You Have To Kill Your Darlings!

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So we have all been there.  

You are writing, and this amazing, lyrical, poetic, gorgeous writing spews forth from your consciousness, and you are excited out of your mind how you have created such amazing work! You feel like you are the writer you always believed yourself to be! Your time has come!

"Oh my God, I am a genius!"

So as you continue writing your play, you keep referring back to this amazing, lyrical, poetic, gorgeous writing, hoping it will give you inspiration to continue to write amazing, lyrical, poetic, gorgeous dialogue, characters and more! You love these pages so much. They are the essence of who you are as a playwright. You hope that reading these pages over again will give you more divine inspiration to continue to be the writer you always believed yourself to be.

Ay, there's the rub.

When I was writing THE PEOPLE IN MY HIPS, my one man show about how I developed PTSD and more from training in Yoga, I had a number of pages, passages, narrations that I thought were profound. They were amazing, lyrical, poetic, and gorgeous! I loved them them so much!! In my mind, they were the essence of the best that I can write.

But as we got into production of THE PEOPLE IN MY HIPS, I realized that in order for the show to work, it needed to race faster and faster towards it's dramatic conclusion, and it needed to run under 90 minutes.  Much of my amazing, lyrical, poetic, gorgeous writing was in the latter half of my play... 

So, with great pain..... I CUT MOST OF IT.

I cut my best writing right out of my play!

Why? Because it didn't fit into the overall through line, pacing and direction of the PRODUCTION!

You always have to go back to the fact that your play is written to be ALIVE! And in that aliveness, there are some elements like pacing, through line and run time that don't apply or don't show up on paper.

Theatre is alive, and you need to be consciously aware of that as you are writing.

Sometimes in order to produce a great play, you need to KILL YOUR DARLINGS - those pages which you love that don't serve the overall production.  

And it hurts.  

It hurts bad.

But when you get a review like this, it makes it feel a whole lot better!

“THE PEOPLE IN MY HIPS is one of the most extraordinary pieces of theatre I have seen on or Off-Broadway in years. Mr. Wolf’s script is nearly flawless in its eloquence and is one of those rare pieces of work that reminds us of our common humanity. Mr. Wolf’s one-man performance is exquisite, inspiring, courageous and beautifully constructed. I laughed even as I was moved to tears. See THE PEOPLE IN MY HIPS soon. Because you will want to see it again.”

- Lise Avery, Anything Goes!!  Internationally Syndicated Radio - 

But my PRETTY DARLINGS weren't lost to the world. I did something fun to save them.

After the first production of THE PEOPLE IN MY HIPS, I took the play, and put all of the cut passages and pages I loved back into it, and turned it into a self-published book! And people loved it!

In story-telling of any kind, you have to remember that plays are different from short stories which are different from novels.

If you are developing a play, when in production develop the courage, if necessary, to KILL YOUR DARLINGS!

And your play will ROCK!

A Written Script is NOT a play!

I talk about this all the time on The Playwriting Podcast because this is so important for you to remember as a playwright when you are in the process of writing a “play.” Even though I have had some very expressive communication on Twitter when I have posted about this, I will say it again, because it is true, and it will make you a better PLAY CREATOR.

A SCRIPT IS NOT A PLAY.

A written play is just a script, a map for the playwright, director, creative team and cast to bring it to life. A PLAY IS A LIVE EXPERIENCE! Never be married to your script for it is TWO DIMENSIONAL. It needs direction, actor choices, set, costumes, lighting, sound, venue and audience to bring it to the next level.  

The rehearsal process is the most important process in the PLAY CREATION journey. It is where you discover what works, and what doesn't work. It is where you discover that your dialogue sucks at times and at other times, you discover that your dialogue is eloquent and witty. It is where your characters breathe, where you discover real behavior, and real emotion. It is where your characters discover what they are fighting for, and it is where the actors discover BIG FRIGGIN' holes in your play. It is trial and error time while your director and actors look at scenes in different ways, and sometimes they create something which is so much better than what was in your script! SO MUCH BETTER - you just gave them a MAP, and together, with the creative team, you created magic.  

The good news is now you get to take credit for that magic as if you wrote it. That is fun. You built a map of an exciting story, and through creative collaboration, your story is now so much better.

Don't be addicted to your play. Anything about it. Often, in most full length plays I read, there are too many characters, too many subplots and lots of ”stuff.” In rehearsal, you can see what is too much, and what is too little. Focus on the thru line of the main character or characters and throw the rest away. Also, if you have too much LOCAL COLORING in your script, you will see it as soon as the actors start embodying your play. The actors, and the costumes, set and lighting will create the world - you don't have to color it with stories or dialogue that doesn’t serve the throughline of the play. Trust the creative team and remember that your play is a live experience!

Feel free to admit you wrote too much and CUT, CUT, CUT in rehearsal. When embodied, and developed by good actors and a wise director, you will clearly see what does not serve your play.

And you don't have to tell the audience anything!

Trust your creative team.

So stop writing ad infinitum in order to create the PERFECT play.

Get a director and some actors (on Zoom,) and start to bring your play to life, and see what your play will teach you.

So stop.  

Get off your computer in your quest to WRITE the perfect play.

GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD, 
and BRING YOUR PLAY TO LIFE!

"nuff said!"

Playwriting in A Brave New World

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None of us thought this day would ever come, when theatre is literally shut down across the country. Other than two productions in the Berkshires (Godspell, and Harry Clarke by David Cale) I don’t know of any other professional productions of plays (that have been approved by Actors Equity,) that have been brought to life since mid March 2020 in the United States. I know in Spain, Poland, England and a few other places, some theatres have opened with social distancing and more, but how is that really working?

Incredible Images of Theaters Preparing For Life After Lockdown https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/g32937544/theaters-reopening-coronavirus/

Barrington Stage Company https://barringtonstageco.org/distancing/

Small town venues and theatres reopen with social distancing in mind https://www.dakotanewsnow.com/video/2020/07/13/small-town-venues-theatres-reopen-with-social-distancing-mind/

A play is a joyous event. Sitting 6 feet away from masked individuals, fearful of a coughing or sneezing fit from a fellow patron 6 feet away is not my idea of fun. Yet, as playwrights, we MUST stay positive, and continue to focus on writing our best work, in a world basically devoid of live theatre.

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19 years ago, I went to see Lobby Hero by Kenneth Lonergan Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons on 42 St in NYC.

The play is about a doorman who betrays a confidence, and then all these terrible things happen because of it. When I left that theatre that day, I said to myself “ My God, Ken, you can never betray a confidence ever again. If someone asks you to keep a secret, you have to keep that secret.”

That day, I was changed because of a live story, a play.

So in this Brave New World where tempers are flaring unexpectedly, where our politicians can’t have a civilized conversation leading to a productive solution even to save lives, where most people are either living in fear or living in denial, we have to be ready as playwrights, as artists, and as compassionate human beings, for our stories can move mountains, inspire, and effect change better than any political debate, or legislative measure.

We have been given this magical transformational power of storytelling, and this pandemic is a call to action like never before.

This is our time to write, so when the time comes, we can be a part of the productive solution with our plays.

Let’s get to work!