The most important step in playwriting

In my monthly playwriting group, I spend a fair amount of time giving advice to new and aspiring playwrights. Many become frustrated because they're unable to get productions, even with the proliferation of playwriting contests over the last few years.

Well, the problem, to me at least, is obvious. If you want to get produced, then you've got to write plays that theatre companies want to do. And that means things that are easy to produce: small casts, simple set requirements.

It also means that you've got to write plays that audiences want to see. It doesn't matter which demographic you're targeting: sophisticated urban adults, small town families, whatever. You have to have someone in mind that you're writing for.

That mean seem like obvious advice, but it isn't. I recently gave feedback to a playwright who loves to dramatize the stories of the Brothers Grimm. In all their original, bloody glory.

The plays are very well-written. But who's going to see them?

Adults won't because they're fairy tales. Kids won't because they're too violent.

I've also seen 10-minute plays with 6 scene changes and dozens of characters. These can be hilarious, but they read more like a short film than a piece meant for the stage. Trust me. Cash-strapped, understaffed theaters don't need the hassle.

Obviously, if your main reason for writing is to express yourself, then write what you want and don't worry about getting produced. But if your goal is to see your works come to life, then don't whine if what you've written doesn't fulfill the needs of the marketplace.

After all, no one owes you a production.

Taking the plunge

Sarah Ruhl has never done it. Noel Coward did it only occasionally. Alan Ayckbourn does it every chance he gets.

What am I talking about? Directing your own work, of course. And I'm about to jump into the fray myself, directing a staged reading of my full-length play, The Butler Did It!

Yes, it had a successful reading at my playwriting workshop. But it still feels like a stranger to me. There are a million things I don't know about it.

Does the physical comedy work? Is there some gaping plot hole hiding somehwere in Act II? Does the play hang together as a complete piece of work?

And then there's the most important question of all. How will an audience respond?

I expect that some of these questions will be answered at the staged reading in Cheyenne. But there are other things I won't learn unless I mount the play myself. Unless I actually sweat through the details of guiding the actors and moving the furniture and hanging the lights and seeing if someone really can dial a telephone with their nose.

Because this is going to be more than a reading. There will be a set. There will be props. And the actors will act out all of the stage directions. I guess it's what they call a "script-in-hand" production.

So if you're in Colorado Springs on Friday, September 15, I'd like to personally invite you to the first staged reading of The Butler Did It!

There will actually be two readings, starting at 3pm and 7pm. It all takes place at the University School of Colorado Springs, 2713 W. Cucharras St. There's no cost to attend, but a donation will be accepted to feed the animals, er, actors.

You can get your tickets here:

That happy feeling

I just got back from my playwriting workshop, The Drama Lab. And all I can say is, why didn't I start one earlier?

Writing is the loneliest of artistic pursuits. Hunkering over a laptop for hours every day doesn't exactly contribute to social agility. Plus, writers tend to be introverted anyway, keeping the world at a safe and observable distance.

So it can be easy to get down about your own writing. I can't tell you how many times I've been tempted to toss out my current work, a dark backstage farce titled Kill the Critic! In fact, I did set it aside for two years because I didn't know where to take it.

But now I'm working hard on it and making progress. And it's all because of the Drama Lab. Their comments help me point the story and characters  in the right direction. Their laughter lets me know which jokes work and which don't. And their energy makes me eager to go home and write more.

If you're a playwright, I strongly recommend you join a playwrtiting workshop. Don't have one in your town? Start one.

Seriously, if I can do it (and I'm the least outgoing human on the planet), anyone can.

Lester unleashed

I'm pleased to announce that my second play has just been published by Pioneer Drama Service. Long Tall Lester is a one-act western comedy about a meek encyclopedia salesman who's drafted to fight the dreaded outlaw Billy Black.

Long Tall Lester is a lot of fun and is chock full of over-the-top characters that kids love to play (one high school student told me it was the most fun she ever had in a role).

The fact that it also teaches a great lesson about the power of brains over brawn can be a secret between you and me.

To learn more, visit the Pioneer web site. A perusal copy is $5.50 (cheap).

Christmas in May

The day I've been anticipating for almost a year finally came today.

My first royalty check!

How much was it? Well, let's just say I won't be quitting my day job soon. But it was more than I expected. And my editor was more than pleased with the numbers: 10 performances and 121 scripts sold.

Why? Because the play publishing biz is different than other entertainment fields. While books and CD's and movies expect to make their biggest splash their opening week--while the property is fresh--play scripts need time to grow.

After all, by the time the new batch of plays come out, most drama teachers have already planned their productions for the coming year. So they'll order a perusal copy, read through it, think about it.

And then, after a year--or five or twenty--if the teacher likes it and happens to have the right cast for it and gets approval from the Powers That Be, then and only then will they produce it.

So really, it's a minor miracle that any play gets done its first year in print. And it can only get better from here.

Those 10 performances, by the way, came from 8 productions in 7 states--MD, ME, MN, MT, ND, TN and TX. So you know what that means.

Only 43 to go.

A new frontier

I suppose every playwright dreams of having a full-length produced. Sure, 10-minute plays are fun to write and can pack quite a wallop. And one-acts have their own unique draw, offering much more depth while maintaining a convenient bite-size package.
But the glory is in the full-length. I mean, let's face it. How many great American short plays can you name? (Well, there's Edward Albee's The Zoo Story and, um...)

Plus, there's that whole heady experience of knowing that the entire evening is devoted to your work.

Which is why I'm so thrilled that my first full-length play, The Butler Did It!, just won the Cheyenne Little Theatre's New Play Project. It'll get two staged readings this November in Cheyenne, Wyoming. As an aficionado of historic theaters, I'm especially pleased that they're mounting it in at the Atlas Theatre, a 125-year-old former vaudeville house in downtown Cheyenne.

The Butler Did It! is a comedy about a butler who gets falsely accused of murder and must find the real culprit while tied to a chair. It's the first mystery I've written, and it got a great reception at my regular writing group. But breaking up a play over five months of readings isn't the best way to judge its structure.

Mysteries are all about structure, of course. In fact, when I was writing The Butler Did It!, it felt like I was building one of those Jenga towers, each carefully placed plot element requiring yet another set-up or explanation or foreshadowing to make it fit. So I'm hoping that my reading up north will uncover any gaping plot holes I've been too blind to see.

I just hope no one gets hurt when it collapses.

Clothes make the play

Now I know my play is real. I just received the first cast shirt from my publisher.