add a tag
Julio Torres, Intern
Paul Woodruff is a professor of philosophy and classics at the
University of Texas at Austin. In his latest book, The Necessity of Theater, Woodruff articulates why we created theater, why we practice it, and above all, why we need it. Throughout book, poignant examples of our day to day need for watching and being watched are weaved in with cornerstones of our traditional definition of theater—football is compared to Hamlet, family weddings with Waiting for Godot. In the following excerpt, Woodruff picks apart the role of spatial definition in both traditional and day to day theater.
Why does theater need a measured space? In order to practice the art of theater successfully, some people must be watching the actions of others. Whether your job tonight is to watch or be watched, you need to know which job is yours; the watcher-watched distinction is essential to theater. We shall see that even this can break down at the end of a theater piece, with marvelous consequences. But one of those consequences is that the event is no longer theatrical. When no one is watching, it’s not theater; it has grown into something else. Marking off space in theater is a device for meeting the need to distinguish the watcher from the watched. In most traditions there is a circle or a stage or sanctuary or a playing field.
Plot measures time better than a clock does, but what could measure space? This is a hard question, because theater space seems to be much more elastic than theater time, and nothing serves the function of plot to give space a structure that is comparable to the beginning, middle and end of the time in theater.
Back to the green lawn in front of the tower, the lying plastic disks, and the leaping, twirling young men. Suppose that, after our meeting concludes, we return past the same green and see the students still playing. Our meeting ended early, and we have time to watch again. The throes are longer now: one student leaps the hedge to catch a long throw; his friend dashes down the steps to retrieve another. In the pause for retrieval, the third player recognizes one of us, and, as a challenge, throws her an extra disk that had been kept in reserve on top of his backpack. Wordlessly, one of us moves into the green and we commence to play, a separate game, fully clothed and far less skillful. But on the same ground. The student players shift slightly to make room for us.
The student game never had boundaries, although perhaps the green looked as if it gave the players a spatial boundary. But no. They violated nothing when they leaped over the hedge and we violated nothing when we stepped through a gap in the hedge and began our own game.
But imagine the outcry if the nest football game between Texas and Oklahoma went the same way. In this stadium, there is a line drawn on the grass, and it marks the space for the game. If a player crosses the line, he must pay a price for that. The game will stop if he does not stay sitting in the front row at this game, grow bored with the poor quality of play, we might decide to start our own game of catch on the same field during the game. But to do so would be to risk being disarmed by the crowd. We would be straying into sacred space. Certainly, this space is sacred to this crowd of football fans. (I almost said “worshipers, but football mania is not worship. It merely resembles worship.) And for an audience member who intrudes on that space the price is much higher than for a player to stray outside it.
“Sacred” is a word we have almost l
By: Sandra de Helen,
on 1/30/2010
Blog: de Helen's bits (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: play, stage, HBO, showtime, godmother, sopranos, Add a tag
Or however many it takes to write this last scene. We've had the dark night of the soul, the climax, and now we're wrapping it all up. Heading for that final scene, that final look at Tomboy that echoes our first look, but is totally different. The one that shows us where she is now after her journey, the journey we took with her. I love Tomboy. I hope she has a long life on the stage. I hope lots of people fall in love with her as I have. This is the first play I've ever written that I can visualize in other media. The Godmother could be The Sopranos meets The L Word if HBO or Showtime comes knocking. Or maybe it's a movie with a sequel. Or maybe it's more than one play, but whatever it is, Tomboy wants off the page and onto the stage. I have to continue to do my best for her. So, back to the coal mines I go.
By: Steve Novak,
on 1/7/2010
Blog: Steve Draws Stuff (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: steven, novak, breakfast, club, stage, fathers, sons, forts, early, sketchrough, pose, book, movie, art, characters, Add a tag
I still have an awful lot to do on this one. It's a little promotional piece I'm working on for the book. Not that it has anything at all in common with "The Breakfast Club," nor do I really even like the movie. The pose is recognizable enough though.
Steven
By: Ginger*:),
on 4/8/2009
Blog: Picture Bookies (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Ginger Nielson, Grimm, stage, set painting, Add a tag
This March and every March it is still winter up here in northern New England. To drive away the cabin fever our church players present a winter interlude. This year we chose to "re-load" some of the Grimm Brothers fairy tales.
I was asked to paint sets that could double as a cottage or a castle and create a tower for the Rapunzel story. In all, five tales were told with story and song.
My favorite of all was the Three Spinning Fairies, and more about that later, but here are some shots of the sets.
The total measurement was 38 feet across by nine feet high. The tree/tower for Rapunzel was a total of 12 feet wide wrapped around a structure that included doors to go in and out of and an unseen ladder in the back. The doors were invisible until opened as we cut them out after the scenery had been applied to the wooden structure.
I put a little figure of Rapunzel up there to show the scale.
And here is a close up of the corner of the cottage.
I would love to have had more time to work on the paintings, but we are usually limited to a few weeks before the sets have to be up and ready for rehearsals. Perhaps because I illustrate children's books, I am more demanding of myself and although I wasn't totally pleased with the final results, the audiences seemed to like the sets very much.
The paper comes on 9 foot by 36 foot rolls and is ordered from a stage set supply house. I use my own acrylic paints but when the sets require huge amounts of paint or more than one set of scenery I mix those with regular acrylic house paint to stretch the medium. The result is that the set paper gains a quality sort of like oil cloth and we can roll up the paintings and save them for the next production. Then we either reuse what was painted before or paint right over the old paintings.
Want to know what the hardest part of all this is????? Finding a place with enough space to paint these huge scenes before they are attached to the flats.
By: scriberess,
on 10/13/2008
Blog: A. PLAYWRIGHT'S RAMBLINGS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: playwrights, work, writing, theatre, people, BBC, show business, plays, stage, BBC International Playwriting Competition, Add a tag
As is the case with many - I'll go out on a limb here and use the word 'most' playwrights - I submit to calls for submission or theatres that I feel would be a good fit for my literary output. To date the plays are still waiting to see the light of day or stage and I've shared some of the rejection letters or most often, form letters, in this blog, because all aspiring playwrights have "been there - read that." Right? Besides sometimes it just feels good to vent.
Anyway, today in my e-mail, I received an invitation to enter the BBC International Playwriting Competition. It's obviously a form letter sent out to all of us who entered their competition last year and were rejected. I submitted my one act, "Retribution" which in my humble opinion was damned good but then who am I? Actually, I adapted the play for radio adding sound effects but given that the play takes place in a hairstyling salon between a man and a hairdresser seeking revenge for a terrible act perpetrated on her by the very man who is now sitting in her chair, there really wasn't that much sound one could add. We're talking here about scissors snipping, old-fashioned hair dryers, the man choking and gasping for air - that type of stuff. Upon reflection perhaps it wasn't meant for radio but the dialogue was riveting! Not riveting enough, obviously.
Here is the form invitation for anyone outside the UK who is interested in trying their luck:
Dear writer (it's always so gratifying in a letter when you are addressed as: "dear writer"),
We are contacting you because you entered our International Radio Playwriting Competition in 2007. We’re delighted to be able to tell you that our biennial competition is launching again this year! For details of how to enter, exciting interviews with writers and handy tips, please visit our website on or after the 18th October at
www.bbcworldservice.com/radioplay
Once again, there are two first prizes: one for writers for whom English is a first language, the other for those with English as a second language. Each winner will receive £2,500 and a trip to London to see their play recorded at the BBC.
There will also be the prize of a digital or short wave radio for runners up (see rules for further details).
So, if you are resident outside the UK and have a new play to send us, please consider entering again. The competition opens with the broadcast of the fantastic award winning drama Cigarettes and Chocolate by Anthony Minghella - to give you further inspiration!
Please tune in, log on and send us your scripts. We look forward to reading them.
Kind regards World Drama, BBC World Service.
So now I'm going over my plays to see if any of them meet their criteria and/or are adaptable. One of them does include tea cups clinking a lot, which might hit a high note with British sensibilities and another one includes pigeons squawking. I mean, a digital or short wave radio would also be nice.
By: scriberess,
on 10/6/2007
Blog: A. PLAYWRIGHT'S RAMBLINGS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: plays, playwriting, stage, submission guidelines, entertainment, drama, Canadian, e-mail, eleanor tylbor, a. playwright's ramblings, theatre, comedy, dialogue, submission guidelines, plays, playwriting, drama, entertainment, stage, e-mail, eleanor tylbor, Canadian, a. playwright's ramblings, Add a tag
SUBMISSION OPPORTUNITY: AN ONGOING DIALOGUE WITH SELF
BY Eleanor Tylbor
PLAYWRIGHT
Oh look! The Blankety-Blank Theatre is asking playwrights for plays. Hmmmm...interesting... Wonder if they're accepting plays from outside the U.S. Probably not...
INNER VOICE
There you go again! Negative. Always negative! Maybe they are!
PLAYWRIGHT
Yeah... Could be. Neh. I mean, this is a well-known and substantial theatre. They have enough playwrights domestically
INNER VOICE
So? What does that have to do with anything?
PLAYWRIGHT
Nothing but somehow I have a feeling they don't
INNER VOICE
You and your dumb feelings! How many opportunities did you let slide by based on your "feelings"?
PLAYWRIGHT
Let me read the guidelines, here... Hmmm and mmm - course I'm right. All the people and judges involved are from the U.S. Why would they waste time reading a play from an un-American? I suppose it would be a similar situation if it were reversed. You know - a Canadian theatre holding a playwriting competition? 'Course I wouldn't know having never won...anything, anywhere, anyway at any time. Oh to see my work actually up on a stage!
INNER VOICE
It doesn't say anything one way or the other. Why don't you query them and find out at least?
PLAYWRIGHT
Yeah... I could... I suppose... Maybe... I guess it would be a good idea. Let's see if they have an e-mail address... Hmm... Says here they have a lot of people reading all the entries. Well - that just about screws me. Wonder if they specialize in drama...or comedy...
INNER VOICE
So query and find out!
PLAYWRIGHT
Know what? It really scares me that lots of people will be reading my play. People who don't even know me or anything about the history of my play! How can they judge the merit of my intellect?
INNER VOICE
Nobody in Canada knows anything about it - or you either, doofus!
PLAYWRIGHT
True... It's just the idea of strangers reading my play and passing judgment on it. 'Oh look', they probably say to each other. 'This is laughable! She calls herself a playwright?' I bet they do that! Have a good laugh at our expense!
INNER VOICE
You're creating barriers again!
PLAYWRIGHT
Perhaps...Let me read some more about this theatre. Just as I thought! I could end up having a reading and not a production!
INNER VOICE
So what's wrong with that?
PLAYWRIGHT
What do I have to gain from a mere reading? I want a production! No - I need a production! I could just as easy get a group together and have a reading of my play. I don't have to spend who knows how much on postage and wonder whether anybody even read it.
INNER VOICE
So do it! Stop complaining for heaven's sake and do something. Your play will never see the light of day by sitting at a computer reading theatre submission guidelines.
PLAYWRIGHT
I'm sick and tired of submitting and daring to hope that maybe - just maybe - the play will be produced! All the while waiting and waiting for news. Checking the mail and the Internet for some response and all the while doubt creeping in and over-taking hope. What else do playwrights have to live for but hope?
INNER VOICE
You're telling me this? Me who shares your anxieties?
PLAYWRIGHT
What happens though if I can't find anyone who wants to read?
INNER VOICE
What happens if you do find people who want to read? If you don't take the first step, you'll never know. Go for it!
PLAYWRIGHT
Oh look here... this looks like just the theatre I've been looking for. I got a good feeling about this one.
By: Jason Boog,
on 7/23/2007
Blog: ThePublishingSpot (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Community, novels, Soft Skull Press, page 23, Add a tag
How do you write and sell books to a generation that supposedly doesn't care about books?
Over at Soft Skull Press, Richard Nast is blogging about Page23, a MySpace blogged extension of the Changing Hands bookstore. They created the webpage to specifically reach a demographic that made waves two years ago for abandoning books all-together:
"[Created] in 2005 in response to the NEA's "Reading at Risk" report--a study showing readership plummeting at an alarming rate (especially among those in their 20's and 30's). Our mission is to support writing that speaks to this elusive generation of readers, as well as those hungry for books outside the mainstream."
Page 23 has a killer reading list, and the blog sidebar features some interviews with writers we like, including an an interview with Kevin Brockmeier (author of The Brief History of the Dead) about how he balances writing books for children and adults.
What do you think? Is it just more Internet-fueled sensationalism that makes us worry about losing the 20-30-year-old readers? Or do we need some literary first-aid to repair the damage?
(Thanks, Conversational Reading)
By: scriberess,
on 7/18/2007
Blog: A. PLAYWRIGHT'S RAMBLINGS (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: playwriting, stage, my life, playwrightville, playwrights, news, life, friends, writing, humor, dialogue, playwriting, actor, my life, stage, playwrightville, actor, Add a tag
FEMALE CHARACTER
Uh-oh... I sense bad news is on the way
MALE CHARACTER
How do you know?
FEMALE CHARACTER
How do I know? How-do-I-know? Do you hav'ta ask that? Can't you feel the bad vibes?
MALE CHARACTER
I thought it was just a bad case of indigestion from all the popcorn she ate last night. She always pigs out on popcorn when her plays are rejected
FEMALE CHARACTER
Yeah - don't we know it! At least it's the diet kind. Okay - steel yourself now! It's coming...
ELLIE
Um - people...characters from my play... No. Friends
FEMALE CHARACTER
Okay. We get the picture. Been there, heard that. Now just cut to the chase. So?
ELLIE
Well there's good news and bad news
MALE CHARACTER
Do we get a choice which one we wanna hear first?
FEMALE CHARACTER
Oh pleeze! Just let her divest herself of all her angst will you, so that we can get on with our so-called purpose in life?
ELLIE
Ahem... The good news is that I entered the BBC International Playwriting Competition
FEMALE CHARACTERThat's it? You entered a competition? That's all the good news you have to tell us? Oh gawd - here it comes...
ELLIE
Well...I didn't win
FEMALE CHARACTER
This dear playwright, is not news. You are aware that we have been in this state for years now waiting...waiting...waiting for the call that never comes. Y'know - it's not easy being characters from a play longing to share ourselves with theatre audiences. The stage! The lights! The applause! Never to hear applause...
ELLIE
What can I say? Maybe I should just do another re-write
MALE CHARACTER
A re-write? Is that...like really necessary? I mean...the play does make a strong statement
FEMALE CHARACTER
Wait a minute. You won't change our characters, will you? You do like us, right?
ELLIE
Of course. I just want to tighten up the dialogue, is all. You'll be happy to hear that I'm going to have a public reading
MALE CHARACTERFantastic! At last real people will get to know us and who knows where that could lead!
ELLIE
Now all I hav'ta do is find some people. It can't be just anybody off the street, y'know!
FEMALE CHARACTER
Why not? A body is a body is a body. At least they're real people
ELLIE
Yeah - I suppose. Now all I hav'ta do is spread the word and set it all up...
MALE CHARACTER
We'll be waiting. We're always waiting
FEMALE CHARACTER
Ain't that the truth!
By: Jason Boog,
on 6/13/2007
Blog: ThePublishingSpot (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: writing resources, Publishing Spotted, Lance Olsen, Soft Skull Press, Add a tag
In many ways, it is a beautiful time to be a writer.
Over at The Millions, author Buzz Poole (check out his book blog, Madonna of the Toast) just wrote an essay-long ode to the Institute for the Future of the Book. His final paragraphs offer a tantalizing look at how a truly networked book will work:
"You would be able to read the 1969 interview with Marshall McLuhan from Playboy; River of Shadows by Rebecca Solnit, Proust and Steinbeck's often overlooked In Dubious Battle; an article about James Joyce's cantankerous grandson and the ethics of copyright abuse. And as you read, you'd listen to Jeremiah Lockwood, Broken Social Scene, Amalia Rodrigues, hell, I could dump my entire music library into this thing and you could ride the shuffle the same as me. ... All of these media have influenced this piece."
In other ways, it is a hard time to be a writer. Just like the small publisher McSweeney's, Soft Skull Press has launched a big book sale--both companies are reeling from the distribution disaster of the AMS bankruptcy. Support your friendly neighborhood publisher of great writers, and keep people like Nick Mamatas in business.
Ever read William S. Burroughs hallucinogenic novel, Naked Lunch? If so, cultural critic
Publishing Spotted collects the best of what's around on writing blogs on any given day. Feel free to send tips and suggestions to your fearless editor: jason [at] thepublishingspot.com.
Just spilled a drink on this one. GO ME!