I direct a lot of new plays, many of them by fledgling writers, and often various aspects of character development have remained in the head of the writer, and are not yet on the page. Or sometimes the character is on the page, but not yet sufficiently specific. When this happens, I use improvisation to answer questions like the…
Sitting here drinking coffee in a lovely, quiet NYC morning, I am reading two articles in the Times about Broadway Productions, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/theater/rules-for-investing-in-a-broadway-production.html?emc=eta1 and http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/theater/on-broadway-today-a-name-above-the-title-isnt-that-hard.html?emc=eta1. Here’s the main gist of those articles – In the world of Broadway productions, 75% lose their entire investment, 25% make a profit, and the main job of a producer is…
In August of 2015, I will put all my belongings in storage in Staten Island, and buy a car and begin a one-year artistic journey I am calling “Caesura: An Art Tinker’s Journey.” I’ll stay with friends and collaborate with them on art projects. I’ll be a muse, a dramaturge, an editor, a coach –…
I just read Theresa Rebeck’s article “Broadway in Review” in the recent special issue of The Dramatist. It’s concise, clear and to the point – and one of the fine points she makes is that women are grossly under-represented on Broadway – on the page and on the stage. Yet I am currently curating the…
I am a strict grammarian. I cannot abide bad grammar, poor syntax, misspellings, for God’s sake! I’ve been reading my way through a pile of scripts – a pile of 29, all to be read and assessed by the end of this week. I read them in batches – three or four in a row,…
I recently watched a program on TV – “POV’s High Tech, Low Life”, in which a blogger named Zola made this statement, “Readers with short attention spans like me just want to know six things about an incident – time, place, character, cause, development and conclusion. I let readers figure out the meaning for themselves.”…
I finished the first draft of a full-length play last month, and put it away while I focused on other things – I had my annual Left Out Festival to produce. When you wear as many theatrical hats as I do, long-term projects often have to wait while you manage the business or run the…
I recently agreed to perform two original monologues in a show – to be performed next Sunday. I was urged by my friend Joe Hutcheson, another act on the bill, to perform the story that I wrote last week and posted in this blog, called “When I was a boy…” In my writing workshop today, I…
I’ve been working on my show about T-Gurls, and issues of gender keep rising to the surface of my brain. I wrote this today in my writing workshop. __________________________________________________________________ “You’re dead, you’re dead. You have to stay down.” I’d been dead forever, I thought. The dry, brown grass was poking me under my T-shirt, last…
I just came home from Portland, ME where I was directing a multi-media solo show by Steve Underwood. The show, called Underwater Guy, included about 45 minutes’ worth of beautiful underwater video shot by Steve, in his experience as a free diver. The narrative portion of the show was about 45 minutes also, with about…
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