Note Receiving

Playwright Words to the Wise

 

1. Defend your work without being defensive. (Will)
    

2. A man who tries to sit between two stools will fall down. (Beth)
    

3. Where in the process is this draft? 
    

4. Who are you in the ecosystem of things? A chair, a table, a sofa...
    

5. State your goal/s and focus on them. Why are you sharing this piece? 
    

6. You want to create work that outlives you, so focus on humanity.
    

7. What is distracting you from making this play the best play possible? 
    

8. What are you projecting that's influencing what you get?
    

9. If we want our work to be complimented, we're not ready.
    

10. What are you expecting from the audience? What do you want from me, the audience. What do you need from me? (be general at your own peril)
     

    • I want to hear it read by actors.

    • I think I'm writing a complex play and I want to make sure it's not confusing.

    • I often have no idea what the play is about, until the first public reading, with that detachment

    • Audience response, what they say, or how they move in the chairs, reading the room, laughs/or crickets, is the tone landing -- the vibration from the room

    • Blocks or scenes or acts that may not work as well as others

    • Where is the play not being as resonant

    • How is this work successful in meeting its objectives? 

    • How is this work not successful in meeting its objectives? 
       

11. Don’t ask for feedback, ask questions.
     

12. You may not know what the play is about -- it can change through the process
     

13. Take what's helpful and turn off what is not.
     

14. If you have had the experience of being flooded with notes, have a notetaker
     

15. Rules of Engagement

 

• As Telling Humans, what are our rules of engagement?

• Methodologies -- you have to adapt to your group

• The moderator goes back to it every time. 

• LAND THE PLANE!

• ONE ARETHA, ONE MIC