You Need a Great Story Idea!

So you have an idea for a play?

How do you know if it is any good?

Here is my litmus test to see if an idea will hold water for the long haul!

1. Are you passionate about this idea? Does it excite you emotionally? Does it actually make you feel good - raise your adrenaline when you think about it?

Passion will fuel the creation of any play. Make sure you are passionate about your idea so it obsesses you. A grand obsession with a story idea will create a great play.

2. Has this idea caused you to envision the entire play? Or major elements or scenes of the play? Do you find this idea following you around?  Are you thinking about it for most of your day?

If you idea causes you to begin to obsess about it - it is a good idea!

3. Were you looking for this idea, or did this idea just fall in your lap?  

Seeking ideas is fun and exciting but I find my best ideas are thrust upon me sometimes in very strange ways.

An example of this was when I got the idea for New York City's first One Man One Dog show DAD AND THE DOG that we have produced on two occasions at Manhattan Rep. I was sitting with my mother and sister at a family social gathering, eating and chatting with our dog, Roma, in my arms. We started to talk about growing up, and somehow, someone brought up how when I was 11 my father and mother had a huge fight and Mom took the five of us and ran away to Willow Grove, PA to live with her parents, and she left my father home in our house alone with our dog Missy. When we finally returned 6 weeks later, the dog was at least 30 pounds heavier and my father was different, changed somehow. That Summer, alone with Missy, was the beginning of his transformation from being a very troubled man to being incredibly selfless and crazy loving to his five kids.

As I was sitting there, it hit me.

"I should do a play about that Summer."

And then, I looked down at my little dog in my arms, and Roma stared up at me and smiled, and then she whispered with her eyes and said "And I will star in it with you!" 

It was a scary, wonderful discovery, and in that unexpected moment, I knew it was a play that had to be brought to life.

As it turned out, we received some wonderful reviews - Roma's reviews were actually better than mine. And it was the most exciting experience I have ever had on stage. Literally hanging out with Roma, embodying my father's journey was simply amazing.

4. Is this idea important? How will it affect others? How will it affect you?    This is the rocket fuel of a play. If your play idea is to somehow connected to some grand message that YOU NEED TO COMMUNICATE, it is a good idea, and it will power you to write it to its conclusion.

DAD AND THE DOG was important for it showed how even in the worst situations, we can persevere with the power of love and the connection to our creator.

If your idea can affect people, go in the back door and shake up negative beliefs in people, it is a good idea.

“How will it affect YOU?” is an important question too! How will you feel when you see this play up on stage? Will it make you laugh? Will it help you heal?    Notice that in these questions I didn't include, 

"Is the idea commercial?"     Bad place to start.      For if you start from there, you will be writing a "commercial play" not one from your passion, and most often, IT WILL SUCK. Not the place to start.      And bottomline, any good play written from the heart, dealing with an important issue about life or love or society or belief systems etc etc will probably prove to be commercial too, for a personal play like that becomes universal!

So is your play idea a GREAT play idea?

If so, START WRITING!

A PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVE

I have been in production most of my adult life, either as an actor, playwright, or director.

I have developed this unique PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVE when it comes to playwriting. And considering a play is a live emotional experience that is brought to life, having a PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVE is a very good thing.

Many dramaturges and literary managers read plays for Story or Theatre Mission. Is it a compelling story? Or will this play fit into our theatre’s mission? But a play is an emotional experience so unless you have something pretty exciting happening on stage, a story or a perspective only goes so far when brought to life on stage. There has to be events happening in front of you on stage, as the characters fight, struggle, conjole, seduce, manipulate, and go on a theatrical ride.

In a great play, the audience associates with the main character or characters and literally FEELS with them and experiences their pain, sorrow and their ultimate success or failure. That is the type of theatre I like to attend and the type of theatre I like to create.

How can you draw the audience into the ACTION of the play, not just the story?

This such an important distinction! Yes, a great story idea is wonderful, but the story for the stage has to be told with action, events, characters fighting for what they want, where things happen on stage!

That is what I look for in a good script. Real time moments created in real time, where characters struggle, fight, plead, get frustrated, seduce, demand, threaten, and maybe have crazy fun as they come up against a powerful and interesting problem that needs to be solved.

Theatre is live story telling, and as a playwright, you need to remember that every time you sit down at the computer. You can’t just tell the story. You have to create A POWERFUL AND/OR FUN LIVE EMOTIONAL EVENT called a PLAY that tells the story.

As I have talked about on my podcast, action and events happening on stage pulls focus. It really is your only foolproof tool you can use to pull focus. You have no camera lens, and words can only go so far. But action and events happening in real time that you manipulate and orchestrate with your creative intelligence is the way to create an amazing play.

Often, when I direct a play, I will stop a scene and say: “What is happening here? I am just getting words.” As a playwright, the words come out of the actions of the characters, not the other way around.

If you start to write using just words, and are not focused on actions and events happening on stage, you will have a play full of words, and an audience fast asleep.

How can you create exciting EVENTS in every scene of your play, backed up by strong or interesting actions of the characters so that the every scene POPS in a unique way, whether it be a drama or a comedy?

To write a great play, you need a PRODUCTION PERSPECTIVE, for a play is live.

Don’t let yourself be seduced by story and words.

Every scene is a live emotional experience!

The Current Tragedy on Broadway - Pt. 2

Last October, I took a journey through the Broadway theatre district and Times Square which was mind-numbing. It was a beautiful October Wednesday at 2:30 pm, just about matinee time, and no one was there. Yes, Broadway was shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and I knew that, but seeing the once-most-trodden landscape in New York City empty was deeply disturbing, and my journey through this ghost-town of Broadway, woke me up to my mission as a theatre creator, and human being.

This past week, I had a doctor’s appointment on 5th Ave, on the “other” side of Times Square, so I thought I would again journey back to the Broadway Theatre district because “BROADWAY IS COMING BACK THIS FALL” and see what was happening, take pictures and write an exciting blog post to help promote Broadway’s return!

As I was walking up 8th Avenue, toward the Samuel J. Friedman theatre, where Manhattan Theatre Club houses their Broadway productions, I had to walk around 2 homeless individuals, literally sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk. My heart cried out for them, and silently, I whispered “God Bless you” as I walked by, thinking “Why isn’t this city doing something about this? Is there no outreach to help these HUMAN BEINGS find a shelter or a home or something? Why has homeless people sleeping on sidewalks and in storefront doorways become status quo in New York City?” And I felt so impotent to do anything, which as I write this, sickens me.

I walked up to the Samuel J. Friedman theatre, and I was thrilled to see that right by the doors to the theatre and the box office they put up two big posters announcing Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s upcoming one man show Lackawanna Blues. Ruben is a fantastic writer, actor, and director and these two posters were incredibly exciting to me.

And then I walked out from under the marquee to take a picture and this is what I saw:

Up above the marquee, was a poster from February 2020 of Laura Linney and her one woman show MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON by Elizabeth Strout.

What the heck? Why is that still there?

Hello! Broadway is coming back with a great one man show, so why does Ruben share the marquee with a show from 16 months ago?

How does this happen?

I was talking to a friend of mine who is good friends with a Broadway producer, and she said this may happen because of a UNION thing. Because of union rules Broadway theatres have to use UNION workers to do everything including taking down posters from 16 months ago. I don’t know if this is true, and if it is, I imagine Ruben Santiago-Hudson probably put his own posters up in the front of the Samuel J. Friedman, for I would too if I as opening on Broadway in my one man show.

And if this is a UNION thing. Couldn’t you just spend the money to hire a union worker to take down Laura Linney and put Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s picture where it belongs?

But this gets worse, as I continue my return pilgrimage through Broadway.

Other than the shows that are “officially opening” this fall, 90% of the Broadway theatres I walked by still had the old posters for the shows back in March 2021, not to mention the garbage and the grafitti around and on our beloved Broadway theatres!

Hey, aren’t we coming back this fall? Do you think you could take down the old signs and clean things up so people walking by might actually THINK that Broadway is returning soon!

How does this happen?

At the Hayes Theatre, the new Broadway home of Second Stage Theater, I found another “schizophrenic two different shows from two different times” thing happening. Mind-boggling!

And here, at one of the Roundabout Theatre Company theatres, the note on the door from March 2021 was still there. Hey, theatre is coming back to NYC, right?

And this one made me crazy. The musical Company is returning on December 22, 2021 according to Broadway.com but look what I discovered at the Bernard B. Jacobs theatre!

Why is that there? They are returning on December 22, 2021! Why not announce it at the theatre where it is going to be performed? Pay for a union guy to simply clip this sign down! I was thinking of going there and doing it myself. Get a pair of wire clippers and a stool and walk over there and just cut it down!

Shouldn’t BROADWAY theatres, at least focus a little bit on promotion on the theatre they will be performing in! And it will let people know that BROADWAY IS COMING BACK!

Why is Broadway still a GHOST TOWN? It’s opening this fall!

After literally banging my head against the theatre facade, to bring myself back to some semblance of reality, I continued on my pilgrimage, where I discovered a myriad of empty Broadway theatres without even a poster that said “WE ARE COMING BACK STRONGER THAN EVER!”

The Booth Theatre on 44th St, and Shubert Alley were covered in scaffolding, and this was a sad thing to see, but a good thing for it looks like they are fixing up the facades of the Booth, and also the Shubert Theatre that houses To Kill a Mockingbird, which is returning October 5, 2021.

As as I walked by The Lion King, which is returning on September 14, 2021, scaffolding was up on the building next door that obsured the marquee, which made me laugh and cry at the same time.

Yes, this is a Brave New Broadway that is for sure.

I was happy to see Jagged Little Pill was returning on October 21, 2021.

And also, thrilled to see Dear Evan Hansen was coming back on December 11, 2021.

And Ain’t Too Proud - The Life and Times of The Temptations was returning on October 16, 2021. And they were promoting it on their theatre! Someone is thinking!

I walked by Phantom of The Opera, which is returning on October 22, but there was no mention of returning on the theatre that I could see, but they were doing construction on the lobby so that was a good sign.

The good news is that Bruce Springstein is doing 30 concert shows this summer at the St. James Theatre. God Bless Bruce! Any venue would have loved to house him, but he chose Broadway, to help breathe life into a long lost friend. (And I applaud him for making vaccinations mandatory despite the political uproar! Theatre needs to be safe.)

If we need this show “ESPECIALLY RIGHT NOW,” when is it opening? I checked online and Come From Away is opening on September 21, 2021! But let us know on your marquee!(But they have a good Covid-19 policy! Bravo!)

And then, I discovered one of the few new plays opening for the first time on Broadway: Thoughts of a Colored Man by Keenan Scott II which opens on October 1, 2021. The marque was up - BRAVO!!!

Yet nothing in the poster boxes…

Yes, we are just coming out of a global pandemic, but heck, couldn’t there be a little more focus here on BROADWAY itself? Couldn’t the old posters be pulled down, and new posters be put in their places? Couldn’t someone clean the street in front of the theatre so that people walking by will see that these theatres are not being abandoned?

Couldn’t there be a little more focus on just what we are coming back to Midtown Manhattan for?

Broadway! One of the most exciting places on earth!

Whatever is responsible for this - the oddball malaise on behalf of the producers, or the goofy problems with union workers, this needs to be taken care of immediately, to make Broadway seem like Broadway REALLY is coming back! Would you invite your friends to dinner and not clean up and prepare first? Check this out…

As I continued my journey, surprised, saddened and feeling kinda crazy, for like most things in this almost Post Pandemic world, “it just doesn’t make sense,” and I walked up to 43rd St and Times Square, where 8 months earlier I took a sad and empty picture of Times Square, and I took some Deja Vu photos.

But this time, I was not shocked by an empty Times Square, but by a lost Times Square populated with homeless individuals, somehow living here at the center of the theatrical universe.

Yes, this is a BRAVE NEW NORMAL. And there are so many things that need to be done to bring this city back to its former glory as the greatest city in the world.

We have to do something to help the homeless population. We have to do something to clean up the city. We have to do something to make New York City safe again.

We have to realize that in order to bring back audiences, NYC needs to be safe. When Broadway tickets were first offered for sale again, I found only 1 Broadway show mention that there may be some sort of Covid-19 precautions made. Only 1 theatre!

Hello! Audiences need to feel safe. We are just coming out of a pandemic which shut down Broadway! And we need to make Times Square and the Broadway Theatre District safe and AWESOME again too!

And, most importantly, we need to help our brothers and sisters living on the streets!

So how can you help?

Write or call your congress person, the Mayor, the Governor of New York, and express your concerns. Donate to Food Banks and shelters. Call 311 and make complaints about things you see on the streets of this once great city that need to be fixed! Get some friends together to go and clean up Broadway. (What a concept!) We can’t just accept this as the way it is. There are ways to do anything if you are creative enough to find a new way,(and by God, as theatre artists we are creative!) Get on social media and start conversations about possibility (not fights,) and let’s all raise our energy on this, and then take action.

We need to take responsibility here.

We need to work together.

And one thing you can do right this second to help Broadway is to:

Buy Tickets NOW!

even if you are fearful of returning to the theatre.

Buy tickets and give them to friends, or family members or to acting schools. Or just buy tickets for next year!!

Broadway and New York desperately need our help.

They say when we are faced with a big challenge, we have three choices. We can fight, choose flight - run away, or freeze and do nothing.

But there is a 4th choice:

Choose LOVE.

I am not going anywhere. I am not running from this challenge. We need NYC and Broadway to thrive.

Hmmm. . .

I might just go out tonight,

feed a friend,

and cut down that sign!

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More pictures from my journey:

A Hobby or A Real Career?

I see this all the time.

Often playwrights say: “Well, it is just a hobby.” in order to justify how they have had no plays optioned or published and that they are learning the ropes of playwriting.

(Or to align themselves with their lack of self esteem.)

But don’t ever say that your career is a hobby!

Don’t ever believe that.

If you look at your playwriting as if it is a Hobby, that is what it will continue to be.

If you make the choice to make playwriting your career, you will activate you mind to see things in a new way to help you actually make playwriting your career.

Every day when you sit down to write, you need to remind yourself that this is your career, how you want to spend your time and earn a fantastic living, doing the most fantastic thing on this planet, writing plays, plays to be performed and celebrated!

Put a post-it on your computer saying:

“I love my life now as a successful playwright!”

And each day read it, and then take a moment to see yourself at the opening night party of your next play. See the standing ovation, and read the great review online.

Do this everyday, before you start writing.

You will write better, with more passion and intent, and you will keep yourself clear on where you are going, and what you will experience in your new career as a playwright.

This works. Maybe not overnight, but as you continue to affirm and visualize who you REALLY are, you will take the steps, the sometimes difficult steps, to make it actually happen.

If you want a hobby, collect comic books.

Playwriting is your career.

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A Play is not a Novel.

I feel like I am fighting an uphill battle.

For literally years, I have been passionately expounding about the importance of HAVING THINGS HAPPEN ON STAGE, and yet, a good 80% of the full-length plays that I read, have absolutely nothing happening in real time on stage.

I get a lot backstory from the past, stories of things that happen off stage, and I get characters TALKING with each other. When are you going to learn that in playwriting TALKING IS NOT A VERB.

Talking on stage is boring.

We need to see characters threatening one another, seducing one another, trying to control one another. We need to see things break on stage, fisticuffs and ACTION. WE NEED TO SEE THINGS HAPPEN ON STAGE!

I am amazed that playwrights and even producers still think that a play that reads well and tells a good story is a good play, even when NOTHING happens on stage. Nothing. Nothing at all. Just talk talk, backstory, a tear, talk, a giggle, and GET ME THE HELL OUT OF THE THEATRE!

You see, action and clear conflict BETWEEN characters creates focus when brought to life on stage. You can read a play and go wow, but when brought to life if nothing really happens between the characters, if they are not struggling to change the other, it is boring on stage.

Words are boring in the theatre unless they are joined with clear dramatic action, with strong intentions on the part of the actors, and with THINGS HAPPENING ON STAGE in real time. Not in the past. IN REAL TIME. On the stage, in the present moment, in FRONT OF THE AUDIENCE.

Do you want to write a great play? Or a mediocre play?

If you are:

• Not putting clear, dramatic action on stage during your play…

• Not having your characters battle and struggle to change one another in some way…

• Not having big events happening on stage like chairs breaking, or characters running offstage in a tearful frenzy…

you are writing a play to be read, which translates into a bad novel.

A play is a map for a live emotional experience where you take the audience on an incredible emotional ride, and in order to do that, the audience needs to associate with the main characters or character and FEEL THEIR PAIN, THEIR CONFLICT, THEIR EMOTIONAL JOURNEY.

If you are not doing this, you might as well write a novel.

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Who do you think you are?

Who do you think you are?

A great playwright?

Or a starving artist who hopes to be a great playwright someday?

Are you a professional, or just an amateur?

What you truly believe to be true, will come true.

If you believe you are a great playwright now, you will do what it take to excel in your writing and your career.

If you believe your voice is unique and important, your voice will be unique and important.

What you believe, before you see it in reality as true, will create your reality!

So you are writing everyday, and studying your craft, but what are you doing to change your beliefs about yourself and your possibilities?

Oh my God, is this is some New Age seminar?

No, not at all.

Powerful congruent, and clear beliefs about what is possible for you, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You will make it real. That is the power of a powerful, congruent and clear belief.

And if you believe you are not good enough yet, or you will never be a Broadway playwright, guess what?

So I dare you, as part of your playwright training, to discover what you REALLY believe about yourself, the things that were programed into your unconscious when you were a child, the things that have taken you far, and also stopped you dead in your tracks.

For most of my adult life, I believed FEAR was actually my intuition. Funny, huh?

So for most of my adult life, I was scared.

Scared of people, scared of success, scared by this big ugly and imaginary thing called FEAR that I thought was something helping me.

And then one day, I woke up, like from a bad dream, and I felt the fear, and I could see it wasn't real, yet the thought of the fear controlled so many of my actions, and hence, my life.

So I watched myself thoughout the course of a week, and noticed when Fear appeared, and I challenged it with a simple question:

Is this real, this horrible event or outcome I am projecting into the future?

And 99.9% of the time, my answer was...

"No, this is not real. It is made up. It is imaginary, and it has held me in its jaw for most of my life."

So I continued to ask the question, and I received the same answer, and I could clearly see, I had created an entire world, and an entire universe called my life, which was NOT real. It was a re - creation of the Fear I experienced in my childhood which I allowed to reverberate into my future.

But this is kind of normal, especially if you experience trauma in your youth, and who doesn't?

So how do you step out of this “Mental Construct of Fear” that you have created?

First off, start asking the question.

What am I frightened of? Is it real?

Go through a week or even a month of noticing when FEAR comes up and tells you NOT to do something, that a part of you deep inside, knows, that you should do.

As you notice, you will see that 99.9% of the time FEAR is simply made up. It's not real.

And as you continue, your intuition, that still strong voice inside you, that part of you that knows, will make a switcheroo with Fear, and you will feel motivated by "YES!" and "I know I can." and "What was I thinking? This is not hard at all!"

Are you afraid to do what it takes to be a successful playwright?

Make another choice.

The one that comes from your gut, your soul, that still strong voice inside of you, the part of you that knows, and watch your life and your career unfold in miraculous ways.

And if you think this blog post is New Age bullshit, ask yourself the question:

Why does this blog post frighten me?

You are so much more than your negative, limiting beliefs.

Now write like it.

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Start at the Beginning!

Just recently, I was given a play to read by a very gifted playwright. The dialogue in this play was wonderful, clever and witty. The characters were multi-dimensional, funny and complex.

But as I was reading it, I realized that there was something very wrong with this play. It didn't start until page 9.

Yes, there was witty dialogue and wonderful characters but there was no problem. No dilemma. No challenge. No inciting incident until page 9.

By page 9, without (to coin ALLISON SHERIDAN of the Nosillacast Podcast,) "the problem to be solved," your audience will be asleep or checked out or on their phones responding to email within minutes if not seconds.

A great play will present the problem within the first 1 to 4 minutes, setting the context and pacing, and through-line for the rest of the play.

I love to start a play within the first 30 seconds! My auto-biographical dating play, THE MATCH GAME, which ran at the now defunct INDEPENDENT THEATRE on 8th St way back in 2003, started with an arguement on a blind date that escalated into a full out stage fight between a powerhouse biker chick and the rather wimpy character playing yours truly. Did the audience get that the main character was having a bit of trouble finding the right mate? You bet! And that crazy stage fight set up the problem and powered up the through line which would propel the play to its romantic conclusion.

So how can you start your play sooner? Do you really need all that set up or can you start your play with a bang and do the set up later?

How can you set up the "problem that needs to be solved" sooner?

HOW CAN YOU START YOUR PLAY AT THE BEGINNING?

Answer these questions, and you will be on your way to creating an awesome new play!

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16 Weeks to Great Writing!

If you learn one new thing about playwriting a week, one distinction that you actually put into action in your work, in as little as 16 weeks (four months,) you will transform your playwriting, and possibly your playwriting career too!

Here are 16 distinctions that I would like you to put into action over the next 16 weeks! I dare you.

1. Get Super-Specific about your characters. Super Specific. Make them REAL. Take the time to know everything about them.

2. Get Ultra-Personal. Write from your life. Don't hold back anything.

3. Make BIGGER CHOICES about the PROBLEM of your play.

4. Make BIGGER CHOICES about your characters' actions and emotions.

5. Create an Emotional Event Map. Each scene has at least one event that propels the action of the play, and each scene tops itself in some way, or amps things up, leading to a compelling climax. And each scene is filled with ACTION, characters trying to change other characters. Plot this out, moment by moment, scene by scene, and then write your play from this map.

6. Ask Yourself: "What do you want the Audience to do, feel or think about after seeing your play?" before you write one line of your play. How do you want your play to connect with people and help them see things in a new way?

7. Use silence in your play. There can be long moments where your characters SAY nothing, but a lot is happening on stage! Dare to say nothing at times, and let action tell your story.

8. Make your characters FOILS! Let them be very different to each other to bring out everyone's characteristics and to create more conflict.

9. Write your dialogue from what the characters are fighting for, not from what they are saying! Get clear on what is underneath the words, and then write.

10. Research, Research, Research, the topic and the world of your play, before you write one line of dialogue. Spend a full week learning all you can about the universe of your story idea! And go from there.

12. Make sure the Problem of your play ESCALATES as the play progresses. There is no down time away from the problem of a play in a great play

13. Get actors to READ your play so you can hear it when you finish a first draft. Take notes. Notice that when embodied by actors, maybe your characters don't need to talk so much.

14. Cut the things you love in your play that don't propel the dramatic action of the story.

15. Write in sentences, not paragraphs. Even write in half lines and have your characters cut each other off. No one speaks in paragraphs in life unless they are telling a dramatic story or teaching a seminar. Use sentences.

16. Don't settle for good. Great is your only option. Make that happen. You need to continually up your game.

Do you have what it take to do this over the next 16 weeks?

Do you want to be a GREAT PLAYWRIGHT?

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Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut, Cut!

In my humble opinion, 90% of the plays I read today, (I read a lot of plays) whether they are short plays 10 - 20 minutes or full-length plays, 90% of all the plays I read can be cut by at least 15% if not more. Even short plays.

Yes, in a nut shell, most plays today need to be edited.

And often, drastically.

They need to be cut, cut, cut!

Cutting dialogue and even whole scenes from your play is like giving birth. It can be painful, long and arduous, but when the editing process is over, often, you will have a better play. 

So how do you know what to cut, to trim, to destroy, and to annihilate?

Start with these two questions: 

1. What is the story you are telling? 

(Write it out in 30 words or less.) 

2. What do you want the audience to do after they see your play? 

(Again write it out in 30 words or less.)

If you get clear on the story you are telling, clear on the core of your piece, you will easily see dialogue, and even whole scenes that don't serve your intention. I have read so many plays that are ALL OVER THE PLACE - yes, they are often clever, or funny, or heart-wrenching, but they are just TOO MUCH. (Like the Christopher Nolan Batman movies - come on Christopher just tell one story really well. Let's just do the Joker story - that is the story we want to see!)  

Get clear on the core, the THROUGH-LINE of your story, and you will easily see what needs to be shredded! What needs to be cut to pieces!!!

Also, if you get clear on what you want the audience to do after seeing your play, you will easily see what in your play is not leading towards that intention. Maybe you want the audience to stop being so self-centered, and become self-aware and more spiritual. Or maybe you want the audience to begin accepting others and to love more unconditionally. Or maybe you want them to start taking chances in their lives, but whatever it is, the clearer you are on what you want the audience to do after seeing your play, the easier it will be for you to CUT all that doesn't serve your creative intention.

Learning how to cut whole scenes and internal dialogue is, in my humble opinion, the most important skill you need, to be a great playwright. Cut, edit, trim so that your play is concise, succinct, clear, and focused. You can always add stuff back in if you want, but dare to rip, shred, and CUT, CUT, CUT, your play to uncover the amazing butterfly within the cocoon you have created.

Let's talk about internal cuts.

These are words and sentences you can cut that won't change the meaning of the dialogue or the intention of the dialogue.

Here are two more questions that will help you make excellent internal cuts:

1. What are you saying again and again that you only need to say once?

Now go through you play with this in mind. How many times do you repeat yourself to try to make a point? How many times do you repeat yourself because you love to write poetic or dramatic dialogue? And how many times are you repeating yourself in your writing process that you are totally unaware of?

Whenever I give this exercise to one of my playwriting coaching clients, the are astounded with how many internal cuts they can make just by cutting repetition. One playwright was able to cut 8 pages out of his 90 page manuscript just cutting repetition! Try this! You will be amazed!

2. Once the actors create your characters on stage, what are they embodying that you don't need to "explain" with dialogue?

Here's what I mean by this:

Often playwrights feel they should tell the audience things like "what a relationship is like," or "how deep a love connection is," when the actors are already expressing it with their acting work.

"God, I love you so so so so much." can be conveyed by a good actor with a look, and a couple's relationship can shown by how they relate! There are so many things that can be conveyed by what the actors are doing! You don't have to tell an audience what is going on all the time. The actors live it and the audience gets it.

So go through your script and find the places where you are TELLING THE AUDIENCE things that the actors will embody and then cut, cut, cut.

And then cut some more.

A play is a condensed reality and you need to always keep that in mind when you are writing. Every moment needs to be clear, focused and perfect. No extra. No fluff. Perfect.

Cutting your work can be challenging, but by using questions to filter what to cut, edit and trim, with a little discipline and determination you can cut your way to a better play!

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Writing the Perfect Play!

When I direct, my sole intention is to make every moment perfect and connected to the dramatic arc of the play. If there is one word, one moment, that is incongruent to what the audience has experienced so far, they will check out, and the play will fail, maybe not horrible fail, but it won't be an amazing play. It won't be perfect.

It will sing mediocrity!

The big challenge I come up against is that many plays are not perfect, and they need to be developed, hopefully, with a playwright in rehearsal, to insure that all the creative and dramatic ducks are in a row, so I will work tirelessly with or without a playwright, to come as close to perfect as possible.

They say nothing is perfect in life, but heck, I can only seek perfection when I direct, and on a number of occasions, I have directed a perfect play.

It is rare, and it’s addicting for it's like the golfer who plays a perfect round, the golfer will always seek to do the same again and again.

Here is where playwrights falter in the perfection game:

TOO MANY WORDS.

TOO MUCH BACKSTORY THAT DOESN'T NEED TO BE THERE.

NO STRONG EVENT IN EVERY SCENE THAT PROPELS THE ACTION OF THE PLAY TO THE NEXT SCENE.

FAILING TO HAVE ANYTHING ACTUALLY HAPPEN ON STAGE IN REAL TIME IN FRONT OF THE AUDIENCE.

So let's look at each of these play imperfections:

TOO MANY WORDS.

In 90% of the plays I read, characters simply say too much that we really don't need to hear to propel the dramatic action of the play.

When you find you are writing in paragraphs when your characters are speaking... STOP immediately, unless there is a dramatic event connected to that paragraph.

Try writing dialogue in 1 sentence or half sentences, where a character will say a sentence or a half sentence and the other responds or cuts the other character off.

Why do you need 5 sentences to say "I LOVE YOU?"

Actors are embodying your characters, we will get it.

We really will.

So start writing in sentences and half-sentences and transform your playwriting.

TOO MUCH BACKSTORY THAT DOESN'T NEED TO BE THERE.

Sometimes we don't need to know about a character's past in order to grokk the story you are writing. Sometimes we just need to know we have a competent doctor on stage having an agrument with a shady lawyer. That is all we need. We will get it and go for the ride!

If you have an important reveal, and you need to set up the back story, ONLY DO BACK STORY IN THE MIDDLE OF ACTION. Do not under any circumstances have your character tell a story about his childhood because the other character says "Tell me about your childhood?" NO. NO. NO.

Characters telling back story in stories on stage unless there is a big strong dramatic event underneath it, is BORING and causes your play to STOP. A backstory is not a dramatic moment. It is just back story.

NO STRONG EVENT IN EVERY SCENE THAT PROPELS THE ACTION OF THE PLAY TO THE NEXT SCENE.

Why is it that so many playwrights don't put a strong event that propels the action of the play in every scene? Some playwrights don't even put events in scenes, just a lot of talk. Talk, unless it is intrinsically connected to the dramatic action of a play is BORING. SO BORING!

Make sure every scene has an event in it that propels the dramatic action of your play. A BIG EVENT, something unique and fun. Trust me here. Doing this will make the difference between a mediocre play and a great play!

FAILING TO HAVE ANYTHING ACTUALLY HAPPEN ON STAGE IN REAL TIME IN FRONT OF THE AUDIENCE.

I don't understand this, but this happens all the time. I saw this play last year Off Broadway with a great cast, where nothing happened on stage at all, just stories from the past that people were emoting about. At the end of the First Act, there is a fight, but the playwright had someone run into the room and say "Everyone! Fred and Frankie are having a big fight out side in the Living Room!" and the cast ran off to see the fight, and the curtain came down!

HAVE THE FRIGGIN' FIGHT RIGHT THERE ON STAGE!!! and then have the curtain fall on ACT 1. This way the audience will really want to see what happens next and come back for ACT 2, because they EXPERIENCED IT!

That is your job as a playwright, to CREATE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES ON STAGE, not write words.

And if you start writing your play with dialogue without mapping out Emotional EVENTS in every scene that HAPPEN ON STAGE in advance of the dialogue, you are destined for mediocrity.

Dialogue comes out of characters struggling with each other and with the problem of the play. Dialogue does not come first. DON'T DO THAT. Stop it now.

Build an Emotional Event Map from the beginning of your play to the end of your play, with emotional events in every scene that propel the dramatic action of the play, and then write the dialogue based on what is happening on stage.

I have directed so many plays, where I, as the director, had to make up action and events for a playwright didn't. And these are not all new plays. Many "classic" plays suck in the live action world, for the dialogue is just clever or witty, but devoid of any real life.

If you are not getting any real traction on your plays, maybe you need to change the way you are writing, for when you write dialogue based on what is happening on stage, it speaks truth.

If you write a play to create an Emotional Experience for your audience, it will ring true, and make them laugh, cry and root for your characters.

So how do you make a play perfect?

For many of you: Change the way you write!

Cut words.

Cut backstory.

Add events every scene.

Have everything happen on stage in front of the audience!

Perfect.

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How to Deal with "Writer's Block!"

So we have all been there. We sit down at our computers and we start to type and… well, nothing much happens.

We try to write some more.

We stop.

We stroll to the bathroom.

We stroll back.

We try to write some more.

We get up and go to the refrigerator in search of some unknown food which will somehow spike our creativity.

It’s not there. 

Then, we go back to the computer and we make ourselves speak our character's lines....

“Ugh, it sounds like second grade.”

So we go to the refrigerator again and we get a cold Red Bull, and some really old grapes.

Who knows? Maybe the old grapes will inspire creativity. This is a historical play.

No.

It doesn't work.

We just get all buzzed out from the Red Bull and nauseous from the bad grapes.

Then, we start to think we will never write this play.

We put ourselves down.

“Boy, do I suck!”

We curse the universe for letting us think we could ever easily write a play.  

So we turn on the TV, and maybe eat some dry cereal, and then we open the wine!(More old grapes in a different package.)

"I have Writer's Block today." we think.

"I will get to this tomorrow."

2 bottles later…

Ever been here?  

Fun, huh?

No.

Not really.

There is a cure for what we label "Writer's Block."

Here it is:  

On the days, or the writing sessions, when it just isn't flowing... 

Simply research your play.

If your play is about Poland in 1953, search Poland and the time period. If you are doing a play about LOVE ADDICTION, search it and read case studies, personal accounts and more. If you are doing a play about the Civil Right's Movement in the 1960's, take the day and LEARN everything you can about that time and about what was happening, even if you did research earlier.

There is always more to learn!

Listen to music of the time.

Watch old movies on similar subjects!

And have fun in the process.

And believe it or not, ideas will come to you in this process.

Many of my clients and class participants start writing within minutes of researching! Others sit down the next day and the dialogue flies out of them with a new, more specific perspective.

So if you feel you are blocked, don't waste your writing time.

RESEARCH!

And throw out those old grapes too!  

Yuck!

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The New Rules of Today's Plays!

Theatre, like language, changes with the culture and with the times. Many of the "rules" of a good play, don't apply anymore for the audience is different. Perception is different, and most importantly, because of digital technology, the audience’s ability to focus has changed.

I love my IPhone. Just love it. I am one of the 70% of Iphone users who actually sleep with their phones. (I use it as my alarm clock.) Since the Iphone was created, thus creating the SMART phone industry, this little device has changed the "focal length" of the average human. What do I mean by that? Because of smart phones, most people can't focus on things as long as they used to. Most people have literally been conditioned by their phones to be a bit A.D.D.

Remember walking into any restaurant(Pre-Covid)and you would see at least 20 phones on the tables with people checking them constantly. People check their phone all the time. Even in lockdown during this pandemic, people check their phones. So then, when these same people go to the theatre, and the announcement comes on that says: "Please silence your cell phones!", for many it is like withdrawal from heroin.

So it can be hard for many people to focus on theatre.

As a playwright, writing for live theatre, for when we get through this pandemic, what can you do to keep your audience focused.

1. Keep the length of your play (if possible) to under 90 minutes or make it 2 acts with each act lasting no more than 60 minutes.  

From my experience here at Manhattan Rep, and from seeing many broadway shows too, I have noticed that if a play runs longer than 90 minutes, the audience's attention wanders - even if it is a good play! And if a play is 2 acts, and the acts are longer than 60 minutes, the audience might struggle, even if the play is good. Let me repeat, even if the play is good. So try to limit your full length plays to 90 minutes or make it two acts, with each act running no more than 60 minutes. It is a good practice for it will make you focus on being concise in your writing, which will probably cause you to create better play.

2. Make sure there is a clear problem to be solved in your play and this problem becomes evident within the first 4 minutes of the play.  

Yes, I know having the problem happen within the first 4 minutes of the play (I personally like 1 minute) can be challenging, but again, it will force your writing to be concise and focused and it is a good practice and exercise, and, most importantly, it usually works. If the problem is evident at the top of your play, and it is a compelling problem, your audience will stay focused longer.

3. Break your play down into shorter scenes if possible.  

Shorter scenes take less focus.  As long as you don't make your play a "POPCORN" play (lights up/lights down) shorter scenes can propel your play faster, and keep the audience's focus. If you must have a long scene, make sure there are EVENTS happening throughout that scene, not just clever dialogue. Clever dialogue in a play gets dull if there is no problem connected to it and no events happening on stage. Have things HAPPEN in your longer scenes and demand the audience's attention.

4. Limit your characters (unless you are having multiple characters being doubled and tripled by the actors.) If you have too many characters, again, people may lose focus, for the main characters journey may become watered down, and not be as concise or quick paced as it might need to be. If you do need lots of characters, let fewer actors play a multitude of parts. It’s fun, and if the actors are talented, it will help keep focus, for the audience will love the character work exhibited by the actors, and also, plays needing fewer actors have a better likelihood of being produced!!

We are in a different world now, and as theatre slowly comes back to New York City and around the world. I invite you to shift your writing a bit to better connect with the new, and I am sure very excited, post-pandemic audiences.

Shifting your writing to adjust to your audience’s ability to focus, is not selling out.  It's being smart.

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Collaboration! The Magic Continues!

Collaboration is the single most important element in bringing a play to life. Done correctly, collaboration is a miracle. Moments are discovered and brought to life in ways that none of the play’s creative team could have created alone. Most playwrights write in the vacuum of their mind, spending hour upon hour staring at a computer screen, until the wee hours of the morning, and that is where they create their magic.

But when a playwright brings his work to a director and actors, the magic continues and escalates.

I know from my experience that MAGIC really actually does happen in rehearsal. Once one of my plays is embodied by actors with a thoughtful director, my characters change, morph and become the amazing, complex entities I just barely imagined. In my humble opinion, the creative collaboration of playwright, actors and director is the most important and most exciting part of the playmaking process.

The first thing which is really important in this collaboration process is, to GIVE UP YOUR WORDS! When actors embody a playwright's words, often the words simply don't work, or there are better words. As a playwright you have to remember that 90% of the time, the words don't matter anyway. It is the struggle or the problem to be solved that powers a play, so in the collaboration process, give up your addiction to your words. Write new ones in rehearsal or let you actors make something up when your words suck, and go from there. You will learn so much if you come from this perspective in rehearsal. Give it a try!

The next thing during the collaboration process, which is challenging for playwrights, is to stop TELLING and simply GIVE IT TO THE ACTORS. Often playwrights, in their attempt to tell the story, make the characters speak too much, literally TELLING the audience about a relationship or character trait, when it could simply be embodied by the actors. Why do we need to be told about a close relationship when we can literally see it on stage? So in rehearsal, see what dialogue you can cut by simply giving it to the actors to embody.

Now this is my favorite magical rehearsal strategy. Don't be afraid to add a character element or a bit, based on the actor's work. If an actor discovers a funny phrase or mannerism, play with it. Have the actor do it again later in the play, and see where you can go with it.

In my play Conversations with Dog, Anthony J. Ribustello (of The Sopranos fame) was playing the lead character (or should I say the lead Dog - and Cat too!) and his performance was amazing. During one scene, while another character is rubbing his belly, he responds with a sexy, breathy "LOWER!" Anthony was so funny with this bit, that we added it again in the second act, and then we topped it off again in the third act. It was hysterically funny, but I didn't write it. It came from the actor embodying my character, the merging of my art and his craft, that created those funny moments. I so love that. Two artists collaborated and something neither could have imagined manifested!

Just for fun, collaborate sooner, in your playwriting journey. Find a friend to grab some talented actors and put up a scene in your living room and see how the LIVE work can now inform your writing and your rewriting! Try this and it will change the way you write and create. And it is also nice to hang out with people instead of your computer screen.

So play with your writing workflow!

Add in some collaboration and see what happens!

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Who's Story are you Writing?

I see this all the time in the plays that I read at Manhattan Rep: a play has a great premise, a great beginning, and then it gets bogged down with ancillary characters and their back story and more, and what should be a concise, fast-paced compelling drama, turns into an endless, over-written exercise in creating a multi-leveled play. 

Ugh! Blah! Yuk!

So how do you streamline your manuscript?

Answer this question.

Who’s story is this?

Who is or who are the main characters that you want the audience to associate with so that the audience will “go for the ride?”  

I like one main character, and two can be ok, but when you get into too many “main” characters, the audience usually won't be able to relate as strongly to so many characters, so often, your play will lose focus. 

Ever been at a play and one of the main characters is weeping, and you look out over the audience and you see audience members actually weeping too? How does that happen? The audience relates so strongly with the main character that they actually feel the main character’s pain as if it is happening to them! This is usually what you want in creating a compelling play - a main character with whom the audience will relate and “feel for,” creating this incredible transference magic that happens in performance, so that the audience, in a way, “climbs” into the play.

A couple years ago, I was working with a playwright who brought me a huge manuscript with a myriad of characters all involved in the crazy world of immigration. It was like five plays. So we pared it down with “Who’s story is this?” and then decided to focus on just one female attorney and her struggles.

After paring down the story, we brought this new concise immigration play to production at Manhattan Rep where it played like a house on fire! The audience related and struggled and wept and laughed with this female attorney, and they went for "the ride," and the production rocked!

If we kept all the subplots, yes it might have been a multi-leveled law play, but it would not have had the visceral response we received from the audience rooting and FEELING for this one main character!

So how many “main” characters are you creating in your next OPUS MAGNUS?

And can you pare it down to one, or maybe two tops?

Do it!

And then take your audience on the amazing roller coaster ride called theatre! 

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When it's not working...

Let it cook.

Some plays just need to simmer longer.

What?

What the heck does that mean?

Sometimes you are just not ready to complete it.

It hasn't perked enough in your creative unconscious.

The story is somehow incomplete in you.

So you just need to leave it alone and start work on something else.

Then, maybe in a week, or two, the idea or inspiration will hit you like lightning, and wham, bam, boom, you will get back to your play in a whirlwind of creativity and it will be awesome! 

Like a fine wine, you let it ferment, grow richer, fuller, layered.

You let it cook.

The creative spark is moody, unpredictable and hard to tame. (There are ways to set up a “context” for creativity to blossom - I talk about that in my How to Write a Fantastic Play in 28 Days Seminar Home Study Edition - see below.) And when creativity ignites, you need to stay with it, let it channel it's magic, and write, write, write, and when it REALLY dries up, acknowledge what is, leave it alone, put it under a hot rock somewhere, and let it cook. 

Let it simmer.

Trust it will ripen with time without your attention.

This is one of the hardest things for most writers to do, but from working with a myriad of playwrights, this is such an important skill for every writer to learn!

It is ok to stop work on a project for a while if it isn't happening. (Just don’t make it too long.)

When I work with my Playwriting Coaching clients, setting the play aside to let it cook is absolutely unfathonable. But sometimes, after brainstorming, mindstorming, playing with the concept of the play, rewriting scenes and more, a writer sometimes needs a break to allow their unconscious mind time to find the answer. My clients are paying me to help them craft their story, and they go bonkers when I suggest that they leave it alone for a week and we will go from there.

"Help me make this happen!" they cry, and I reply,

"I am. Just let it cook for a bit."

You see, you can't make a flower blossom. 

You can't make gravy before the Turkey is done. 

You can't squeeze inspiration out of a blank sheet of paper or a blank computer screen.

If the well is dry, don't try to drink. 

Find another well to hydrate your imagination for a bit while your creative unconscious does its magic.

Let it cook.

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Click on the image above for more info & to register!

The Play Creation Process!

Everything is a process.

Probably the most important thing you can remember when writing a play, and when bringing that play to production, is that it is a process. Until your play opens on Broadway, it is never really fully baked. There are always more levels to explore, more pages to cut, and more workshopping to do.

Three years ago, I directed an amazing little play called The Bigot by Eva and Gabi Mor. When we first started work on the play, Gabi and I went through the script for hours on end, cuttting, reworking and simplifying things. It was a long process, but it is a really important piece of the play development pie.

Then, in rehearsal, we worked on scenes and simplified things. As the actors started to embodied the characters, I could easily see where we could continue to cut and make the play more concise and focused. The play development process is fantastic for the work informs the creative team.

Let me say that again:

The work informs the creative team!

In performance, The Bigot grew even more. There is something about when an audience watches a play that absolutely changes a play - hopefully for the better. As I watched the Bigot in performance each night, I could see new places where we could cut or simplify and I actually calibrated the audience’s focus and response, and I could clearly see what was clear and what was a bit cloudy.

This is the way to “grow” a play. Workshop it. Do a small production or just get some actor friends to fully act it in your living room.

And then LEARN from it. And make it perfect.

A play is a live EMOTIONAL experience, so how could you only develop it on paper?

Developing a play on paper is just an intellectual experience. It’s just a story. A novel. Bore me.

Make the choice to develop our play by bringing it to life.

By the way, The Bigot went on to be produced regionally by 5 theatres in 2018, and in 2019 it returned to NYC as an Off-Broadway production.

When I saw it in June 2019 Off-Broadway, it had grown in many ways from having performances all over the country for a variety of audiences. Gabi and Eva made the choice to LEARN from each production, and it paid off for them.

So bring your play to life, and LEARN from it.

Be a better playwright.

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Need some help writing that play? Click below.

Right Director, Right Choices!

When bringing you play to life for the first time in a small self-produced production, it is important to make sure you have the right director, who shares your vision, and who will lead the actors to make the right choices.

As a director, I always look to fulfill the playwright's intention. “Are the choices we are making with this production congruent with what the playwright wants?”

I never make the production about me. A director who makes a production about HIS AMAZING "DIRECTORIAL-NESS" is not serving anyone.

And never serving the play.

I once gave one of my plays to a director to direct. It was a monologue play with 10 actors that I had directed myself many times and it was always great fun for the actors and the audience alike.

So I sat down and gave this director some concepts and principles about “the play in production” that ALWAYS worked. I also said, "Of course, you can do whatever you like, but I know from experience these principles work."

4 weeks later, I attended the production and I was mortified. The director and the actors made all the wrong CHOICES about the material. They added goofy character mannerisms in monologues that needed to be real. They made "tiny" choices in some monologues when “BIG” choices would make it work. And the director had a CONCEPT! She tried to somehow make it an ensemble piece by having all the actors on stage all the time, which only stole focus from the person doing the monologue and limited the actors by not allowing them to change costumes and wigs to create different characters!

It was mind-boggling. The choices made by the director and the actors actually made my writing look bad, sound bad, and seem sophomoric, when I knew from directing the play more than 20 times, that my play was brilliant! And the audiences always loved it!

So if you are going to do any sort of self-produced production, (All playwrights should workshop and develop their work,) make sure you are on the same page with your director. Make sure she wants to bring your play to life and not her CONCEPT of your play to life. And make sure he understands the power of making the right choices for the characters and the material.

Interview directors extensively. Find out what they value in theatre, what they value in life, and find out if they are on the same page as you as to your intentions with your play.

I don't want you to experience what I did. My stomach CHURNS when I think about it.

Thank God, I had directed my show before, so I knew it worked! A director conceptualizing and making the wrong choices about your play could actually make you believe your play is not good, when simply some idea was pasted over your play, and the wrong choices were made about your material.

Interview extensively. And interview some more.

Elicit a director's values, and learn everything you can about him or her.

Find the right director fit, and watch your play blossom!

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Need some honest feedback on your play? Click below.

The Moral of the Story? What?

I see this all the time when I am reading plays, and when I am experiencing plays in a theatre. Often, I can clearly see the playwright telling the audience “The Point of the Play,” or “The Moral of the Story.”

And it just reeks of bad playwriting.

The truth of the matter is, if you are too transparent in your attempt to make the audience fully understand why you wrote this play, what the point is, what the moral is, why this is an important play and on ad nauseam, they are going to run out of the theatre, and the only emotional experience you are going to give your audience is the ambivalence they feel for you as a playwright.

So don’t do that. Don’t even think about telling the audience what your play is about or what it means.

One of the most important principles of storytelling a playwright can utilize in her work, is to let the experience she creates on stage, speak for itself.

A picture speaks a thousand words, but a live emotional experience created on stage speaks a Billion words, for it is not just visual, it is also auditory, and kinesthetic, and it is communal too. It is alive!

The best theatre creates a powerful moment in time for the actors and the audience.

And as soon as a playwright tries to siphon a meaning into this live event, he kills the live experience, and the myriad of emotions, perceptions and perspectives your audience inhabits. “The Point of the Play” is what your audience decides after you turn them upside down and shake them around with the live emotional experience you created called a play!

As soon as you, as the creator, try to insure the audience gets “Your Point of the Play,” you kill your play.

I love to go out for drinks or dinner after watching a play with a group of people for EVERYONE has a different take on the experience the group just shared. Everyone has a different “take home” from the shared theatrical experience. Fantastic!

Maybe they see things in your play that you never knew were there!

And that is the power of creating an emotional experience on stage. You let the story inform the audience, not your opinion.

So if you are writing a play about the Mafia in New Jersey, or The Black Lives Matter movement, or how relationships are coming undone in this pandemic, just create a live, exciting and compelling story. Let your play speak Billions! Don’t try to corral it with your one meaning to insure the audience GETS it.

The more specific, concise and truthful you are as a storyteller, the more universal it will be for the audience and the audience will feel it and GET it big time!

As soon as you try to teach, or preach, or sum up, or moralize, you have killed your play.

Your audience is not there to be TOLD anything.

They are there for an emotional experience.

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In Memoriam: Dr. Brian Healy

I just found out yesterday, more than a year after the fact, that Dr. Brian Healy, of the Center for Optimal Performance in NYC, has passed away.

Brian was the psychologist who help me through my PTSD “experience” 17 years ago, that was documented in my one man show THE PEOPLE IN MY HIPS.

I am deeply saddened by his passing.

Way back in 2003, after seeing almost every kind of therapist on the planet, I came to Brian with severe developmental PTSD which I manifested at 45 years of age from doing Yoga. I was so scared. My somatic reactions were extreme, to say the least, but Dr. Healy was totally on board and supportive, as I went on the the wildest ride of my life. We worked together courageously for two years and he helped me cure myself 100% of my insane PTSD.

And then, with Dr. Healy’s support, I went on to write a one man play about my PTSD journey THE PEOPLE IN MY HIPS, and I brought this story to life at Manhattan Rep in 2009, which included video of our sessions together.

In therapy with Brian, I would bounce, cry, moan and shake, and he would sit calmly and compassionately ask questions.

My biggest breakthroughs came in therapy after Dr. Healy allowed me to videotape my sessions with him. My abuser, the unknown “Dark Man” as I referred to him, who was lost in my unconscious mind and in my body, was male, so I felt unsafe alone with Brian. But when I turned on the camera to document my sessions, I felt safe, and I was able to do the incredibly difficult work to climb underneath my PTSD symptoms and discover the lost memories in my body and my mind.

This was the most challenging time of my life, and Dr. Healy was there, quiet, supportive and committed to helping me get better.

Being a therapist was not a job for Brian.

It was his mission.

Here are two disturbing yet courageous clips of two of our sessions together from 2005.

Dr. Brian Healy was an extraordinary man.

He was a healer, and a true friend.

I literally owe him my life.

Brian, I cannot thank you enough.

May you rest in peace.

It's HARD to write a great play?

Who decided that it is HARD to write a great play?

You did.

Hard is just a story you have made up about making up stories. It is just your belief, and I hallucinate that no matter what I write here in this blog post, hard is the story you will stick with.

So let me tell you a story…

So a guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office, and says to the doctor,

“I’m a corpse.”

The doctor stops for a moment and then says,

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I’m a corpse. Always been one, always will.”

“No, you’re not.” The psychiatrist says calmly.

The man gets very serious and then says firmly,

“Yes I am.”

“Ok,” the psychiatrist says, “If you are a corpse, you don’t have any blood, so if I prick your finger, and there is blood, it will prove you are alive and not a corpse. Do you want to try this?

“Sure. I’m a corpse. What have I got to lose?”

So the psychiatrist pulls out a pin and pricks the man’s finger…

and it starts to bleed.

The man stares at it in horror, frozen in disbelief.

“Oh my God,” he says, “Corpses bleed!”

So are you a corpse? Choosing to reformat life in order to prove your own assertion?

Discredit the speaker: “What does Ken Wolf know?

Use the past as a rock hard reference: “I have written 15 plays and not one of them was easy.”

Use Social Proof: “All of my playwright friends have a hard time writing plays too so it has to be true.

Make $hit up: “This is just a trick question designed to get me to sign up for Ken’s playwriting services!”

And this is my favorite…

Proclaim your individuality: “I am a SERIOUS playwright!”

The drama you connect to your play-making is what makes it hard. What if you were to question the negative emotion that makes playwriting so difficult for you? And what if you were to change that negative emotion to JOY and start there?

Do you see/hear/feel what I am saying?

It is all made up. It is just your judgement about how good or bad, or right or wrong, or hard or easy something is.

“Why, then, ’tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.” Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2 - Willie the Shake -

It is simply how you have been emotionally programmed since birth.

Wanna change that?

Question everything about Playwriting that urks you, and find three reasons why what urks you is actually good for you or even fun. Again, find 3 real reasons why it is good for you or fun!

Make the choice to look at playwriting like joy or as crazy fun, and not WORK.

Work? Work is something you do that you don’t want to do to pay the bills! Playwriting is fun, joy and good sex rolled up together in one delicious experience.

What’s hard about playwriting?

Writing poorly: Who’s gonna read it, especially if it sucks? If bad writing is deleted, was it ever really there?

Writer’s Block: Wow, now is a great time to check out The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, to experience about some great writing and acting.

I’m a failure. I can’t do this: You are only a failure if you choose to give up. Almost every successful playwright has almost given up at some moment in time. Join the team of successful playwrights!

No one will like it: Who the heck cares if anyone likes it? Write a play that YOU like!

This play will never get produced: Especially if you never finish it!

I am a bad writer: Yes, a bad writer for believing you are a bad writer. What if you were better than Tennesee Williams or David Mamet? How would that feel?

You make it hard, because you make it hard.

If it is not there already, or if it has changed over time, connect your most ecstatic emotions to play writing. Do it consciously every time you sit down to write if you aren’t feeling it. Don’t type a single word, until you connect to the utter amazing joy of creating a live story. And don’t you dare judge yourself as anything but a pro, a creative genius, and a master storyteller.

FEEL IT AS BEING THE TRUTH AND THEN WRITE.

You are not a corpse.

You are a playwright.

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