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From Dreams to Stage

Dylan Malloy — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 18:41:21 +0000

As a double major in playwriting and business at Emory University, seeing my work onstage is always a dream come true. This summer, my full-length play The Groundwater won the Blank Theatre’s 31st Annual Young Playwrights Festival, producing the play in Hollywood in July 2023. The play is the final installment of a five-play series about human connection and the climate crisis.

This was my second production with the Young Playwrights Festival, and it was also the company’s first in-person festival since 2019 (due to the pandemic). Any playwright between the ages of 9 and 19 can submit work to the festival, and 12 winners are chosen from the nationwide submissions every year. I can’t recommend the program highly enough!

Bringing The Groundwater to the West Coast was an exciting challenge, and while the play was first performed as a staged reading by Emory’s Oxford College theatre department in September 2022, the Blank Theatre produced the first fully staged production.

Here’s a peek into the festival experience and the playwriting lessons I learned along the way.

Mentorship and Edits

The Blank Theatre assigns every playwright a mentor as they edit their script. I worked with Aliza Goldstein, a playwright who is also an alumnus of the Young Playwrights Festival. She and I met over Zoom multiple times to reread the play and discuss how to make it stronger.

Because I tend to overwrite, this meant cutting down the script and removing unnecessary lines of dialogue. The mentorship process also gave me the opportunity to explore different facets of the characters and include an entirely new scene.

Lesson: Keep it short

From these meetings, I learned that brevity makes a script stronger and dense paragraphs of dialogue are difficult for the audience to follow. When writing, ask yourself how the characters can communicate using as few words as possible.

The Rehearsal Process

We began rehearsals in early July, where I met the cast and creative team for the first time. Madison McLaughlin (Arrow on CW, Chicago PD), Jorge-Luis Pallo (The Secret Life of the American Teenager), and David Bloom (American Born Chinese on Disney+) starred in the production. I learned so much about the craft of theatre from watching them work!

The actors all brought an incredible amount of enthusiasm, talent, and dedication to the play. As we analyzed the characters, I discovered even more about the story, which I’d been working on for two years. We all grew very close during late-night rehearsals and became fast friends. The new relationships formed over the summer are one of the most transformative parts of the Young Playwrights Festival!

Lesson: Make space for creativity and rest

Our director, Laura Stribling, wanted the actors to feel free to make bold decisions onstage, so she let them improvise certain movements to see what felt natural. From this experience, I learned that stage directions should work for the actors, not the other way around. If you’re working on an original play and notice that a certain direction is uncomfortable or unnatural for the actors, it helps to step back and see if there is another way to approach this movement.

Though we usually rehearsed at night, I spent the rest of the day working on other writing projects. It’s easy to become burnt out while juggling multiple stories. I realized that I had to make time for rest so that I could bring my best self to rehearsal. Going on long walks, spending time with family, reading, and taking naps gave me energy. If you’re working on a production and want to recharge, try setting aside time in your day when you are not doing anything creative. Spending time in silence quiets your mind and reduces stress levels.

The Finishing Touches

The production ran from July 20-23 and was performed alongside two short one-act plays written by other winning playwrights. The West Coast premiere of The Groundwater was magical, and I’m so excited to continue developing this script.

We performed in the Skylight Theatre, a gorgeous venue in Los Angeles with an actual skylight.

Lesson: Shows will always evolve

After multiple productions and performances, a play is never “done” until a playwright decides that it is. The world of your story is like a sandbox: You can build and rebuild different parts of the story for as long as you’d like.

Our director decided to introduce classical music mixed with sounds of dripping water, which formed the musical motif of the show. We loaded in furniture pieces and then experimented with different technical elements. Blue and purple light represented moments where the characters are dreaming or feeling distanced from reality. It was wonderful to learn more about how technical elements highlight the emotions of a story.

The Blank Theatre has changed the lives of countless young playwrights, and I’m forever grateful for the summers I spent with the company. Working in the theatre this summer taught me how to revise a script to make it punchier and more efficient. I also learned how to balance a demanding rehearsal schedule with time to write and work on other projects. Through the friends I made on set, I once again discovered the joy of telling stories with other people and watching their talent shine onstage.

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How to Write a Script in 4 Steps

Dylan Malloy — Wed, 17 May 2023 22:33:51 +0000

Learning how to write a script is a simple process, and yet it takes time to hone your craft. Be patient and try these steps that work for me.

Whether you’re an actor who wants to create characters from scratch or a director ready to create a whole new world, this process works. Writing your first play is always exhilarating and it’s easy to get distracted. Here’s how I sharpen my focus; see for yourself that adding some structure to the creative process helps to find success.

How to Write a Script: Step One

Find your inspiration. Every writer gathers ideas from different places, so resources that work for me might not work for you. It helps me to make lists of things that inspire me before I sit down to write.

Here are questions to think about as you write down your list of inspirations:

What visuals inspire me? (photographs of places, people or animals, painted artworks, statues, etc.)
Which songs make me feel the feelings that help me create new characters and worlds?
Which stories stay in my mind after I finish reading or watching them?

When you answer these questions, you can narrow down which genres and moods interest you. For example, if you’re always first in line to see the next Star Wars movie, there’s a chance you might want to try writing science fiction. If you love going to art museums to look at Renaissance paintings, maybe you’d like to try writing a period piece.

The stories we create are made up of a mix of the things that inspire us–all different genres and types of media. Paying attention to things that excite you is the first step toward creating your original stories.

Once you understand your story’s genre, physical location, and time period, you’re ready to begin drafting.

Script Writing: Step Two

Next, set a timer for five minutes and try to describe, in writing, the physical world of the play. Is it set in a living room, a boat, in the woods, or on another planet? Pretend you are watching the setting from above, then “zoom in” as much as possible and write down what you see.

Try to find unexpected details. Audience members want to feel immersed in the worlds of the stories that they watch, and the more you know about your story world, the more it will come through in your dialogue. Of course, it’s impossible to create a perfect representation onstage of the world you see in your head, but if you have a clear mental picture, you will have a stronger understanding of how characters can navigate this world.

Once the five minutes is up, set a timer for ten minutes and begin to describe the different types of characters who inhabit in your world.

Where do they live?
What jobs do they perform?
What are their relationships with each other?

You don’t have to overthink this, and you also don’t have to stick with your first ideas. This is a simple way to identify people who might live inside your story.

Script Writing: Step Three

The next step is to construct your first scene. This might feel nerve-wracking at first. It helps me to think of writing each individual scene as if I’m driving down the road. Let me explain.

When driving, we sometimes take unexpected turns, or speed up, or slow down. And yet while we’re driving we’re moving, and ultimately moving forward.

That’s what a scene is: forward motion. Each scene moves the story forward because characters are always trying to get what they want. They might change strategies along the way and try different tactics, but no matter what, they are always moving down that “road” by trying to reach their desires.

Characters’ desires need to always come into conflict. Without conflict it’s hard to keep the viewer’s attention. And, well, even characters in a script can’t get what they want all the time! A character’s desire doesn’t necessarily have to be something life-changing. It can be as large-scale as world peace or as small-scale as getting an ‘A’ on a test. But no matter what, there must be consequences if the character doesn’t get what they want. (These consequences are called stakes.) This kind of necessary tension drives a story forward.

At the planning stage, you don’t have to have an outline of every scene in your play. Making new discoveries about details along the way is the most exciting part of the playwriting journey! Some writers prefer to outline everything before they start drafting, but you don’t have to do so if this feels overwhelming. So long as you’re thinking about how to keep the story moving forward, the
script will eventually fall together.

Script Writing: Step Four

Ask any playwright and they will tell you: Writing is mostly a process of rewriting. You can discover more about the characters and the world of your story as you continue to rewrite and create. It’s important to give yourself time and space to write pages that might not make it into the final play. Work that you do is never wasted; everything you write, in some way or another, contributes to the final script. Take the pressure off yourself to create something excellent at the very start! A lot of the best story discoveries come from unexpected detours.

Above all, be sure to give yourself grace as you learn how to write plays. There’s no singular way to get it “right.” Every time you sit down to work, you’re learning–not just about your story, but about your own creative vision.

Dylan Malloy is a regular contributor to Dramatics.org. Connect with her @dylan_writes.

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3 Playwriting Tips

Dylan Malloy — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 22:54:40 +0000

These playwriting tips focus on the opening, middle, and closing of your story. They will help you pace your story to keep your audience interested. The key is to show the audience how the characters and the world they are in are transformed beyond the ordinary. Here is what you need to know to hook your audience and create deep emotion.

Playwriting Tips: Openings

Before any transformation takes place, the audience needs a sense of how the world currently is in the story’s setting. The first few minutes of dialogue should be devoted to introducing the characters and the world of the story. “World” can mean anything from the physical setting of the story to the time period to the characters’ positions in society as a whole.

You don’t need to dump information into dialogue that can be expressed later in the story in a more subtle manner. However, the audience needs a clear idea of the world so they can understand the significance of an inciting event that disturbs the story world’s balance.

An inciting event is any occurrence that leads to the main problem of the story, which the characters work to solve. Although this inciting event is best introduced early in the play, it doesn’t necessarily have to be overly dramatic on its own. Something as simple as the introduction of a new character or an unusual weather event can throw off the regular balance of the story world.

Above all else, you want to create questions in the audience’s mind about how–or if–the world will come back into its natural order. Tension like this keeps the audience focused and intrigued.

Playwriting Tips: The Middle

This idea of transformation carries through into the middle of the story and influences the audience’s expectations. At this point in the story, the conflict is in full swing and the characters are affecting it with every choice that they make.

The key to the most effective endings is surprise, but the audience can’t feel surprise unless they first have expectations about how the story will end. Or how the characters will be transformed by the conflict.

On Helping Your Audience with Your Writing

Expectations are related to genre. For example, in a tragedy, characters usually die. Genre conventions are part of every single story that we tell. The audience forms beliefs about how the story will end and what will happen to the characters based on the genre.

One strategy for creating transformation in the middle section is to make the problem so drastic and dire that it forces the characters into an extremely low place. The key is let your characters take risks that force them out of their comfort zone. The audience will either be cheering the characters on or hoping they don’t succeed in what they are doing.

When characters become desperate, risky and unexpected actions that they take tend to make sense to the audience. However, all actions that a character takes must fundamentally make sense according to their personality.

That is, characters’ values usually remain stable. For example, if a character is set up to value honesty above all else, having them turn into a conniving liar at the end of the story makes no sense unless the circumstances are so extreme that the character is forced to change on a fundamental level. Audiences feel emotions such as sympathy for characters that change in interesting ways.

Playwriting Tips: The End

Endings should leave the audience feeling as though the conflict is resolved, for better or for worse. Some playwrights create tidy endings with lots of closure for the audience. While other playwrights prefer to leave the outcome open to interpretation. No matter which method you choose, transformation should still be the focus.

Over the course of a story, characters watch their world shift around them, then respond to that shift by taking unexpected actions and emerging from the conflict transformed. Characters both affect the world and are affected by the world.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF ABOUT THE ENDING

These are the kinds of questions to ask yourself, and answer, as you write the ending of your play:

Did the characters achieve their goals and bring the world back into its natural order?
Has the story world been changed so fundamentally that there is no going back?
Did the characters change for the better or for worse?

Answering these questions will give you a sense of the tone of your finale, which influences the emotions the audience will feel. Thinking about shifts in the characters and the world leads you to create a story flow that has tension, intrigue, and above all else, emotional resonance.

Dylan Malloy is a playwright and director who currently attends Emory University as a playwriting major, with a double major in business on the arts administration track. You can find her on Instagram @dylan_writes.

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Passion for Playwriting

Natalie Clare — Fri, 20 May 2022 15:42:30 +0000

If you’re a playwright, or a writer of any kind, your teachers and mentors have probably told you to “write what you know.” Finding inspiration from your own life can really strengthen your story’s impact. That’s certainly true for Isaiah Reaves, a professional playwright on the rise who’s based in Cincinnati, Ohio. His work explores a spectrum of Black and Queer experiences.

“Saying that I ‘write what I know’ seems clichéd, but it’s the truth,” says Reaves. “I write about what I’ve been through. When I was a kid, I was bullied, but writing about being bullied set me free and made me feel better.”

Since childhood, Reaves has considered writing and storytelling a powerful gateway to self-reflection and making personal connections. He adds, “I learned that if I was able to be myself, my writing would have deeper meaning. I want audiences to see my work and be inspired to tell their own stories and to be themselves no matter what.”

Below are deeper insights into Reaves’s playwriting journey.

When Passion for Playwriting Makes You Feel Alive

Reaves grew up with an interest in theatre. He nurtured his talents and developed skills in singing and acting but he felt uniquely drawn to the craft of writing. At age 11, he wrote his first play. It was an adaptation of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. The book, he says, changed his life and motivated him to write his own stage version. The experience was significant in more ways than one.

Says Reaves, “One night, I accidentally deleted over 100 pages of writing. I was devastated and cried all night. But the next day, I got up and started writing the entire play all over again. That was when I realized that playwriting was my passion. Of course, as a human being, I naturally had doubts about making a living doing what I loved. But I started producing my own work at 16 and decided to take my future into my own hands.”

Isaiah graduated cum laude from Northern Kentucky University in 2020. He’s finishing his Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Iowa Playwrights Workshop.

The Creative Process

Reaves says his creative process hasn’t changed much since he was 11-years-old. “I’m a planner. I plan and think about what I want to write for many months before I actually sit down to write anything. By the time I open my laptop to begin a script, I know where the story is going. I know the beginning and the ending. I know the characters and the title.”

When writing a draft, he says music is a must. “I listen to whatever music my characters would listen to. If I am writing a piece about contemporary teenagers or young adults, I listen to hip-hop. If I am writing a play set in the 1930s, I listen to 1930s jazz. I listen to anything that puts me in the time and place in which my characters live. I actually won the Kennedy Center Hip Hop Theatre Creator Award when my horror piece, Saturday the 13th, placed second in the nation. That’s an example of the impact of music on my craft.”

He says he gives himself the grace of letting the first draft be bad. Then, once it’s on the page, he collects input from others. “I seek advice from friends. I hear the script out loud and continue to make changes for many months after.”

Written by Reaves

Reaves has written 14 plays to date, with his 15th currently in the process of being written. Here’s a quick look at his works:

● The Blackface Project, 2018: The true story follows Bert Williams, a Black performer during the turn of the 19th century, who’s invited to perform on Broadway. He would be the first Black man to do so. But the caveat is that he can only do it if he agrees to perform in blackface, concealing his true identity to alleviate the racist fears and concerns of white audiences. The production was staged for the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. It received recognition as the critic’s pick by Cincinnati’s CityBeat.
● The Black Boy in Pink, 2019: This fictional story centers on the life and relationships of a gay Black man named Wyatt. He engages in various relationships against the backdrop of 1959 Cincinnati, when living one’s life openly and freely as a member of the LGBTQ+ community posed enormous obstacles. Reaves was invited to read portions of The Black Boy in Pink at Lincoln Center Plaza as part of the Classical Theatre of Harlem Playwright’s Playground series.
● Richie and Blanche, 2020: Reaves was asked to write a pod play for Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The audio play took place at a specific location, and it was recorded and delivered through an audio file. Listeners were encouraged to visit the location of the story, plug in their headphones and press play. Richie and Blanche takes place on a bridge connecting Cincinnati to Northern Kentucky. The two characters, referenced in the title, are an estranged mother and son who have reconnected. Five years prior, Richie had come out to Blanche, which set off five years of separation.
● I Shall Not Be Moved, 2022: Produced by Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, this biographical, onstage memoir tells the story of Reaves’s grandmother, Betty Daniels Rosemond. She’s a groundbreaking, nationally recognized Civil Rights activist who was one of the first Freedom Riders of the 1960s.

Pearls of Wisdom

Playwright Isaiah Reaves.

Here’s what Reaves recommends to emerging theatre artists and playwrights:

● You will hear the word “no” many times. But it only takes one “yes” to change your life. It will be difficult but wait for that “yes.”
● If you work hard enough and really love your craft, anything can happen. Don’t give up.
● Make things happen for yourself when it seems like no one is listening.
● Learn everything about theatre so you appreciate every job.
● Listen to your instructors.

Reaves’s works have been commissioned and staged by The Classical Theatre of Harlem at Lincoln Center, Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati, Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, and many others. He is also a semi-finalist for the Ucross and The Blank Theatre Future of Playwriting Prize, a 2020 finalist of the Jackie Demaline Regional Collegiate Playwriting Competition, and an Iowa Arts Fellow. His next play, The Living Dead, is a contemporary version of the classic, 1968 horror film Night of the Living Dead. It’ll be staged at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company in the fall, just in time for Halloween.

Natalie Clare is a Cincinnati-based writer who composes original content for brands, organizations, and publications. As a storyteller, she writes fiction and nonfiction, and she directs and produces works of film. Visit her at nataliecwrites.com.

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How to Fight Against Stereotypes in Theatre

Rosanna Gao and Brayden Chein — Mon, 28 Feb 2022 16:28:31 +0000

Yale graduate Skyler Chin has taken the fight against stereotypes in theatre personally. Inspired by his internship experiences at Angel Island, Skyler wrote Illegal, a creative and powerful rap-rock musical about the history of Asian-American immigrants. He hopes Illegal helps shine the light of understanding on the often untold history of Asian immigrants. The expressive lyrics and dynamic score of Illegal does what theatre does best: educate while entertaining!

Skyler was initially inspired by his grandparents’ stories of immigrating to the U.S. during the Chinese Exclusion era in the late 1800s nd early 1900s. (Discover more about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882). Plus, his late father had a deep kung fu practice that influenced him, so Sklyer combined these experiences with his self-taught musical skills to create Illegal. The final impetus to the musical’s creation was Skyler’s experiences at Angel Island combined with his passion to fight against stereotypes in theatre. Skyler’s historical-fiction narrative on immigrants detained on Angel Island has come into the world at an ideal and critical time.

Using Immigrants’ Own Words to Fight Against Stereotypes in Theatre

During his internship with the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) in San Francisco, Skyler read the book Island by Judy Yung (1980, University of Washington Press). Island is a compilation of poetry originally found carved into the walls at Angel Island by Chinese immigrants detained there to try and uphold U.S. exclusion laws. Skyler says, “The poems had such moving and emotional lyrics, but what stood out to me was that they weren’t limited to sadness and grieving. These immigrant poets also expressed determination, perseverance, and even the furious desire to exact revenge and burn the immigration station down. Their words conveyed a fighting spirit that I was never taught about in American history. I was moved to write them into a song, which became the opener of the musical.

“Illegal is based on just one family’s story, but I hope to tell a piece of Asian-American history through songs that capture the spirit and resolve of those who went through Angel Island. Given the anti-Asian hate we’ve experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, I hope shows like Illegal can help humanize us, instill empathy, and help to dismantle the perpetual foreigner myth as well as the model minority myth that fuel the attacks.

“I also want to inspire other kids to tell their stories. I met a class of 3rd-grade students in Oakland’s Chinatown who performed our uplifting song “Keep Dreaming” as part of their Martin Luther King Jr. Day festival. I was so touched by their rendition! I told them I hope they are inspired to keep dreaming, to write shows of their own, and to tell their stories.”

Taking Action When History Repeated Itself

“I originally wrote Illegal at Yale in 2019, in response to the previous federal administration’s family separations, Muslim ban, border wall, attempts to repeal birthright citizenship…the list goes on. These policies echoed the anti-Asian immigration laws from 140 years ago, especially the Chinese Exclusion Act. For instance, my grandfather was separated from his parents at age 10 years, despite being a legal immigrant. He was detained in bad conditions on Angel Island for months during 1923. I saw these kinds of detentions happening again to immigrants in 2019. I felt like history was repeating itself!

“Maybe part of why this was happening again was because people weren’t taught about these same kinds of events in our country’s past? I wanted to help educate others by telling my family’s story. And even now in 2022, we’re seeing states banning real history education and critical race theory, both of which I needed to understand to write this musical.”

Skyler Chin and Nick Leung performing at Carnegie Hall.

Characters Drawn from Real Life

“I relate most to the ‘paper son’ character Slim Chin,” Skyler says. “He’s inspired by one of my grandfathers, who was an illegal immigrant living in NYC Chinatown under the paper name Wong. Originally, he did not want my last name to be his real name Chin because he thought it would endanger our family. Writing the character Slim Chin helped me reclaim that history and shine light on my grandfather’s life and secret identity.

“I also really relate to the Chinese American interpreter, Carter Lee, as she struggles with her identity being pegged as a perpetual foreigner even though she was born in America. And there’s our heroine Kee Lin who loves kung fu and is always fighting for what she believes in. Her rap style is influenced by Wing Chun, and I identify with her the most musically.”

What’s Next & How Readers Can Help

“My collaborators, Olivia Facini and Sita Sunil, and I are rehearsing with a professional all-AAPI cast to tour high schools and organizations in the NYC area and around the nation to perform Illegal. So far, we’re planning visits to Manhasset School District, Flushing Town Hall, Angel Island, The Chinese Historical Society of America, Queens Public Library, and more! We were named semi-finalists for the Eugene O’Neill National Musical Theater Conference, and have been working with our community partners, the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) and Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) to plan exciting educational programming this year.

“We are building interest and raising funds for a professional production in 2022 of Illegal in recognition of the 140th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. We deeply appreciate any help with fundraising, performance opportunities, donations, connections to organizations and/or people who would be interested in getting involved. Please reach out to us with the contact information below!”

To learn more about Skyler Chin and how you can help, connect with him at skylerchin.com/links.

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Writing a Fantasy World for Your Play

Dylan Malloy — Fri, 14 Jan 2022 20:41:43 +0000

When you think of live theatre, maybe a fantasy world with spaceships, androids, or flying cars isn’t what you see in your mind’s eye. Yet through speculative plays, all this and more comes to life! According to Book Riot, speculative fiction “can include literary fiction with fantastical elements as well as hardcore science fiction, fantasy, and horror.” Think: Star Wars or Fahrenheit 451 as examples. It’s possible to take all the imaginative, suspenseful, mind-bending power of speculative stories to the stage. Here are writing tips that transcend time and space.

Your Fantasy World Requires Focus

The first step of world-building is focus. For example, if you’re writing a play about the year 2050, don’t get overwhelmed trying to write about climate change, and politics, and social media, and space travel, etc.

Narrow your focus to one element of the future or alternate universe for your story. This focus allows you to dive into the topic more deeply and flesh it out more fully. You don’t need to explain every aspect of the world you are creating because doing so slows the story down.

Our current world already has given us a lot of technology described in speculative and science fiction stories. So, ask yourself how this technology might change 5, 10, or 50 years. The only limit to this exercise is how far your imagination can go! Thinking about storytelling like this often makes it easier for you, and for audiences, to relate to the world of your story.

Fantasy World Main Characters

When thinking about your main character, try to imagine them behaving inside the aspect you’re focusing on. How does you protagonist interact with time travel, or spaceships, or interplanetary war, or whatever element is dominating your story? How do they navigate this world? Is the world supportive of them, or is it hostile?

And the most important question of all, the question that will define your story: what does your character want, and what stands in their way? No matter in what genre you’re writing, some elements of story stay the same. You always want well-developed characters and high stakes.

Speculative plays ultimately aren’t about the future, but about the people trying to navigate it. The idea of stakes refers to how badly the character needs to get what they want. Sometimes characterization involves writing many drafts of scenes that never make it into the final play. These scenes are helpful because they help you figure out the voices and desires of your characters.

Ultimately, a good story is made of central conflict between two things: a character who wants something and the forces that stand in their way. Take our word for it: unique, well-developed characters who want something deeply will hold the audience’s attention, no matter the genre of the story!

A Fantasy World with a Message

Some writers use speculative plays to communicate a message about the world we live in today. The powerful thing about being a playwright is that you can choose which message to convey. Or, you can also choose not to convey a message at all and simply entertain.

No matter which route you choose, remember that the most critical things you need for any story are character and stakes. If you can also share a message that’s important to you, that’s excellent! But “a message” isn’t necessary for your play to be emotionally impactful.

It’s your choice how much to reflect on the world we live in today. Ultimately, it’s the core elements of a story that will resonate the most with an audience.

When Special Effects Aren’t an Option

Playwrights have to be conscious of how their work will look onstage, but writing speculative plays requires a new type of thought. In speculative movies, special effects can fill in all the gaps of the audience’s imagination, but in the theatre, this isn’t always possible. A more minimalistic approach works better because it allows the audience to imagine the world of the story, and it also saves money.

That means that, because of stage or budget constraints, you might not be able to build a scale replica of a rocket, but you can use lighting and sound effects to create the effect of a rocket. Simplicity is powerful in a fantasy world on stage because it shifts the audience’s attention away from the futuristic technology and back onto the characters that drive the story.

The key to creating a believable fantasy world contains a mixture of focus and fascination with the world where you currently live. How will our world look 50 years from now, or 500 years from now? As the playwright, you get to decide!

Dylan Malloy is a playwright and director who attends Emory University. You can find her on Instagram @dylan_writes.

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How to Run a Productive Table Read

Dylan Malloy — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 22:45:08 +0000

So, you’ve done it! You’ve written your first (or third… or eighth…) play! A table read is the next step in the development process on the path to production. This is a simple read-through of the script with actors. Table reads help the playwright to hear their work out loud, and to identify problem spots in the script. Here is how to create an unforgettable first reading of your newest play.

Prepare thoroughly for the table read

Make sure you are 100 percent comfortable with the script being put into the world before the first table read. If the story is not complete, it becomes easier for others’ opinions to influence you and shape the script in a way that might not follow your original vision. This does not mean that the script must be perfect, but it should be complete enough that you know what how the story unfolds.

Above all else, pump yourself up as much as you can! Hearing your work come alive is one of the most exciting things that happens to a playwright. If you feel any nerves beforehand, which is completely normal, try to reframe those jitters in your mind. Those nerves are a form of excitement. Your eagerness gets you in the right mindset for an exceptional read-through.

Cast intentionally

Next, assign actors to parts. One thing to keep in mind is that the table read will likely be the first time you have ever heard your work performed out loud, so casting is very important. Try to identify actors with emotional ranges that fit the emotional range of your script. For example, an actor that you know who usually plays father figures would be good to cast as the father figure of your script.

Casting according to how actors have performed in past parts does not limit them, but rather, assures that there will not be any surprises during the performance. In the days before the reading, send the script to actors in case they want to review it beforehand. This gives them the ability to ask you questions about the plot or characters to sharpen their own understanding. Having peace of mind in terms of how actors will predictably perform allows you to focus on your writing during the table read.

Host the table read

The next step is to find a place to do the read-through, which is much easier than you might think. Fantastic table reads have been hosted on Zoom, in the conference room of local coffee shops, and even on backyard patios. The most important thing is that the space is quiet enough for everyone involved to concentrate.

It helps to invite someone extra while doing the read-through, like a crew member, who will read stage directions out loud so that you do not have to do it. This frees you up to concentrate on the story as you are hearing it.

One tactic during the reading is to follow along in your own script and highlight lines that land especially well and have strong impact. Use another color to highlight lines that fall flat. Even in the first reading of a script, it’s easy to identify which lines create energy and which lines kill the energy. These highlights will prepare you for the next step and provide a map for which parts need to be revised after the read-through.

Reflect well after the table read

When the actors are done reading the script, that is the time to ask questions about their experience with the story. Actors are especially attuned to shifts in the energy as they perform, so it is helpful to ask them at which moments in the story they felt the energy and tension dipping and rising. You can also ask actors which moments energized them as they performed. You will likely find that their responses line up perfectly with the lines you highlighted! This question is always a great encouragement as you look at the whole story.

Next, it is a good strategy to ask actors which characters were the most and least likeable and engaging because this gives you a sense of which characters will resonate with the audience. No matter what, it is important to understand that you know the story the best. You can choose which pieces of feedback to follow, or not, because the script is yours and you have the clearest sense of what it should be.

Kindness Counts

In the days after the reading, one more kind touch is to send actors a thank-you note to show that you appreciate their time. You will be remembered as a playwright who is gracious. Following these tips is a strong first step toward a table read that is both useful and exhilarating as you watch your work being spoken aloud for the first time.

Dylan Malloy is a playwright and director whose first play, The Rocket Man, was adapted from a short story by Ray Bradbury and premiered in March, 2021. She attends Emory University as a playwriting major, with a double major in business on the arts administration track. You can find her on Instagram @dylan_writes.

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How One Teenage Playwright Got Her First Play Published

Dylan Malloy — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 15:31:01 +0000

What could teenage playwright Jeyna Lynn Gonzales, Florida-based International Thespian Officer, do with an inspiring idea and a free week? She could write an innovative play that places students right at the center of social justice movements. Gonzales, a Filipino-American student leader, dancer, and actor now adds one more title to her already impressive list: published playwright.

The high school senior recently published her play, With Liberty and Justice For All, through Theatrefolk, an influential publisher that provides plays for schools. Gonzales’ play follows multiple teens at Black Lives Matter protests during the summer of 2020. It illuminates how the pursuit of justice requires people of all ages and identities to be involved.

Q & A with teenage playwright, Jeyna Lynn Gonzales

To celebrate her publication, Gonzales talked with us about her writing process, her goals as a student leader, and the pressing need for diversity in the playwriting industry. Through her work, she proves to other thespians what’s possible. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Dylan Malloy: Will you tell us about the characters, and what your writing process was while working on With Liberty and Justice For All?

Jeyna Lynn Gonzales: The story is about the Black Lives Matter protests. As a part of the creation process, I interviewed four people from different states: Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. After the interviews, I combined parts of each person’s story to create a fictional setting. The script is based on a true story, but there’s also creative nonfiction at work.

Of course, every person has their own unique voice. I wanted to capture that authenticity, so I included direct quotes from the people I interviewed. The play pretty much wrote itself because it was their stories. It’s a series of monologues cycling in chronological time.

The part I had the most difficulty with was finding ways to connect each character’s story. I didn’t want to fill the spaces between their conversations with my voice, because I wanted to reflect their experiences.

DM: Many young theatre students feel that they can’t access theatre. And when they do, they sometimes find it hard to identify with the stories being told. Because whether we like it not, writers and directors in the industry are predominately male. As a female who has already dipped her toe into the theatre industry, how do you think we can combat this issue?

JLG: Speaking as a woman of color going into the theatre world, it’s difficult. Especially now, being so much more aware of the injustices that we face. And hearing more stories because more people are feeling empowered to share their stories. I’m seeing the reality.

For example, a lot of my professors and my bosses are white men. And, if you scroll through the Theatrefolk website where my play’s been released, you’ll see that a lot of the playwrights published there are men. I feel like the odd one out because I’m such a young woman of color. I think being young and a woman of color can very, very easily be used against me. I think it’s so easy for people to look down on me or underestimate me simply because of my identity. And to be honest, this is very difficult to deal with.

Representation is huge, and I know some people have mixed feelings about, for example, why we say someone was the first Asian-American man to win an Oscar. Some people ask why it’s necessary to bring race into the conversation. I think it’s necessary because that specification shows young Asian-American actors that winning the award IS possible.

DM: Historically, most playwrights have been men. So, as a young woman, what inspires you to keep occupying the space you’re in and telling stories in your authentic voice?

JLG: I think this style of playwriting is my calling. I’m okay with being a trailblazer in a world where people like me are underrepresented. I don’t know if I’d say I’m “comfortable” with it because at times it can be very uncomfortable, but I’m willing and able to do it. For this ability, I’m very grateful.

As a student leader who’s passionate about servant leadership, I feel like it’s my duty to use what skills I have to offer help to other people. And if helping other people happens by increasing representation, then that’s what I want to do.

DM: How do you think young playwrights can use their platforms to create accessible spaces for everyone?

JLG: I think it’s a matter of doing the work and having the conversations. This has been at the front of my mind for so long. I wrote the play to submit it to the Florida Thespian Festival. There’s a playwriting category for the competition. I did all the interviews and writing in one week because of the deadline.

Another thing people are talking about is how BIPOC stories don’t have to be all about pain, war, and tragedy. I admit that I feel some guilt telling a story that’s so full of drama. But at the same time, I feel like it’s an important story to share. The guilty feelings stem from the fact that I don’t want to take much credit for writing a story about the Black Lives Matter movement, simply because I’m not Black. And, also, because I wasn’t at the protests.

So, to be clear, I want to emphasize that my motive in writing the play is servant leadership. It’s important to me that readers and audiences understand that I wrote the play for the people the Black Lives Matter movement affects directly.

DM: Where do you see yourself in 15 years? What kind of stories do you want to be telling?

JLG: I see myself wanting to do many different things. Right now, I don’t have an end goal; I don’t have a 15-year plan.

I just want to work on projects that excite me. For example, the work that revolves around creating social change really sets my soul on fire. Becoming an adult, I’ve had to learn to be comfortable with expressing my beliefs. Helping to create social change is also part of why I wanted to become an ITO. Because the role of ITO lets me advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion on an international scale.

Dylan Malloy is a playwright and director whose first play, The Rocket Man, was adapted from a short story by Ray Bradbury and premiered in March, 2021, after Dylan acquired performance rights from Mr. Bradbury’s estate. She’ll be attending Emory University as a playwriting major, with a double major in business on the arts administration track. You can find her on Instagram @dylan_writes.

Editor’s Note: If you’d like to learn more about Jeyna Lynn Gonzales and her first play, With Liberty and Justice For All, check it out at Theatrefolk. You’ll find her on Instagram @JeynaLynnGonzales, on Facebook as Jeyna Lynn Gonzales, and her website Jeyna Lynn Gonzales. Here’s where you can learn more about becoming an ITO. You can also read more stories about playwrights and playwriting in Black Girl Joy: 5 Questions Phanésia Pharel and Finding Your Why.

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How to Solve Writing Problems

Sammy Buck — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:00:45 +0000

Confession: It takes me forever to sit down to write. A blank screen means I have to solve a writing problem: what to write! No matter what it is you write, facing the blank screen can may bring panic and self-doubt. But there is a solution to the problem!

In fact, here are five quick exercises (solutions!) to stir your creativity and help you solve writing problems.

My last two articles were about the how and why of writing. This one is about the what. Writers know we need a strong hook to bring the reader in. So, sometimes the first problem to solve is: What’s new and different about what I’m writing?

These quick exercises, culled from my writing and improv training — and developed from tackling years of artistic challenges — are designed to spark creativity in mere minutes. I like to set a timer and go for each exercises: no breaks, no judgment. I was always taught that 10 minutes was the ideal. If you want to go longer , all the better, just make sure you spend at least 10 minutes.

Build lists to solve writing problems

The pesky blank page just needs to be filled with what you already know or feel. The quickest way to fill a page is to make a list. Lists provide specific images, objects, and ideas to open a world of possibilities.

Choose any of these topics to make a list. Fill the list to your heart’s content for at least 10 minutes. Then choose another and another and another.

Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
Adverbs
Objects you dislike (I usually go for food examples — shredded coconut and fennel/anise/black licorice are always at the top of my list)
Objects in your room
Objects in nature
Household products
Skills everyone needs

See? You have way more ideas than you thought. Now let’s use the items on these lists to create characters and situations.

Note: When I say story in any of these exercises, it can mean short story, scene, monologue, poem, song or journal entry.

Mix and match the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs to create a sentence. Write the story that begins with that sentence.
For any of the objects or products you’ve listed, write a story about a world where that thing does not exist.
Make one of your objects a “MacGuffin” — the thing everyone in the story desperately seeks (Raiders of the Lost Fennel?). Maybe your main character uses one of the skills on your skills list.
Start a story with “I love [one of the objects you dislike] because…” Or, create a compelling argument for why one of the things that annoy you can be a useful — or even a crucial — thing for society.
Combine an adverb and an adjective and make that the title of a story about a skill that everyone needs. Then write that story.
Create a character by anthropomorphizing an inanimate object. If Pixar can do it, so can you. Now take something on the skills list and show how your character learns that skill.

Flex your juxtaposition muscles

It’s a challenge to create unique ideas for stories, character traits, and dramatic (or comedic) situations. One technique is to pair two disparate ideas.

Of the many, many reasons Hamilton is so successful, is because it juxtaposes the history of the white Founding Fathers with a multicultural cast and contemporary music. It’s a story about America “then” told by America “now.”

So now you get to exercise your juxtaposition muscles:

Make a list of combined titles, names, or objects. Examples: The Empire Strikes Back to the Future III, Ryan Reynolds Wrap, Hello Dolly Parton.
Create an unusual relationship between two people, places, or things that don’t normally go together. For example, The Odd Couple, a ’70s sitcom about two divorced men with polar-opposite personalities that created hilarity.
Write a story about ordinary objects or activities in an extraordinary place, such as washing dishes at a funeral on Mars.
Write a story about extraordinary activities in an ordinary place — tap-dancing on your hands during a final exam.

Change one thing to Solve Writing Problems

In the 1980s, the success of the movie Die Hard boosted the action genre, so a lot of movies tried to riff on that formula. Die Hard’s skyscraper setting for high-octane thrills was substituted to become “Die Hard on a Bus” (Speed), “Die Hard on a Plane” (Air Force One) or “Die Hard at an Airport “(Die Hard 2).

When spinning new ideas out of the ether, sometimes it comes down to changing one element of something you already know. On a micro level, when you’re hundreds of drafts into a script or a song and simply stuck, all you need to do is change one word or one sentence.

Let’s hone that skill:

Choose an ending of a story you hated and rewrite it to your liking.
Choose an ending of a story you loved and flip the outcome.
Choose an ending of a story and create a different beginning.
Switch the genres of your favorite stories (i.e., turn Winnie the Pooh into an action hero a la Fast and the Furious).
Think about the one time you made a huge choice. Now write the road not taken.

Amplify a viewpoint

One of the most important tools in your arsenal as a writer is having a strong point of view. Your voice is important. Also, characters need strong points of view for us to understand and emotionally connect with them.

We certainly live in an era of strong opinions. Social media has amplified the ability to air points of view, so let’s create an imaginary social network post as a way to explore character voices.

This is a multipronged assignment, each part takes 10 minutes:

Choose a character with big personal problem. Write an imaginary post asking for help.

- Respond to the post as someone who offers to help and gives all the right advice, then as someone who thinks they are helping but gives the worst suggestions ever.
- Have #a respond to #b calling them out, then have #b strengthen their resolve. See how far they can go back and forth.

Create a fourth person who weighs in. Whose side do they take? Do they offer something new? How do all the other characters respond and interact? Remember that the character with the original post will react and weigh in.

Write with friends

We’re experts at procrastinating but thrive on a deadline. It’s super useful to pair up with a friend or meet with a group to do these exercises:

Participants provide each other a unique two-person relationship. Each writes a two-person scene with the characters they are given.
Participants provide each other an unusual word (think spelling bees). Each writes a story sparked by the word. It’s equally fun if you don’t know the meaning. I once lost a spelling bee with phlox (I thought it was “phlocks”). Though it’s a flower, it prompted me to write about magical deli lox (again, my default is food).
Each participant creates a character by answering the following questions (different person for each question). Then each of you writes a story in which your character is locked in a room with a rival with only 10 minutes to escape.
- What is your first name?
- What is your last name?
- How old are you?
- What do you do?
- What do you do on weekends?
- What do you say all the time?
- What brings you the most pride?
- What scares you?

These exercises can lead to full pieces. When I was a student, a classmate gave me the opening line of a monologue. After about 10 minutes of writing, I had created a new character, who became the protagonist of my first produced play.

At any point in your process, the more your brain can access objects, traits, experiences, and points of view, the richer your writing becomes. The more you juxtapose incongruous ideas or change your angle, the more you unlock your genius.

And the more you give yourself time to write, the more you write.

I didn’t think I would stay at my computer this long to write, but 10 minutes of commitment cascaded over me like a wave and led to more and more minutes, hours, and days of writing. I wish you the joy of navigating such rich waters of creativity.

Sammy Buck is an award-winning writer, story consultant and creator of Structure! The Musical: Everything You Need to Know About Musicals You Can Learn From Star Wars. Visit his website for more information.

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Playwriting Advice

Gregory Bossler — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 19:35:00 +0000

Playwriting advice inspires us and often helps us think about stories in fresh ways. Sure you can Google it and get about 1,590,000 results (0.42 seconds), but how do you know if you can rely on what what the search engines found for you?

Most writers will tell you that they acquired their most valuable knowledge of how to do the work either through personal experience or directly from another writer.

Here are quotes from 16 writing friends we know and trust to share helpful wisdom on the art and craft of dramatic literature. Here’s what they said:

This story appeared in the October 2016 print issue of Dramatics.

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