Stand Up vs. Theatre - it's a whole new ball game

From the desk of Jeff Love:

So I'm five hours away from making my sophomore performance as a stand up comic. Somebody asked me the other day if it was any different than doing theater. I'm hard pressed to think of anything MORE different from doing theater. I mean sure, there are certain characteristics that are the same. In both you're "performing" in front of an audience, timing and words and sometimes props are involved...but comedy is far less forgiving than theater. In theater, an audience, even if they are going to see a comedy, is open to anything. Stand up audiences, on the other hand, expect to laugh...period. It doesn't necessarily matter why, or when, or how...but if you tell a joke, do a bit, or tell a story during a stand up set and there isn't a laugh, you've failed. Period.

The thing that makes stand up both thrilling and absolutely petrifying is that you only have yourself to rely on. Even if you do an act that relies on exact wording, chances are you're still doing material you've written, and again, if no one laughs, they know exactly who to blame.

Even my act, that doesn't have a typical setup-punchline delivery and is about a guy on stage who's petrified, won't be funny if the wording and timing is off. And it's a very funny thing about comedy, not everyone has the same opinion as to what's good comedy, but truly bad comedy is something that most people agree on. I've been to clubs where nothing but strangers from all walks of life sit there and watch some poor schmuck get up on stage - something they all admit they could never do - and tells something he thinks is a joke, and nothing but crickets.... While sometimes there'll be comedians who say something that some people don't respond to, but others will.

It's that definite freeze of time...when a joke doesn't land...that is the performance equivalent to getting the wrong chamber in a game of Russian Roulette.

Hopefully tonight I won't be reminded of that silence before my five minutes are up.

Letting Go - The Playwright's Perspective

From Playwright Olivia Worden - author of THE BLOCK

I am a professed control freak. I micro manage myself because I like to minimize any unexpected surprises. I have a hard time letting go. I don’t particularly like change. And although these are not things I generally tell people when I first meet them, I don’t try to hide these more astringent personality traits either. Why hide what you can’t change, right? Well, as I’ve discovered over the past five months, sometimes change is necessary to move forward and sometimes letting go is exactly what you need.

When I worked in television I was responsible for writing scripts, casting, choosing wardrobe and props. If my scripts were children then I was a helicopter mom. Part of me loved being so involved and in control of the end product, but part of me wished for a time when all I would be responsible for was writing. I also longed for a time when I could write what I wanted to write and not what some man in an expensive suit told me I should be writing.

Having the opportunity to write The Block was a pleasure. I wrote it in fifteen days and fell in love with my characters in the process. I carried a stage in my head, acted out the scenes, the blocking, and the subtle gestures that made the characters real. It was truly one of the best days of my life when Alyssa called me and said that Point of You wanted to produce it. I was finally doing something that mattered with my writing and it felt amazing. However, as I started re-editing and re-working scenes, it dawned on me that I would have to give this up. In accepting Point of You’s generous offer to produce my play, I would have to give up my control and let them breathe life into my writing in their own way.

At first I silently freaked out and then not so silently (sorry, boyfriend!). But at the same time, I knew that I did not want to be one of those writers that was constantly underfoot, making suggestions or stepping on the director’s toes. I did not want to be one of those writers who are off-putting or impossible to work with. I wanted to be as generous and accommodating as Point of You had been with me. So I took a few deep breaths and told myself that if letting go meant furthering something that I love and a piece of work that is important to me, then that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

In the end, I had nothing to worry about. Not only did the director Jeff Love nurture my play as if it were his own, the actors took on my characters in ways that I had not even imagined. It was more than I had envisioned in my head on that tiny stage I had created for myself. I was touched by the actors’ attention to detail, their thorough creation of background stories and their understanding of the meaning behind the writing. I was touched by their sincerity and their passion for their craft. But most of all I was surprised by how much I learned about myself through this process.

Life is not meant to be controlled and theatre is definitely not something that can or should be. A line skipped, a door locked, a cue missed (all things that make the experience unique to each night and each audience) is what makes going to the theatre so exciting. I’m not saying I’m totally cured of my control-freak ways, but thanks to Point of You, their amazing cast and this experience (which was all at once humbling, reaffirming, comical and joyous) I am much closer to the carefree, go-with-the-flow, flowers-in-her-hair kind of girl I want to be. Thank you!

Part Two: The Reading (of the Celeb Rehab show)

For those who read my first installment “The Inception” this is part two of that “series”. POY recently read the first draft of my comedy set in a celebrity rehab center and had, as one would hope, a great amount of help to offer. I thought however, that I would begin this blog entry with my thoughts and feelings pre-reading…because…well…it seems sort of interesting to do it that way. Maybe give folks a better perspective of what it’s like for a writer as opposed to the reader/listener of a play’s first draft:

The night before the reading:

It’s a little bit like feeling the need to clean up before company comes over. For me, no matter how much time I’ve spent cleaning, there’s always SOME piece of “wrongness” I can take five minutes and fix. A bit of dusting, for example, seems suddenly deadly important when people are just about to arrive. Sure, they probably won’t actually check the top of your doorways but hey…you never know. And if they do, how cool will it be when they look down on their index finger and don’t actually see any dust.

That, to me, is what I strive for in a first reading. Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward was written in four days, Zoo Story by Edward Albee in very few as well (I think a week…maybe two?) And all without any real revisions (so I’ve been lead to believe in any case). That, along with the legend that Shakespeare never had drafts (which I personally think is a lie) makes me dream of everyone sitting remarkably silent after the last line is uttered from this draft…shook to their very core at the genius they’ve just been witness to. I imagine they’ll tell their children, and their children’s children about how they were there when the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Jeff Love was first read out loud and how it made everyone in the room lose their breath with admiration and awe.

Of course, when that is what I am hoping for, and I look down at what they’ll actually be reading by my hand, I see the need to dust as much as is humanly possible in what appears to be an impossibly small amount of time (and even though my parallel discusses the time period as being mere minutes, in reality, I’ve had months to write this play…)

It’s not that I can’t take criticism…I love criticism…I remember realizing in 8th grade that as soon as I was proven wrong about something, I could go the rest of my life speaking the opposite of what I’d previously believed with complete and utter conviction for I knew (now) that I was “right”.

So, I love people tearing apart my work. It makes it stronger, tighter, more professional and well…better…basically. And who wouldn’t always want to get better? But really…if given a choice between “getting better”…and simply “being the best”…who wouldn’t rather be...the best? I know I would. And so I’m dusting. Dusting the heck out of what might as well be the desert in the state my wife is from. There’s simply no way around it. This play is going to suck.

My self consciousness can’t help but to leap to all sorts of excuses…it literally becomes an excuse-making machine. “well I was getting married…,” “I really haven’t felt well…some sort of stomach bug or something…,” “how can I concentrate on a play when there’s so much death in the world?” and of course, the ever popular, “dude, I totally wrote this last night while I was drunk off red bull and wine coolers…” but I have to ignore the need for those excuses and opt, instead, for maturity because…well…my friends and family would think less of me if I didn’t.

Nope…time to step up to the plate, take my knocks, and a few other cliché metaphors that never really help when you’ve put you’re heart on the line and fully expect it to be stomped.

After the Read:

Maybe it’s a defense mechanism that I always expect the worst but hope for the best. But I am once again astounded by the fact that the company of readers didn’t throw me out on my ass saying that this was the worst piece of rubbish they’ve ever read in their lives. With the exception of a few jokes (replacing the “n” word for the word “noodle” for the character going through language rehab for example, seemed to be on everyone’s list of best bit) I pretty much thought I should be thoroughly ashamed of myself. After all, while we were reading my play, I realized how absolutely absent of character, plot, and setting the entire thing seemed to be (not that any of those things are essential to today’s theatrical productions). It sounded as if written by a fifth grader (did I write this in fifth grade and just, understandably, forget…?) it sounded as if written by a fifth grader who was arrogant enough to think he had something worth listening to…the gall!

But there was a lot of laughing (always a good thing when writing a comedy) and everyone immediately responded with the customary, “I liked it”. It’s at times like that when being a director comes in handy. You listen closely to the subtext involved in the simple, polite sentence, “I liked it.” And see if you can detect elements of sarcasm, sincerity, or, possibly, flat out lying.

In the end…mostly what I was left with was that there was too much “bantering” between the characters I’ve assigned to me and Johnny, and not enough of the supporting characters. And while I’d love to dismiss these remarks as simply those of needy actors wanting more lines and more interesting moments to act on stage (it was sort of amusing seeing folks flipping through the pages to come to see when their next line would be)…the fact of the matter is…they’re right. When I wrote before about letting the characters act out different basic scenarios revolving around a simple theme such as “who ate my roll?” I should’ve noticed that most, actually ALL…of those scenes involved my two favorite characters…the ones I’m writing for me and Johnny. Now of course, comes the arduous task of finding the voices and moments in the other characters that will help me fall AS in love with them as, I hope, the audience will.

This comes down to the same thing…start writing different scenarios involving them. See what “sticks” and is fun and/or interesting for the audience to listen to. After all, plays should be the most interesting conversations anyone’s overheard, at least for me.

Back to the drawing board…let’s see what happens.

The Art of the Rewrite - Procrastination, Desperation and Margaritas

From the desk of Paul Weissman, Literary Director and playwright of POY's next production Sunset Motel:

Rewrites are a pain in the ass. It takes so long for something to gestate in my head and get it down on paper that when I finally finish the first draft, I just want to shoot it out there and say, “There it is, it’s perfect, enjoy it, I’m going to get myself a margarita.” Of course, it’s never perfect. And readings of the play will always magnify the flaws of the plot, dialogue, character, etc.

So, on to the second draft. This usually means I sit on the couch with a beer (yeah, I drink. I’m an artist. It’s in the rulebook) and my notepad (I don’t write drafts on the computer, I longhand it first) and stare. . . .and stare . . . and I go back to my notes to remind myself of things that need changing, tweaking or sometimes full on rehauling. I curse my lot. “Oy, couldn’t I have been a carpenter or a lawyer. Oy, this writing is hard.” Aaaaand nothing. So I put the pad down and proceed to watch The Daily Show or Boston Legal or whatever. And I go through the week with the deadline for the next draft looming over me. I ignore it for at least two weeks.

But lo and behold, in the back of my head, unconsciously, wheels are turning. I gave my brain a task and it loves tasks. Characters are saying things in my head. I hear them talking as I head up the subway to work. The dialogue is clunky. Somewhat inept. But they keep talking. Then, eventually, they say the right thing. The thing they were meant to say. THAT’S when I start rewriting. And then everything is easy as pie (I don’t understand that phrase. Easy as making pie, sure. Easy as eating pie, absolutely, but easy AS pie?!? I don’t get it). And finally, the words move from my notepad to my computer with ease. And I smile. And I hand it to the gang. And I go off to have my margarita.

The Inception (of the Celeb Rehab show):

From the desk of Jeff Love, Artistic Director:

This will be the first part of a series. I'm not entirely sure how many parts there will be in this series because I've never mapped this sort of thing out before. Essentially, what I plan on doing here is showing the steps that I, and occasionally other members of Point of You Productions, take when deciding to write a show for the company to perform.

THE INSPIRATION

At some point, while watching the news, it dawned on me that our society is completely entranced in hearing about various celebrities going to rehab, whether they are famous for acting, singing, or pretending to do those things, we are, as a collective consciousness, spending time thinking about them. This is usually a good indication that POY has a subject to write about.

What also seems to be a fixation is just how much these rehab centers are actual rehab centers versus how much they're glorified country clubs that cater to the wealthy and mentally irresponsible. This dichotomy, along with the need for a subject, seems to immediately indicate a genre best suited for the subject. For me, this genre is clearly comedy.

So there we have it. A comedy, about celebrity rehab.

THE OUTLINE

After already bouncing the ideas off the other company members and some select friends and family, everyone seems very positive (as opposed to my idea of a tragedy musical about dolphins dying in fishing nets) and so all that remains is...well...absolutely everything else.

First an outline (which I've been taught goes in 3 stages: the play's story written in a paragraph, than a page, then several pages describing what happens, with each draft obviously becoming more and more in-depth regarding the events). After that, you make sure all the characters you
need are fully thought out in your head. Are there any who are too similar and should be combined, or one who should be eliminated? This gets particularly tricky when you are trying to write parts for your friends and company members because along with wanting to put on a good show, POY makes it a point to encourage each company member to be challenged and have fun (so, for example, writing a part for Johnny to be a crazy old man in a wheelchair as I did for Five Years Later, while never getting any older or less funny in my mind, wouldn't necessarily be the best for him as a stepping stone to becoming a fully rounded actor).

THE DIALOGUE

Once the characters are fully fleshed out, and I have people in mind (or a couple of people) for the parts, I begin writing bits of dialogue about any general conflict ("who ate my roll!?" or what have you) to get a feel for how the characters talk and interact with one another. This is usually such a fun part of the process, that it completely supersedes everything else, and I've got piles of "bits of dialogue" that may very well never see the light of day...but it was still fun coming up with the lines.

THE CHARACTER AND CONFLICT

Then I begin to see if any bits of dialogue can be directly inputted into the play. I've already mapped out the scenes and the conflicts, so hopefully something as simple as "who ate my roll?" in a celebrity rehab comedy could become, "who vomited on my stash?" (because I hear that can happen in those places). If not, then the process of truly "working" comes in as you try to capture the characters, tone, and conflicts that your play needs. This is often where writers can misstep, because we tend to either love dialogue we've written but it doesn't fit the conflict, or it fits the conflict but seems to be completely out of left field for the characters to say. When either happens, it's important not to be too married to either characters or conflict. And I usually
rely on company members and other writers to tell me if this happens since they'll be the initial audience who decides if everything makes sense (until opening night that is).

You have to back up and see what it is you're trying to accomplish with a scene, character, or play as a whole, and then change whatever needs to be changed in order to communicate the Moral of the story. I had a pair of "judges" for Five Years Later that took me until a month
before rehearsals started to finally admit they should not be kept.

But once you've done that, you've got a working draft, and then the fun part of rewriting after readings happens... I’ll write about that next!