When did a 120 page play become too long?

"The theater, the theater... what's happened to the theater?" sang Danny Kaye in White Christmas.

That's what I asked myself when my full length play, The Guru, was accepted as a possible addition to a theater company's Fall production line-up. The Artistic Director loved the play, and gave me wonderful, positive feedback that made me feel like a real playwright. "You're really good at this," she wrote. 


Thank you, thank you... yes I am... (blush, giggle, swelling of pride). 

"Just one thing, though..."

Uh oh.

"The play is too long. It should be no more than 100 pages. Less is better."

Too long? When did a two-act, 120 page comedy become too long? That equals one hour for each act. Hell, have you read a Shakespeare play? Those things are three-acts and take three-and-a-half-hours to perform. Your butt could fall off from lack of blood flow by the end of Act 2! 

When I was getting my undergrad in Drama at San Francisco State University in the 1990's, a play was typically a little over two hours long: two acts with a fifteen minute intermission. If you left a theater in less than two-and-a-half hours you felt cheated. Who pays $30.00 for a 90 minute show? Ridiculous! You'd have people bad-mouthing your production as low budget and god forbid, amateur. 

But that was 20 years ago. Now, people want to see a show in less than 2 hours.

I asked a friend who teaches playwriting at a college and she confirmed that plays do need to fit within 2 hours, including intermission. But she also said for every rule, there's an exception. Some plays are much longer, and she reminded me about Angels in America, which is the equivalent of three, 3-Act plays and is usually performed over two days. That play won the Pulitzer in 1993.

Then she encouraged me to take another look at my play and see where the language could be tightened up. "It's an opportunity to revise your play and really make it shine."

So I did. I read and re-read my play, chopping out whole sections of dialogue. I looked for anything that slowed down the pace. A farce really should have quick and witty language and lots of action. After a week of hard work, I had the page count down to 115 pages.

Shit.

Calling my friend again, I begged for help. I'd been working on The Guru for five years and had lost all perspective. I needed someone with an ax to chop my play. She agreed to try.

With her help, I got my play down to 98 pages. The process was as challenging as crossing a busy street under blindfold during grad school, because I was afraid one cut would unravel the whole plot. But by chopping so many pages, I think my play is cleaner and the humor more precise.  I think revising for length helped me see it with clearer eyes and a better understanding of how to write comedy.

I sent it back to the theater company and now I wait to see if a director picks it up. Man I hope my play is fine just as it is because after all these years of hard work, I'm sick of the damn thing.

Why have plays gotten shorter? Hasn't everything? Movies, books, albums... full-course dinners. It's just the times we live in and I'm not going to debate if this is a bad thing. We had long attention spans in the so-called "olden days" because there was less to grab our attention. Now we have so much to choose from it's hard to stay focused on one thing. Is that bad? Lots of experts seem to think so. But revising with the knowledge that we need to hold a reader's shorter attention span encourages us to write with precision. Our characters need to show themselves through action and word, not backstory. A little exposition goes a long way. You really have to make every word count. Notice I said revising. Don't worry about it during the writing of your play or story, just write the absolute best story you can create. Then take an ax to it during editing; you need an ax, not a scalpel anymore. "Kill your darlings" has never needed to be more bloody than today. 

Taxes, Tribal Blog, and Writing my Play

I am a member of Tribal Blogs, which is like BlogHer or Blog Frog, but cooler. Today I read a post by guest blogger Jenn Thorson about her experience self-publishing her novel. Really good advice. Here's a snippet and the link to read the rest:

The purpose of this post isn’t to go into the details of every step of the self-publishing process; there are plenty of great how-to’s on that already.

But I did want to mention, there are two areas of prep work that can be sticky if you’re not familiar with them in advance. One is formatting the book for print; the other is creating the e-book version.

In both cases, there are for-fee services available to help you accomplish this nicely. So don’t abandon the dream, if you feel overwhelmed.

Click HERE to read the entire article on Tribal Blogs.

I promised more info about taxes and writing, so here's a link to a blog post called How to Report Book Sales and Royalties. Be sure and scroll down to read the comments section for excellent questions and answers. Wine Press of Words looks like another good blog with tons of advice on publishing, marketing, and social media. 

If you're expecting a royalty statement, your publisher should send you a 1099 Misc before the end of January. You will report that income on Schedule C of your tax return (sorry to wait until the last minute, Laura. I'll give you your statement by Sunday). If you're a publisher, you only include the royalties you paid the author in 2011, not all royalties earned for the year. Typically, there are royalties due from the previous year that don't get paid until later, such as royalties earned in November and December. Your author doesn't pay taxes on those earned royalties, only on the royalties she was actually paid. 

And now for a word on writing...  I just finished revising Act 1 of my newest full length play and I am in love. I think about this play constantly, playing scenes over and over in my mind when I'm supposed to be concentrating on writing IEP goals for a student or planning lessons.  Is it safe to be so enamored with something you've written? Does it mean I've lost all perspective? Who cares! For now I'm just enjoying the thrill of writing something new and exciting. This play feels like the best thing I've ever written. 

First Draft Revision

I am proud to announce that I won Script Frenzy!!!! 

What did I win?

Wait for it... (drum roll please)

(horns tooting)      A year or two of revisions!     (crowd cheering)

Sigh...

Wouldn't it be great if we could just write something brilliant in the first draft when we're energized and excited about it? Instead, the first draft is 95% crap, at least mine always is. The first draft is usually a collection of disorganized scenes and a cast of underdeveloped, whiny characters who don't know what they want. The beginning is typically weak, full of exposition and back story; the climax good, but doesn't include all the elements it needs to be a true climax; and the ending unsatisfying. Writing dialogue is my strength, so it's lucky that this time I wrote a play rather than a novel. But it's still going to take a long time to get the language right for each character, and for the time period (I don't think an upper-class woman living in the 1930's would say "cool").

Revision is exhausting, because you can see what needs to be done, but you can't figure out how to do it.   It's too early for me to get feedback from a reader, so I'll muddle through on my own, focusing on gaps in the plot, inconsistencies, and character development. I work on all three elements at once because they impact each other. As I develop a character, I may discover a motivation that will propel the action of a scene, which can effect the entire plot. The process works the other way as well: a change in the direction of the plot can change the way a character behaves in a scene.

This whole process can feel like remodeling a house of cards, though. Change one element and the whole structure could collapse, which is scary. The threat of collapse raises important questions: if the plot needed that one thing to hold together, what does that one thing need as support so a change won't make the whole story collapse?

But sometimes having the whole piece collapse can be a good thing, because it forces you to see your story in a whole new light. Starting from scratch isn't the end of the work (although it might make you feel like killing the work anyway). It is simply part of the process of building a good story. You will have much stronger characters and a better idea of what direction the story arc takes the second time you write it.

Okay, I admit it... I really hope this play doesn't collapse once I start revisions. I don't have the energy to write it all again from scratch. But I'm in love with my characters right now and the time period is a blast to work with. Think 1930's movies with glamorous women and big sets, lots of dancing and drinking (it is post-prohibition) and witty dialogue. These people are rich and desperate, pretending to have everything they want while the Depression starts taking things away.

The excitement from my first draft is still there. Here's hoping that excitement continues as I work on it for the next year...

... or two...

...or three.

Now that I'm done with school, what shall I do? Script Frenzy!

After slogging through almost three years of grad school I can now say... I'm done!

Or so I think. I've finished my internship, all of my classes, my certification exam and last friday, my Master's exam (click the link to check out my other blog and read about finishing school). I won't know for certain if I passed until mid-April, but I feel confident I did. When I got home after the exam I packed away every book, note and test-prep material in my room and shoved it all in the attic; I don't want to look at it for at least two months, after which I'll probably have to start looking for work.

But today, I don't want to think about anything but publishing and writing. The Anarchist Book Fair is fast approaching and my hubby and I will be there, selling copies of Punk Rock Saved My Ass and networking with other indy publishers and anarchist writers. We treat these book fairs like a vacation, so I reserved a hotel room and got a coupon for a good restaurant. Some married people like to go on cruises, we like to sit in drafty halls selling books and chatting with other freaky publishers.

And to honor my promise to my muse (who would never let me forget it anyway), I signed up for Script Frenzy, starting April 1st. I will attempt to write a full length, 100 page play in only one month. The last time I did this event was three years ago when I managed to write a 120 page play (if took another three years to revise and make it any good). The challenge gets the creative juices pumping, and I need a push to drag my brain out of Orientation and Mobility and back into writing. I am terribly ill-prepared, though. I sort of have an idea, a general collection of vague characters, a conflict to propel the action, and a script writing program I sort of know how to use. Probably won't "win" this year (winning means writing the whole play in the allotted time), but it will give me a good start.

Speaking of plays, I need to get my first play produced. Who would like to stage a comedic farce about a con-man/guru at a hippi spiritual retreat haunted by a love sick poltergeist? 

Patsy Rodenburg: Why I do theater | Video on TED.com

This is outside the Punk anthology thread, but it made such a strong impact on me I wanted to share it with you. She states that society needs play wrights and actors now more than ever, because they are able to be "present" when most of us have lost the ability to do so. We need them to tell the truth.

I need to finish my play.

Patsy Rodenburg: Why I do theater | Video on TED.com

The Ticking Clock

On Friday I went to the premier of the play, The Ticking Clock, written by Jody Gerhman and directed by Rose Bell. Early last year, I was a member of the development team for this project, which interviewed hundreds of women from diverse backgrounds about their feelings around motherhood and their biological clock. Those interviews were then transformed into several different monologues, strung together by Jody to create a script that is both poignant and funny. Unfortunately I wasn't able to keep working on the project for more than a few months (drat that school of mine!), but I continued to meet with Jody when she needed to bounce ideas about her script, and then later joined in a reading of the play at the director's house. Watching the process of the play's creation has been fascinating. So many women were a part of it, as developers, interviewers, interviewees, writers, and actors. Throughout the project, I was struck by how different all of us are, in age, background and politics, but how connected we are by those tiny, almost invisible parts of ourselves: our eggs. A woman only gets so many when she's born, and no matter who we are, every time an egg falls from our ovaries, it sets off a gong saying "Now. Have a baby now!" The female body has its own agenda, whether we want to become mothers or not.

I was one of the women who was interviewed and I knew my story about giving birth to a child who is severely disabled was one of the monologues in the play, so I was curious to see how it would feel to watch "myself" talk about raising "my daughter." I know the story isn't really about me, but the emotions in the monologue when I read it were so true to how I feel, I felt vulnerable. Do the other women who were interviewed feel that way?

When they started rehearsals for the play in October, I regretted that I had to drop out of the project. I wanted to continue to be a part of something so creatively profound. And it would be fun to be on stage again. Nope. Back to school I went, only hearing about the play from Jody and my friend Kristen, an actress reading one of the monologues. (Why did I want to go back to school? Oh yeah, I need a job.)

Anyway, opening night came this past Friday and I went with Jane and another writing friend of mine, a man who proudly calls himself Republican. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Republican, but I wondered how he'd like a play about women's choices around fertility. On stage was a fantastic, multi-leveled set of oversized clock faces connected together to form stairs and platforms. We took our seat, the lights dimmed, and the play began.

What an incredible show! Under Rose's direction, Jody's words jumped to life, telling the story of the struggle we women have around our fertility. Should we have a child, or not? And if we get pregnanat, should we keep it, abort it, or give it up for adoption? How do those choices impact our lives? A teenage girl decides to give up her baby for adoption while across the stage the adopting mother worries that the girl might change her mind. A mother wants her daughter-in-law to have a child, but the daughter-in-law, an artist, doesn't want children. Two sisters talk about how the fact one of them has three kids and the other is infertile has ruined their relationship. A career woman decides to get pregnant which alienates all of her friends. A lesbian tells the story of how her child was conceived and a Mexican woman talks about the way her culture made her feel when she couldn't have children. And then there was the monologue from the mother of the disabled child, surrounded by beautiful moms dressed like they were in a pageant, bragging to each other about what perfect children they have.

I cried. Not just during the monologue based on me, but during many of the stories. And I laughed, a lot. So many of the scenes were hysterical. Half the cast were amateurs but they managed to become the characters with honesty and strength. I was definitely impressed. And my Republican friend? He loved it. Even a man not known for being "touchy-feely" was moved by this show.

This is one of the reasons I love the theater so much, and why I like to publish other writers. I love collaboration, working with a group of people to create something new. The Ticking Clock exemplifies that creative energy superbly. Not only is it a play that includes actors, directors and designers, but it includes the collective creativity of hundreds of women and a writer who wove their stories together.

The Ticking Clock premiered in Mendocino County, but is now available for other communities to perform. Go to The Ticking Clock website for more information (link is at top of this post).

You can also read a good review about the performance, written by Reid Edelman, here.

Twenty Four Hour Play Festival

The festival was a blast! Exhausting, but so much incredible, focused, collective energy, not just from our own team, but from all the teams working at the same time, trying to create art, or a semblance of it.

On friday night at 6:30 everyone gathered at the Ukiah Player's Theatre to meet, sign in as a team, make a plan, and find out the theme. We got lucky. "Death" was chosen. My writing partner Natasha Yim had an idea that fit perfectly so that gave us a head start. She and I went to her husband's office, put on the coffee, and started brain storming.

I've never worked with a partner before, so it took me a while to figure out how to proceed. I tend to just write everything down in one expulsion, sort of like vomiting words, not worrying too much about each line of dialogue. Once the structure is there, I go back and fix the words. Natasha sets up an outline first, going line by line, making sure she's staying on track. It took about an hour before we were in the zone, finding that balance point where we were both contributing. We spent as much time laughing as typing. By midnight, we had a play. By 3:00 am, it was a good play. I got to bed at 4:00, then up at 7:30 to meet the actors and director.

8:00 am the whole team got together outside the theatre and did the read through. The actors loved it. It sounded even better when they read it than how I imagined it in my head. Right away, the actors embodied the characters, adding nuances to the dialogue I hadn't foreseen. Natasha and I were exhausted, but happy. We left to get more sleep while the actors got to work.

At 3:00 pm I went back to the theatre to watch them on stage. Incredibly, they knew most of their lines already! I can write a play in one night, but there's no way I can learn lines in 7 hours.

8:00- Showtime! It was a good turn out. All seven plays were about death, but every team had a different idea about it. There was a campy Sci Fi comedy about reigniting the sun, a play written by a group of high school students about Canada nuking Ukiah, a play about ghosts messing with a fake psychic, and one about a mad taxi driver on his last night of work. Our play was about Vampires in a support group to help them fit in with humans. The vampire therapist has a nervous breakdown after listening to them "whine for the last millennia." After all the players took their bows, I found my teammates and we hugged, everyone feeling high on fatigue and excitement. It was an incredible experience.

To celebrate, my hubby and I went to the Ukiah Brewery to dance to The Mad Maggies, an eclectic, polka, ska, celtic, zydeco, rock band; the kind of music you MUST dance to. By the time I made it to bed at 1 am I felt that I'd climbed Half Dome in a day. But what a day!

If you've never done a 24 hour play fest, I highly recommend it. Exhausting, yes, but it's incredible what can be created in a short amount of time. I plan to do it again next year!

Living in a Scene from a Zombie Movie

You know in zombie movies there's that heavy, reddish fog that obscures the visibility of the hero as he runs through a deserted town, right before he gets attacked by zombies? That's how it looks outside right now.I feel like the zombie, not the hero. It's 3:00 in the afternoon in the middle of summer and the smoke from all the fires burning in Mendocino County makes it feel like twilight. Day four of unending, suffocating smoke.

The entire county is under a State of Emergency. The closest fire to us is the Greenfield fire, about ten miles away in the hills, still burning mostly out of control. Happily the calvary arrived yesterday. CalFire has sent help, although since there are so many fires throughout the State, the help is limited. But every little bit helps.

My daughter is going to stay with her dad for a while in Davis. It's smokey everywhere, but the hills surrounding the Ukiah Valley traps smoke inside like a big fish bowl, holding everything tight. She needs to get out of here.

I'm trying to keep working on the business book, edit punk stories, and manage Medusa, but I admit I'm feeling fuzzy headed and fatigued. Someone who lives outside the valley said she was surprised by how thick the smoke is here and how much everyone seems worn out and slow. "Like a bunch of zombies." Yep, I know how they feel. I want a new brain too.

My Muse has vanished. When all of her snakes started coughing, she grabbed her bathing suit and went to the Caribbean again. Can't say I blame her. Although I could really use her tomorrow night when Natasha Yim and I write a play in one night for the 24 hour play festival at Ukiah Player's Theatre. We write for 12 hours, then our team of actors take it and rehearse for 12 hours. At 8:00 Saturday night our play is performed along with the plays of seven other teams. I'm excited to do it, but I'm not feeling at my prime, I have to say. No Muse and no clean air. Maybe the play should be about zombies.

Panic at the Play

Friday was opening night of the New Works Festival of Plays at Mendocino College. I spent most of the day just trying to figure out what to wear (seems like the more nervous I am, the more outfits I try on). Should I dress as the serious writer, complete with black beret, casual writer in jeans and Keen shoes, or whimsical writer in flowy, blue skirt and scarf? Whimsical writer won, and at last it was time to go to the theatre. As my hand grabbed the door knob, I suddenly felt like I didn't want to go. Nope, I think I'll just stay home and hear about it from the director. Way safer! Coward, my Muse declared, and kicked me out the door.

At the theatre, I waited in the auditorium and watched it fill up with people. My brother and nephew were coming, but were unfortunately late. That gave me plenty of time to sit alone and fight the butterflies in my stomach while my palms got sweaty.

My Muse leaned over from the seat behind me and asked, "What are you so worried about?"

"I have no idea. But right now, I really want to leave."

She gripped my shoulder. "You're not going anywhere. Besides, no one came to see you, remember. You're just the play write. They came to see the actors perform the work. No one knows who you are."

"Right." I took a deep breath. Then the director of the festival took the stage and welcomed everyone while the staff closed the theatre doors. Oh just great, I thought. Now my brother can't get in!

The director talked about the festival and the selection of plays, then asked each director and play write to stand as he called our names. What! Ack! Now they'll know who I am. My Muse laughed.

"The writer of Choices, Terena Scott." I slowly stood, holding down my "whimsical" skirt so it wouldn't be lifted by the seat chair flipping up. Then I slowly sat, smoothed my skirt around me, and tried not to pass out.

The house lights dimmed just as my brother and nephew walked in, so they were stuck on the opposite side of the theatre and I was left alone in the dark with my sadistic Muse, surrounded by 100 spectators who I was convinced were all watching me twitch.

After the second play, I got up and dragged my brother and nephew to the seats I'd aggressively saved for them. Now that they were near, I felt a little better. No longer alone. But as soon as the fourth play began, my play, the butterflies in my stomach got so frantic I felt like throwing up. My heart pounded. I clenched my jaw, gripped the arms of the seat, and hyperventilated. I focused on the actors and willed myself not to pass out. I could see the headline in our local paper: Play write collapses at Festival of Plays. Doctor's say it was Stage-Fright.

My play was beautiful. The set was an exterior garden complete with greenery and tivoli lights. The opening music was Time After Time by Cindy Lauper. The actors were strong and their performance riveting. The audience laughed in unexpected spots. I tried to enjoy the moment, but I still had the feeling that they were actually watching me from the invisible eyeballs in the back of their heads. When my play ended, I wanted to cry.

Three more plays followed mine and at last the festival ended. My brother was impressed and even my 15 year old nephew "wasn't too bored." People congratulated my work. Friends gave me hugs and cheered for me.

My Muse asked, "How do you feel now?"

"I want to cry."

I went home and tried to figure out what had happened. I've acted in plays, stage-managed even more, and directed a few, but never have I suffered from such severe stage-fright, and I wasn't even on stage! The one thing all of my prior theatre experience have in common is the barrier of the stage. I was either on it, or behind it. I've never sat in the audience of any production I've been a part of. I could never hear the shuffling, sighing, squeaking of seats, and whispering sounds of an audience so close to me. The lack of the stage barrier was terrifying.

Understanding where my panic came from made the second night better. I was nervous, but not so panicked. Plus, this time my hubby came with me and I didn't spend any time by myself thinking about all those people staring at me. Yes, I know they aren't. As soon as I sat back down people forgot me and turned their attention to the stage. It's much like when I go to an author reading and once I'm introduced they forget I'm the publisher. I realize I like that anonymity.

I hope to write more plays and share them with audiences and actors. One of the directors of a play in the festival asked me if I write full length plays. Why yes, I'm currently revising a full length play now. Good, he said, and encouraged me to submit it to our local theatre company. The only thing I wonder about is how much worse will my vicarious stage fright be when the ENTIRE PRODUCTION is written by ME.

This is another torture my Muse will insist upon!

Script Frenzy Finish Line

I did it! After a grueling day of almost non-stop typing only interrupted by my daughter needing something (ever try to type and serve dinner at the same time?), I actually finished writing a 119 page play in one month! I even got a certificate from Script Frenzy to print out and a new logo for my blog which announces I WON! I'm so dang proud of myself that I pulled this off!

My Muse is quite proud too. She was the one who wouldn't let me out of the chair until I finished my play TODAY. Occasionally I was allowed to pee, and of course I could take care of my Mommy-duties, but otherwise it was non-stop, keep typing, only twenty more pages to go, work.

It's 9:30 at night, and my back, arms, shoulders, hands and neck are killing me. My whole body is screaming at me to STOP TYPING IMMEDIATELY AND TAKE A HOT BATH OR ELSE.

Okay, I'm going, but I had to announce it from the virtual roof-top that I DID IT.