What are your Strengths?

In my brief lifetime, I have worked with literally thousands of playwrights. For 15 years at Manhattan Rep, I produced over 1000 full-length plays and over 6000 short pieces. I have seen and experienced more live plays than probably anyone alive. (Wow, will that get in the Guiness Book of World Records?)

One of the things I have noticed is that many playwrights don’t have a clear vision of what type of playwright they are. Yes, they love to write stories to be brought to life, but many have never asked this question:

What are my STRENGTHS as a playwright?

This is an important question to ask, for the answer might just catapault your playwriting career.

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Are you good with comedy? Or is heavy duty drama your strong suit?

Are you good with 10 minute plays, or are you strictly a Full-Length Magnus Opus type of writer?

What are your strengths?

Write them down.

Get clear on what you do really well!

And then start writing from there.

Now I am not telling you to not try new things, but if you are looking to make money with your work and get produced you need to lead with your greatest strengths.

I know of a playwright who is making a living in the wildest way with his playwriting. A number of years ago, he decided to focus on the High School market, and he started writing just awesome plays for High School students. And Bam! They were really good. He loved writing them, and schools loved them too. So he licensed them to High Schools all over the country. He was really good at writing for this market, and he went with it. He continues to write for this market, AND, he is back to writing full-length plays for adults. But who knew how lucative that market could be?

Another playwright I know was so good at writing 10 minute plays, but he found selling a 10 minute play, was not going to pay the bills. So he tried something fun. He started writing short play evenings - 8 or 9 short 10 minute plays themed around love, or family, or buying a car, or dating, and producers throughout the country were interested, for they could farm out the directing duties, create 4 or 5 teams to put them together, and the evening was easy to produce.

So this playwright started making money with writing theme-based 10 minute plays.

So super cool.

So what are your strengths as a playwright, and how can you utilize those strengths?

If you are good with comedy, do comedy for now.

Take it and go far with it.

Write full-length plays, AND short comedic plays that stand on their own or could be put into a themed evening of short plays, and see what sticks to the wall.

And then do what works.

If drama is your strength, go for it in a big way.

Write that one play that scares you for the drama is so real and so compelling.

Dare to write a drama about something no one has ever written about!

But take some time to honestly access your STRENGTHS.

What is fun for you and what do you do really well?

Then find a passionate story idea and write the best play of your life!

Bringing A Medical Drama to life on Stage! - A Sickness of the Mind by Kenneth Einhorn, M.D.

So I met Kenneth Einhorn, M.D., 2 years ago, when he secured my services to do a script consultation. I do lots of these script consultations, and I love doing them for as someone who has actually produced literally thousands of plays, I have a production eye when I look at a script so I see possibilities and ideas that most dramaturges, who are not involved in production, just don’t see. 

I believe a play is an emotional experience and it really doesn’t exist on the page. 

A written play is just a map for the playwright, director and actors to build on so that together they can create an emotion experience for an audience. This emotional experience is such an important distinction for a playwright to understand and to commit to.

Ken sent me a short twenty minute medical drama that took place in a Hospital Emergency Room called A SICKNESS OF THE MIND. I loved it. It had great characters, a clear through line and lots happening on stage. I love when things happen on stage. (That is rule number 2 for any playwright - Make things happen ON STAGE.) I helped Ken make some simple changes, and gave him some distinctions to streamline his play and to make it even more dramatic. We spoke on the phone and he was a charming, intelligent, just a wonderful guy and he loved my suggestions.

2 months later, with a reworked, streamlined, and awesome new Map for the creative team, Ken contacted me to produce A SICKNESS OF THE MIND as part of our Play Production Program.

I instantly said “ Absolutely!”

So I have to confess, A SICKNESS OF THE MIND was my first (and only) medical drama I have ever directed. There are hundreds of medical dramas on TV, but in theatre Medical Dramas are very rare. I was thrilled out of my mind to take on this challenge.

The set up for this play is this: A young ER doctor recently had his father killed by a thug on the streets, and this is this doctor’s first day back at work after taking two weeks off to handle the wake and the funeral and all that needs to happen when a family member dies.

It is clear at the top of the play, this ER doctor is not all together yet. He is abrupt with the nursing staff and with management, and he is just not in a good place.

Suddenly a screaming patient is rolled into the ER who was shot in the leg after brutally shooting and killing a police officer. This “thug” is rude, demanding and righteous. After finally getting him to settle down by giving him drugs, he falls asleep as they bandage his leg.

The ER doctor leaves to see another patient, and in the waiting room runs into the partner of the cop who was killed, who is crazy upset and angry and he tells of how his partner was brutally and purposefully murdered in cold blood by the “thug” in the next room.

Suddenly, the nurse runs in and says there are some emergency complications with “the thug” and they run back to the room. They are not sure what is happening and as they go about figuring it out, the patient suddenly FLATLINES and the nurse calls to the doctor to get the defibrillator and the doctor stops, freezes. It’s clear the doctor is thinking he should let him die. After a quick exchange, the nurse snaps him out of it, and they save the patient’s life.

So this was wild to bring to life. First off, it was clear we had to make all the medical equipment believable if not this play would prove laughable. Luckily, Ken had access to a real defibrillator and a whole bunch of other medical equipment that we could use for the production. 

Next, I cast a kick ass team of actors: Jordan Allen Bell, Michael Dale, Hiro Takashima and Katherine Paulsen and we went about making this play soar.  

Jordan Allen Bell, with who I had worked with before in THE COURT MARTIAL OF ADMIRAL MONTOJO by Dennis Posadas (he played Admiral Montojo,) was the ER doctor and he was perfect for this role. He has this unique sense of nobility, and he has a dark side too. 

Hiro Takashima played the “bad guy,” and Hiro is the nicest guy on this planet. I remember at the first rehearsal telling him that he needed to be so friggin’ vile and that once he create this vile, evil guy, he will be able to use it again and again in his career, and probably get lots of TV work. (Isn't that fun?) He was psyched to make this happen. 

Katherine Paulsen was the nurse, a super specific and talented actor who is flawless, and Michael Dale, was the policeman who’s partner was murdered in cold blood, and Michael is the consummate professional actor, so talented and so interesting.

The fun part for me was we had to amp this thing up in a big way to pull off the medical madness of this play. But with this team, I knew we would pull it off.

We started off by making the choice that Hiro as the “bad guy” was in incredible pain when he is rolled in, screaming in agony, and he was also being incredibly dramatic about it, to mess with all. He was unbearably loud, arrogant and vile, demanding for help. Hiro took it and ran with it, and it was super fun.

The choice we made with Jordan as the doctor was that he was incredibly reactive and unsettled from the experience and story of the death of his father. He was on edge and so friggin’ messed up.

Also Michael Dale, as the policeman, also like Jordan, was so so messed up. Almost wanting to bust into the hospital room and murder Hiro.

Katherine, as the nurse, was the voice of sanity and the professional. She could detach from emotion to get things done.

So we made some high stake and interesting choices and I let the actors go at it, and what theatrical fun it was. Hiro was despicable, and it was palpable, which fed Jordan. Michael was sick, sad and vengeful which also fed into what Jordan was experiencing, and I directed it with a fantastic high stakes urgency which made it super exciting. I was so please with the work we did as a team on this. So good. Just remarkable.

When we got to the defibrillator scene, we were lucky enough to have the playwright Ken Einhorn, MD, at the rehearsal and he went though the real process of what happens when someone flatlines with precision and great detail. We spent a long time just working that scene for the medical stuff, had to be real, and it had to have crazy urgency too. I was working the sound and light board for the production and I was responsible for the defibrillator sound so I had to be completely in tune with the actors, for if I messed up with the defibrillator sound, there goes the play. But we worked it and we worked it and we nailed it.

What fun this was for all of us, and the audiences loved it. We gave them an emotional experience and they went for the ride with us!

Ken wrote me a couple days after we closed, and he said “Seeing my play that originated in my mind coming to life onstage was the realization of one of my goals in life! Thank you so much!” He has since sent me another one act Medical drama for script consultation and it rocks!

Who knows maybe we will bring it to life sometime soon!

Remember the best theatre is an emotional experience! 

And it is super fun too!

Plan your play!

For some unknown reason, scores of playwrights believe that the concept of planning a play from the beginning to the end, with clear events and actions in each scene, with scenes that top each other in some unique way, leading to a climax, will mess with their creativity.

Mess with your creativity? Is that true? Have you ever tried it? Maybe you could write a better play?

Planning your play is a smart strategy to write a compelling play.

I often get this:

“I like to start and see where my creativity takes me.”

Why don’t you try using your creativity to plan your play and see where it takes you, so you don’t waste time being serendipitous randomly writing your play?

“Planning a play is too much work.”

Anything great in life requires work.

Do you really want to write a great play?

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What would happen if we built buildings without a clear gameplan and blueprint? We would create makeshift retrofitted buildings that would never stand the test of time.

So you want your play to stand the test of time? Do you want to build a story that is compelling, involving and dramatic? (Yes, even comedies are compelling, involving and dramatic.) Do you want to write a Masterpiece?

I don’t believe that planning your play is the only way to write a play, for it isn’t. Yet, in my experience in coaching playwrights, 9 out of 10, once they finally plan their play, find writing it exhilerating, easy, and they produce some of their best work ever!

Do you want to be more productive? Write better plays with a faster and a more effective workflow?

Try planning your play with clear events and actions in each scene, with scenes that top each other in some unique way, leading to a climax. And then write it from your plan, build it, make it real and alive!

Our biggest challenge is the part of us that thinks we know it all. If we know it all, why would we want to do something new, even if we are told it could work for us? We don’t do something new for we have decided in advance without trying it, that it won’t work.

And that could be true.

But until you try something, you will never know.

As a creator and teacher, I try to be open to everything, even that planning your play won’t work for you.

And I invite you to try it out, like when you try on a new outfit at the store. You don’t know you want to buy it until you put it on, and it fits right and you look great, so you buy it.

But if you never tried it on, you would have missed out on a fantastic outfit.

Don’t miss out on a fantastic play because of something you believe to be true.

Find out.

Challenge your beliefs about your possibilities as a playwright and creator.

Challenge your beliefs every day.

For you are a lot more than you think.

The Adventure Bringing a Passionate LGBTQ Love Story to Life! Past Perfect by Rita Lewis

When Rita Lewis came to us with this romantic drama about two High School friends who meet again after 25 years, I knew I was in for the ride of my life. Rita's script was beautiful, dramatic, crazy funny and it had a beautiful twist that would make this Lesbian Love story truly unique. I was excited out of my mind to bring PAST PERFECT to life.

I immediately thought of the amazing Gerry Glennon as one of the leads. Gerry, over the past year had originated two truly amazing roles, one in The Bigot by Gabi and Eva Mor (which came to Off-Broadway last Spring) and one in The Living Room by Charlie Finesilver, the first Civil War drama I have ever directed. Past Perfect would be a challenge that I knew Gerry would dive into with wild abandon. Rita and I auditioned a number of women for the other lead role, but nobody really nailed the character, and I was concerned. We needed someone great in this role, if not, the play wouldn't fly.

I was breaking down the chairs and tables I set up for the audition when Rita said to me, "How about Jen? She would be perfect for this role. The first time I saw her I thought she would be perfect."

I stopped. "Huh?" I thought. Jen is the love of my life and my partner here at Manhattan Rep. For the last couple of years, she had been doing a lot of TV work, and she and I hadn't worked on a play together since THE MATCH GAME in 2015. Rita was right. She would be perfect. Jen's got incredible acting chops, and she has the sensitivity and the spunk to make this play rock, and to team her with Gerry... Oh my God. This would not be the ride of life, it would be a rollercoaster!

And I love rollercoasters!

So I asked Jen that night. She read the play and she immediately accepted. We found the third actor, Erika Yesenia to play Gerry's daughter in the play, and we were in business.

Rehearsals were insanely fun. When you have a great team, it is really not work, and we were all on the same page, and the moments that we were discovering in rehearsal were amazing.

At one point in the play, the two main characters and love interests, Susan and Beth, end up smoking pot together and drinking, and then they fall into each other's arms in a mad embrace, at which point Susan's daughter accidentally comes into the room and all heck ensues. Because I like big choices and I like to really embody scenes, I decided that we would go really far with the Pot party scene and make it really fun, so as a team we decided that the munchies that they would eat would be pretzels and ice cream and the music that they would play would be Kenny G, and then we went from there. Gerry and Jen ended up dancing on the furniture and getting ice cream and pretzels everywhere. And we turned a steam Vape into a Pot Steamer with some tin foil and theatrical artistry, so it really looked like they were really smoking pot. What happened every night during this scene was so crazy wildly fun and new for Gerry and Jen worked so well together. One of the best scenes I have ever participated in staging in my life.

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Scenes from Past Perfect with Jennifer Pierro, Gerry Glennon and Erika Yesenia

But with actors like those two, I didn't know what I was getting into. And then when Susan's daughter enters, and sees them lying on the coffee table on top of each other with Ice cream everywhere, the play goes totally wild, as Susan and Beth try to figure out what the heck is going on and how to fix things. Again, one of the best pieces of theatre I have ever staged because of the talents of these great actors and the depth and cleverness of Rita's script.

But the wildest moment of my directorial life, was working on the 90 second kiss and embrace leading to lying on a Ice cream soaked coffee table in a mad impassioned embrace. Directing my partner of 12 years to kiss another actor PASSIONATELY was new to me, but thank God I was working with Gerry and Jen. They are pros. Check out my "kissing" directions below:

"Ok, let's try it again - you are "smacking" too much. You are making this "smacking" sound. It needs to be quieter even though you are stoned. You have to get kinda caught up in the kiss like you want to climb into the other person. Ok let's try this again.”

And inside I was saying to myself, "This is so bizarre. Crazy."

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Jen Pierro, Gerry Glennon, Erika Yesenia and Yours Truly at the PP talkback!

But it was working. And they nailed the kiss and the embrace. And this is just not my subjective perspective. During a talkback after one of the performances of PAST PERFECT a woman in the audience said " I have never in all my life seen such erotic lust on stage, how did you do it?" Gerry responded with a fiendish grin and said, "Jen and I would come to rehearsal early and practice!" And the audience roared.

Because we loved this show so much, after we closed, we asked Rita if we could do a number of benefits for different LGBTQ organizations around the country, and we went on to do three more benefit weekends Winter Spring 2018. And even after watching PAST PERFECT so many times in performance, it was always fun and such amazing great theatre due to the talents of these amazing actors and Rita's near perfect script.

This is what happens when you bring a play to life. It's magic and it is great, great fun. The collaboration between playwright, director and actors often creates something that is unique and truly magical. And I love that.

The Courage to Create Beyond your Fear! Being Truthful about PTSD!

It is scary to write about something real. It might be dark, or shameful, or just plain ridiculous, yet I feel that the best plays come from this “scary” place. Many plays require great courage to be written, and even more courage to be brought to life on stage. These plays are transformational, not just for the playwright, but for all involved in the production, and the audience too.

What will it take for you to write that “scary” play?

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It took me two years to write my “scary” play, and another 4 months to bring it to life, and I have never been more frightened in my life on an opening night.

When I was 45, I was in a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, and as I studied Yoga and lived in Yoga, I started to “feel” very strange things in Yoga class. Some days I would start to sob in class, but there was no feeling connected to it, yet my body would be sobbing somatically. Other times, in class I would suddenly feel the emotional pain as I entered into a hip opener asana, and my head would literally vibrate from side to side.

So I decided to leave the training, and work privately with a brilliant and compassionate Yogi from my training, to dig into my body and figure out what the HECK was going on. As I explored the memories somehow trapped in my body, things got worse. I started to feel random anxiety outside of doing Yoga and experienced severe and random muscle cramping.

And then all Hell broke loose! I re-traumatized my nervous system from a forgotten traumatic event from my childhood. I developed severe PTSD and bizarre somatic reactions. Sometimes with just a thought, I would find myself thrown against a wall. And at other times, my body would flap and bounced uncontrollably.

In a nutshell, it was NOT fun.

So I decided I would heal myself and write a play and/or a movie about this crazy experience, and how I healed myself, because I needed a reason for all of this.

And that is what kept me going day after day. I would tell this story of how I healed myself to help others with similar problems. And that commitment to telling my story SAVED me. I focused on living my story and healing, so I could someday share that story on stage.

So I started videoing everything, my Yoga sessions, my therapy sessions and personal somatic events that would manifest daily. Over a period of 3 years, I worked with every type of physical and mental doctor, practitioner, or shaman in my quest to figure out what happened to me, and how I could end the madness, and remarkably after 3 years, I cured myself 100% of my PTSD.

And then two years later, I finally found the courage to tell this story.

I remember on opening night, when I was on stage showing one of the real life videos where I “bounced” around my living room from my insane PTSD, I thought to myself, “What the hell am I doing?” I wanted to run out of the theatre. “How can I share this? This video is so disturbing and frightening, and will anyone ever even talk to me again for I look crazy?”

But the show must go on.

And remarkably, the audience loved it.

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For it was scathingly real.

I got the best reviews in my life, and the best part of the experience was talking personally with the audiences afterward for many had similar experiences, maybe not as extreme.

It was utterly fantastic for me to bring something so DARK in my life, into the LIGHT.

So I invite you to write that play that frightens you, that you know you need to write. It will be your best work, and it will transform your life, and probably the lives of those who come to see it.

Playwriting in A Brave New World

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.

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.

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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!

Bringing A Fantastic Civil War Drama to Life! The Living Room by Charlie Finesilver

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When we booked Charlie Finesilver’s play, THE LIVING ROOM, I was thrilled out of my mind. THE LIVING ROOM is a Civil War drama that takes place in 1862. I have directed a myriad of plays in my life, but at that time, I had never directed a Civil War play with full on period costumes. The prospect of bringing this play to life with the type of dramatic action, and specificity that I do so well was beyond exciting to me. This was going to be amazing fun.

I immediately assembled a fantastic group of actors including Danny McWilliams and Gerry Glennon (who I worked with on Gabi and Eva Mor’s The Bigot, which miraculously made it’s way back to New York City 2 years after our production, as an Off-Broadway show,) Chelsea Clark, (who performed in one of Charlie’s one act plays earlier that spring Exhuming Oneself) Geoff Grady and Alan Homeri (veterans of numerous MRT productions,) Ashley Taylor Greaves (with whom I worked with on my monologue play Men and our first play production program play Le Cygne by Ivan Filippov who produced his play with us from Moscow,) Michelle Morroco (from Undertow by Rita Lewis) and new comer to MRT, Jahmeel Khan-Poulson. It was quite a cast, and all were excited to bring this Civil War Drama to life.

The First rehearsal, we read the rehearsal draft and talked in depth about the history surrounding this play. To bring a play to life which took place over 150 years ago would be an interesting challenge, plus we had the added element that his play took place, in Montgomery Alabama, so we had to work on the southern dialect specific to that time and place.

I had done some research and I had some audio I played to the cast and we talked about the specific phonetic changes to make this dialect specific and real. It was not easy grasping this dialect, so I made a commitment to all that I would learn the dialect and direct the play only using this dialect.

Well, that lasted about a week, when I couldn’t stand it anymore. The specific dialect we were working on required a slower paced drawl along with the vowel changes, and it was way too slow for me to give effective directions so I bowed out of my commitment (to much ridicule from the cast,) so I could actually direct this play with some New York City passion.

Rehearsals seemed to be going well. We were having great fun stepping into that world so far away from our present day society. In addition to the dialect, we worked on the manners and etiquette of the time and all were looking good… but something just wasn’t working.

It was about 10 days before opening, and everyone had their lines down, and all looked good as I sat in the house just staring at the run-through.

“What is missing?“ I thought.
“Why isn’t this coming together?”

And then it hit me, the wondrous magic that happens to me so often in rehearsal, and I saw what we were missing.

It was so so clear.

This Civil War drama was about a family who owned a plantation in Montgomery Alabama. The father and owner of the plantation, recently passed away, and as the story unfolded it looked like the father may have had an affair with the town Madam whom his wife abhorred. Their two sons, were divided by Military lines. The older brother became a Confederate officer and his younger brother, an angry depressed alcoholic, was able to get out of military service, so they were definitely not on the same page, not to mention that the younger brother’s wife had a wild crush on the older brother, the Confederate officer. A slave, the brother of one of the house maids, was brutalized and scarred by a member of the plantation staff, and he breaks loose, and as he holds the family hostage, the town Madam comes knocking on the door, ...and crazy secrets are revealed.

I stopped the rehearsal.

“Guys,” I said, “I got it. I know what is missing.”

The cast stared at me. Most knew what was happening here for they had worked with me before.

“This play is REALITY TV in 1862!”

We had been working so hard on the dialect and the etiquette and the outer universe of 1862, we didn’t see how much of a TRAIN WRECK this family was!

“This play is like the Kardashians on steroids in 1862!”

And they all laughed…

And they got it too!

So for the next 10 days, we focused on the drama big time making bigger and more compelling choices, and the play started to pop in ways I never could have imagined. The work they did on outer universe merged with their new passionate choices and oh my God, did we have fun! AND we were truly fulfilling the playwright’s intention here. It was what I love about this process. It was magic. Magic created by the team: Charlie, the actors and myself. Together we created something none of us alone could ever have even imagined.

When Charlie came to opening night, he was sitting on the edge of his seat with the rest of the audience, as we created this incredible, compelling and REAL experience of this dysfunctional family in Montgomery, Alabama in 1862.

Charlie was thrilled out of his mind, as was the audience

This is reason I do theatre.

To bring to life the true vision of a play, through teamwork and collaboration.

There is no greater adventure, and it is so much friggin’ fun!

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The Cast of The Living Room by Charlie Finesilver

Geoffrey Grady, Ashley Taylor Greaves, Gerry Glennon, Jahmeel Khan-Poulson, Michelle Morocco, Alan Homeri, Chelsea Clark, and Danny McWilliams!

A Production Perspective on Playwriting

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.

Florence Pape& Dave Silberger in He’s Your Daddy by Michael Zielinski 3/2019

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.

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Taylor Carter, Derek Keaton and Elizabeth Officer in Dirty Linen by Ofem Ajah - 9/2018

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 event.