[As
many ROTters
know, my friend Kirk Woodward wears many hats when it comes to theater. (If you flash on an image of Bartholomew Cubbins,
you will be forgiven.) One of his
talents is playwriting, a field about which he’s written before on Rick On Theater
(see “How to Write a Play,” posted on 18 February 2016).
[Taking off from a curious starting point,
participating in a writing contest, what Kirk’s done this time is write what’s
known as a process description—a step-by-step report on the progression by which he composed his
play. As he himself said to me, “Now
that I think of it, I haven’t read many descriptions of that process!” Nor have I.
[Well,
now we all can say we have. Of course,
we have to acknowledge that this is just one writer’s method for one play, but it’s
a pretty good first glimpse into what’s normally a very private task.]
On
July 9, 2020, Christine Orzepowski, a friend and a very fine actor, forwarded
to me the following email notice:
Calling
all writers and potential writers!
During this time of COVID 19, the ghost light
is on in the theatre. But we at The Summit Playhouse [Summit, NJ] want to keep
creativity alive! Join us for a playwriting challenge based on Paula Vogel’s
Bake-Offs.
Never written before? Published playwright?
No experience necessary! Everyone is welcome to join.
We will send you five “ingredients” to put in
an original short play (10-12 pages), and you will have 48 hours to write a
short play. You have full creative license!
Rules:
1. On July 10 at 6:00 PM
EST, we’ll post the ingredients. If you would like us to email them to you,
please send an email to summitplayhousebakeoff@gmail.com
2. You have until July
12 at 6pm EST to email your 10-12 page play to summitplayhousebakeoff@gmail.com. Please see
formatting & rules at summitplayhousebake-off.com.
3. We will then read all
the plays sent to us and choose our favorites to be read aloud on YouTubeLive
(date TBD).
I
responded to the proper email address – so did my friend Martha Day – and the
theater sent a sample format for the play.
Paula
Vogel (b. 1951) is perhaps best known for her play How I Learned to Drive (1998), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
for Drama in that year. A noted educator as well as a playwright, she has
taught at Brown University and at Yale University, where she was playwriting
department chair at the Yale School of Drama. [See ‘“In Conversation: Lynn
Nottage & Paula Vogel”’ by Tari Stratton, posted on Rick On Theater on 7 October 2017.]
Ms.
Vogel began her bake-offs in February 2018. Her procedures differ in some
details from the Summit Playhouse event, for example in the length of plays to
be submitted. Her procedures, which have changed to some extent from bake-off
to bake-off, can be read at http://paulavogelplaywright.com/bakeoff.
The
Summit Playhouse was founded in 1918 and describes itself as the oldest
community theater in New Jersey. It presents a three-play season – currently
interrupted by the coronavirus – in its own theater located in a former library
building constructed in 1891. Worthy of special note are its Kaleidoscope
productions, which take theater to hospitals, nursing homes, and similar
locations.
The
“bake-off” or “challenge” format has become quite popular in recent years, and
particularly since the onset of the virus. It offers the excitement of a
contest, a level of challenge similar to that of a crossword puzzle or Rubik’s
Cube, the hope of some sort of production of one’s work, and a relatively small
investment of time – for the author, less than 48 hours of writing; for the
sponsor, the task of reading all the plays.
I
liked the brain-teaser aspect of the Summit bake-off. What’s more, although
I’ve never entered exactly this kind of contest before, I have had a number of
plays produced because I wrote them based on the requirements of a particular
theater.
One
example is a play called Who’s Who In
Murder (1990), which I wrote to meet several specific mandatory criteria –
it had to involve a mystery, it had to take place in a library (where it would
be staged), it had to involve mystery books. It won the Hardin County
(Kentucky) Playwriting Contest, and was duly performed there.
I
believe the attraction of the bake-off idea for me, though, was the
intellectual challenge itself. I had no particular ideas for plays in my mind
at the moment, and this provided some. The very fact of limitations can be
stimulating. For example, a lyricist may take great pleasure in needing to fit
a song’s words to the melody – difficult, but highly satisfying.
I
also detect a sneaking feeling that the
results really don’t matter. It’s possible that a play written using a
series of arbitrary elements may be heartfelt or artistically superior; but I
wouldn’t bet the ranch on it.
What’s
the worst that could happen? The play would disappear, and no one (except the
theater’s play readers) would be the wiser. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.
As the playwright Robert Anderson (1917-2009) wrote in a sign he kept above his
desk, “NOBODY ASKED YOU TO BE A PLAYWRIGHT.”
I
invite the reader, if you didn’t enter the Summit Playhouse bake-off yourself,
to stop reading at this point and create your own plot for the five ingredients
of the bake-off, which duly arrived via email at 6pm on Friday, July 10:
·
A
trumpet
·
Unexpected
money
·
A
porch
·
A
dance break
·
A
secret
·
The
Devil
(The
Devil, a sixth element, is in the list for “extra credit,” just for fun.)
How
are you doing?
Nothing
ventured, nothing gained. Martha Day and I independently came up with the same
procedure for our entries: use Friday night to let ideas develop, write the
play on Saturday, polish it on Sunday and send it in. (We did not discuss our
work while it was being written, however.) This plan does, of course, depend on
actually getting an idea on Friday night.
I
was surprised that all five, or six, of the elements were nouns; I was
expecting a mix of actions, props, intentions… Nevertheless, those were the
ingredients we all had to work with.
So:
at a first look, it seemed to me that the actual “plot elements” were:
unexpected money, a secret, and (if I decided to go this direction) the Devil.
A porch indicates a location of some kind; a trumpet demands a choice as to
whether it’s played or not; and a dance break suggests that music is involved
in some way.
Beginning
to work, I decide I’d like my main character, in whatever situation, to be a
woman. I am immediately stuck on what kind of occasions could involve
unexpected money – the “unexpected” demanding an important decision of some
sort, but what?
I
want a switcheroo of some sort for an ending. It would have to involve money in
some surprising way – buried under the porch? Outside, as I write, a tropical
storm is pouring on us, and wild weather seems appropriate for a background,
especially if the Devil is going to be involved. [I abandoned the weather idea
later; however, I did mention that the grass was wet.]
I
would like my female character to trick the Devil. Could she be an angel? In
disguise? The wild card elements are the dance break and the trumpet – what do
I do with those?
Or
was I being too literal about all this? I had to step away and see if my brain could
produce anything.
It
seemed to. I decided that Emily, my central character, would have unexpectedly received
a large amount of money, and that Martin, the Devil in disguise, would be
trying to get it from her or have her use it in some bad way.
Having
the Devil in the play suggested getting someone to oppose him – perhaps an
angel? Michael? – the one who will blow the last trumpet? (See below.) Now
we’re getting somewhere! I set the play on the porch of Emily’s house, where a
society party is in process. She, Martin, and Michael all end up on the porch.
. . . The play would be called “Dance Break” and I could use that phrase
several times in the play, as a metaphor for various things.
I
write a page or so of dialogue and then stop writing, doing other things for
the rest of the evening. In the course of those activities I decide that Emily
hadn’t come into money; her aunt has, and Martin is trying to convince her to
use a trick to get the money for herself.
Late
at night, I come up with the trick, which is more a strategy, but seems usable
– she has the same name as her aunt, so perhaps she can sue on the grounds that
the money was intended for her. What I’d already written would have to be
refocused to use the new plot elements, but that will be tomorrow’s work.
The
next day, morning dawns and I sit down to try and write the rest of the play.
The pages I wrote last night have to be revised with the Devil’s plan in mind.
First revision: Martin’s name. I look up names for the Devil and “Old Nick”
pops out, so Martin becomes Nick.
I’m
also not happy with Mikey’s name, especially when I notice that it is Gabriel
and not Michael who according to the story will blow the last trumpet. More
quick research, and although “Gabe” is almost always a man’s name, “Gabrielle”
is certainly used as a woman’s name, and “Gabey” is a possible nickname, so
that’s what Mikey becomes.
I
try to write an outline for the play; it has six lines on it, not much to go
on, but I figure that if I go ahead and write what I’ve got, I can then look
back and see what else might belong in the play, assuming it’s not long enough.
I’m relieved to see that the six “ingredients” for the bake-off are all well established
in the story of the play. That’s something.
The
“bunco” plot gives the first part of the play a nice focus, centering it on the
fact that Nick has something in mind. I start to write in earnest about 9 AM,
and the draft is finished right at 11:30 AM. It’s eleven pages long, more or
less. I have no idea if it’s any good or not.
The
story: Emily is helping host a formal party, with a live dance band, to
celebrate her aunt’s coming into a lot of money. On the outside porch, Nick,
who clearly has some sort of interest in Emily, tempts her with a scheme to get
a share of her aunt’s money. The two are interrupted several times by Gabey, a
trumpet player in the band, who has a mysterious aspect to her.
Further
interruptions occur as Nick pushes his scheme on Emily. After his third try,
Gabey reveals to Nick that she is actually the angel Gabriel (whom Nick has
known for a long time) and that she
will do anything she can to stop Nick’s scheme.
Emily,
however, reveals that she is on to Nick, too, and has no intention of fleecing
her aunt, primarily because she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. Nick and
Gabey both retire, presumably to fight another day, and Emily goes back in to
the party.
Having
finished the draft, in the next half hour I’m back to it at least twice, making
small changes in dialogue, taking out extraneous or repetitive words, adding phrases
to make things clearer. This process continues through the rest of the day, and
on into Sunday, when I finally send the play in. Done!
And
Martha Day? She and her daughter, Heather, wrote a play that effortlessly
includes all the elements in a funny way, perfect for Zoom. Very irritating!
And
I realized, thinking about it, that Martha and Heather probably had the right
approach from the start, and I probably had not. They had taken a fun,
entertaining contest and done something fun and entertaining with it.
I,
on the other hand, had taken the bake-off instructions too literally, and had
written – I won’t say a “serious” play, but – an earnest play. Almost certainly
this would not be what the sponsors were looking for.
On
the other hand, there were things to be glad about. In particular, I hadn’t had
an idea for a play in my head at the time, and within only a few days I had not
only come up with an idea for a play but had written it. There are worse
things. After all, a bake-off is successful if you can digest the results of
your work. Not every meal is to every taste. Ask any chef.
[I’m working with Kirk
now on preparing his bake-off play, Dance Break, for publishing on Rick On Theater. I think it’ll be interesting to see, after
reading about his process above, how it came out—what Kirk did with the “ingredients”
the Summit
Playhouse gave him to work with. It should be on the blog on Wednesday, 22 July.
[With luck—and Martha and Heather Day’s
generosity—I hope to publish their play made from the same ingredients. You’ll be able to see not only how one playwright
manipulated the components to create one play, but how two others used the same
components to compose an entirely different play. It should be a fascinating experiment.
[Kirk maintains a website for his
playwriting, http://spiceplays.com/,
where ROTters can find
all of his scripts and information about obtaining permission to produce them
and royalties and so on.]
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