Challenge: Want to Write a Play or Screenplay?

I just learned about this from Catherine Sharp over on the Sharp Words blog …

Hosted by Script Frenzy,  the challenge is to write 100 pages of script in 30 days. I’ve tried their NaNoWriMo challenge in the past, but was unsuccessful. I was working 12-14 hours a day at the time, that didn’t leave much time for anything else … especially writing. This year I’ve made some changes and have more time to write. So, I’m in.

The Challenge starts April 1, 2008. Check out their web site for more details.

Upstaged?

This past week I was lucky enough to attend not one, but two plays. One play was at my old alma mater, Cambria Heights High School, the one other at Bishop Carroll High School.

CH performed The Wiz, the 1975 Broadway musical adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The play features music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls. I remember watching The Wiz as a kid back in 1978 when it was released as a motion picture by Motown Productions and Universal Pictures … Diana Ross was Dorothy and Michael Jackson was the Scarecrow. In CH’s production, my niece was Evilene and several former students had leading roles. It was exciting to see them perform; they all did a fantastic job.

BC performed Smile, The Musical. I’m not as familiar with Smile as I am with The Wiz. In fact, I’ve never heard of Smile before the school started advertising its performance several weeks ago. Anyway, from the program I learned that, “Smile is a play about a contemporary beauty pageant (taking place in 1985) written by Howard Ashman with music by Marvin Hamlisch. Each contestant is an individual with something to add to the spectacular that is the Young American Miss Pageant.” Basically, Smile chronicles the backstage troubles of the fictional 1985 California Young American Miss beauty pageant held in Santa Rosa, California … it has some really funny scenes in it. I’m glad I went. Truthfully I probably would not have gone to see Smile if it wasn’t for my daughter’s drama club field trip. I was a semi-chaperon/driver. As a playwright you can never attend too many plays, they’re all different and you learn something new each time.

Last night I got to attend a backstage tour with the drama club and learned about “upstaging.” I have an academic understanding of the term, but I’ve never really grasped its full meaning until the tour. The director, Bruce Stanley, was explaining that, in Shakespeare’s time, since audiences were on level ground, the stages were slanted towards the audience so that everyone could see what was happening on the entire stage – the back of the stage, the upstage, was higher than the front. I asked, “Is that where we get the expression to be upstaged?” And it is. Apparently, when an actor moved upstage of another actor, it forced the other actor to act with his back to the audience and thereby overshadowed his performance. Interesting! Today the more common meaning is to outdo someone either professionally or socially.

What’s the lesson in this? Attend and get involved with your local theater as much as possible. You’ll learn a lot and that will help you as you write and sell your play.

Until next time …

Break a leg!

Technorait Tags: The Wiz, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L Frank Baum, Charlie Smalls, Motown Productions, Universal Pictures, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Smile – The Musical, Marvin Hamlisch, Howard Ashman, drama club, upstaging, stage direction

To Write or To Have Written, that is thequestion.

It’s been said that “actions speak louder than words.” That’s true for writing as it is in any other area of life. Some people claim that they want to be writers, but their actions tell a different story. I think that for some people, writing is not so important as it is to have written. They aren’t really interested in writing. They are more interested in what referring to themselves as a writer would mean to their self-image.

Some people need to write, while others need to call themselves writers. Which are you? I think you’ll find this post on The Need to Write can help you answer that question.

A Quick Update…

It doesn’t look like my play is going to be produced during the 2007-2008 school year. Mrs. St. Pierre has already selected the play that they are going to produce. C’est la vie. There’s always next year and other schools to send it to.

On a different note – after talking to some of the children that are interested in trying out for the play, there is some disappointment and concern. Apparently the play that Mrs. St. Pierre has selected has only 11 characters and 3 of them have no lines. The kids are going to have to be at their best when they do their reading. Good luck to all of them.

In the meantime I will continue to read How To Write and Sell Your Plays and work on my play.

One more thing, I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

A Confession about My Play

My play is not going as well as I had hoped.

There I said it. In fact, I’m not going to have it completed by my December 15th deadline. I should have known better than to try to accomplish something this grand while at the same time driving for FedEx Home Delivery. Particularly during the peak holiday season. Working 10, 12, even 14 hours a day doesn’t leave much time for anything else … especially writing a play.

I’ve scheduled some time to work on it during the upcoming Christmas break. If everything goes as planned, I should have it completed by the time the kids return to class on January 2nd. If Mrs. St. Pierre hasn’t made her final selection for the spring, I still might have a chance of my play being produced this year.

In the meantime, I’m continuing to learn a lot about crafting a play.

Did you know that generally speaking, one typed page of a play equals about one minute to one-and-a-half minutes of production? That’s a good way gauge the length of your play.

Also, there are basically three different stage directions that you will find in a script. They are:

Scene Directions – often aligned to the right side of the page, scene directions begin the play or act. They give you the basics of the play or the upcoming act. It answers the questions: what’s happening, who’s present, when is it taking place, etc.

An example from August Wilson’s, Fences.

(The Play: Near the turn of the century, the destitute of Europe sprang on the city with tenacious claws and an honest and solid dream. The city devoured them. They swelled its belly until it burst into a thousand furnaces and sewing machines, a thousand butcher shops and bakers ovens, a thousand churches and hospitals and funeral parlors and money-lenders. The city grew. It nourished itself and offered each man a partnership limited only by his talent, his guile, and his willingness and capacity for hard work. For the immigrants of Europe, a dream dared and won true …)

Staging Directions – answers what is happening on the stage during the particular scene. Who enters, who exits, characters movements; in a word it’s the ACTION of each character.

For example, from Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie

JIM
(heartily extends his hand)
Okay!
(LAURA touches it hesitantly with hers)

Character Directions – placed under the characters tag, these brief directions tell the character what they should be doing; they direct.

FRED
(rubbing his head)

Oh, my head hurts.

Keep in mind that when you mention a character in one of these directions their name should be in all CAPS. Also, staging directions are always (enclosed in parenthesis.)

365 Plays in 365 Days …

The other day I was reviewing some of the Google Alerts I subscribe to to stay on top of what is happening in the area of playwriting and I came across an alert about an experiment, playwright and Pulitzer Prize winner Suzan-Lori Parks started on November 13, 2002. Parks was going to write a play a day for a year. She began that very day, finishing one year (and 365 plays) later. I was intrigued. Heck, I’m inspired!

All I’m trying to do is complete one play by December 15, 2007, for my daughter’s school! That’s 65 days away as of this writing. To top things off, according to an interview Parks did back in May of 2003 on Oprah.com, she wrote her play Topdog/Underdog in only three days … Parks won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for that play. And, she’s the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in playwriting. That’s impressive!

How’s my experiment coming? Glad you asked … I’ve started work on some of my characters, there are 7 as of right now, and I am working on the plot and a couple of scenes.

That’s all for now.

A Surprise Play is Begun

For the true beginning playwright, did you know that a play (or script) has basically three parts – character ID, dialogue and stage directions? Simple, I like that …

Last weekend my wife, daughters and I were sitting around our chimenea roasting hot dogs and toasting marshmallows one last time before our back-to-school-schedules get into full swing and the weather turns cold and wet. The girls were talking animatedly about their friends and their first week back to school. And Patti and I were quietly discussing some of my writing projects. When out-of-the-blue, our future actress said, “Dad, Mrs. St. Pierre is expecting you to write this years school play.” I didn’t think she was listening to our conversation. Heck, she was talking so fast to her sister I didn’t think that she was breathing. Anyway …

My response was simply to smile and ask, “She is?” All I got in return was a quick “Yah, she is.” Little does the actress know that I’ve already printed out my copy of Cenarth Fox’s How to Write and Sell Your Plays. I’ve even started doing the exercises that Cenarth (his name is Welsh and is pronounced Ken-arth) recommends!

After completing the ebook I expect to have written not just another school play, but a fantastic school play. Won’t my daughter and Mrs. St. Pierre be surprised?

Write a Play: Beginner’s Luck, Reticular Activator or Law of Attraction?

Have you ever noticed that after you make a decision to do something, oh, let’s say write a play, that things start to happen that will lead you to the successful completion of your goal or decision? Whatever you call it: beginners luck, your reticular activator (that’s the fancy name for the filter that’s between your subconscious mind and your conscious mind. You buy a red Toyota Camry and suddenly you start seeing red Toyota Camrys everywhere. Pregnant women notice other pregnant women. That’s the sort of thing your reticular activator makes you aware of.) or the Law of Attraction, something happens that seems to “aid” you in attaining your goals.

For example, last Friday, after dropping my daughters off at the home of one of their classmates for a birthday party, I turned on National Public Radio. I rarely listen to NPR. What did I hear? “Jihad: The Musical is an explosive hit at the arts festival in Edinburgh.” During NPR’s All Things Considered broadcast they were talking about a play that’s a big hit at the Edinburgh Arts Festival … the largest arts festival in the world … gives amateur theater productions and stand-up comedians a chance to make a name for themselves.

According to NPR, one of this year’s big hits has been an American production called “Jihad:The Musical.” The show has received rave reviews from audiences. But, if you’re hell bent on political correctness this probably isn’t a play that you’d want to go see. If you’d be offended by a chorus line of high-kicking women in pink burqas, singing “I Wanna Be Like Osama” you’re better off seeing something like “A Chorus Line” or George Bernard Shaw’s beloved play “Pygmalion.” Which, I understand is now playing on Broadway.

My point of all of this? Inspiration and ideas are all around us. We just have to look for them. Who knows, the next Broadway hit may be on the front page of tomorrows newspaper.

How to Write a Play … in 4 Months or less.

This past May my daughter acted in her middle school play The XYZ Files, by Douglas Winter. The play was a spoof on the X-Files, and was very funny.

Afterwards, her English teacher and the director of the play, Mrs. St. Pierre, and I were talking about the play and all the work that went into it. The question of how to write a play came up, and I mused that it would be cool to write a play and have my daughter act in it. Well, that’s all it took. “Bill, why don’t you write a play and I’ll produce it?” Mrs. St. Pierre said. And I agreed.

What was I thinking? Oh, sure I’ve written for newsletters, newspapers, magazines and websites, but I’ve never written a play before. Not even a bad one. The problem? School will be starting next week and I haven’t written a single word. And, I’m sure to run into Mrs. St. Pierre. Ahhh!

I must confess … When it comes to plays my 13 year old daughter knows more than I do. At least for the moment.

So, I’ve spent the last couple of days browsing my local library (I know it’s old fashioned but there are some great books there) and I actually found a couple of books to check out. Putting on the School Play: A Complete Handbook by Holtje and Mayer and The Theatre Student: Playwriting by Peter Kline.

I’ve also been surfing the internet for information on how to write a play. And, there is a God, I think that I’ve found my salvation in Australian playwright Cenarth Fox …

Mr. Fox has penned more than 100 plays, had thousands of performances in nearly 50 countries and is still writing and selling plays today. He’s a working playwright. Does it get any better than that? And best of all he’s put his ideas, tips, plans and methods into a new ebook How To Write and Sell Your Plays.

I figure I have about three-and-a-half months, four tops, to write and edit my play before Mrs. St. Pierre is calling me. I better get to work …

Break a leg. (Isn’t that what actors and actresses say to each other when wishing good luck?)

Bill