Commit to Your Playwriting Career!

In 1990, after producing one of my plays Off-Broadway, a tribute play to my late father, I gave up theatre. The process of producing this play took the life out of me, for I was so passionately committed to it, but due to creative team problems and more, I didn’t get the play production that I hoped for.

And I was devastated.

(I was also a very dramatic 31 years of age.)

So I gave up the theatre for 6 years. I focused on my Fitness business up in Westchester, and I also started doing some public speaking and more, but I told myself I would never go back to writing and producing plays.

Then in 1996, something happened that made me question all my negative beliefs and WAKE up again.

I was training with a Fitness client for the 1996 New York City Marathon, and we were committed to running the race together. We started training in June, running and training together 4 times a week, and each week, we slowly added mileage to progressively build up our endurance.

We had a fantastic time training, until a very dark Sunday in Mid-September. We were running one of our longer runs - 18 miles, and BOOM, my knee started to hurt. I needed to stop, but because my client, who I was running with, was doing well, I decided to push through the pain so that I didn’t look like a wimp. Not a good idea.

The next day, I could barely walk due to intense knee pain.

I immediately went to my orthopedist who told me to lay off for a week, and then go to a physical therapist to build up the muscles in my upper leg, for there was an imbalance that caused my kneecap to become subluxated.

“Do you think I will be able to run the Marathon in 6 weeks?” I asked him, knowing his answer.

He smiled, and lovingly said, “No. You won’t be able to run. Right now you need to get this knee back into shape.”

So I was DEVASTATED (for I was a dramatic 31 years of age,) but part of me just didn’t believe my doctor.

Part of me knew, I had to complete this race.

A week later, when I started physical therapy, I asked my therapist Nestor, “Do you think I can run this marathon in 6 weeks?”

He smiled, and then lovingly said, “Anything is possible. You may be able to run this race, but if you do, you have to do it safely so you don’t hurt yourself, and you have to promise me that.”

“Yes!” I said immediately.

“And you have to be willing to do things differently.”

“Yes! No problem.”

“So let’s make an appointment for tomorrow and I will set you up on an alternate training program to keep you safe and hopefully, get you to that finish line!”

Nestor was a smart guy, for he came from the belief that there is always a way. There may not be a way, but he always started there, and that is a good place to start.

When I arrived at our MARATHON training session, he immediately put me on the treadmill. It was off, and I stood there looking at thim strangely. He knew that when I walked my knee hurt like heck.

“So Ken, I want you to turn around.” Nestor said with a fiendish smile.

“What?”

“I want you to turn around, and then I am going to start the treadmill, and we are going to see if it will hurt if you walk BACKWARDS. 60% of the joint pressure is removed when someone walks backwards.”

I turned around. He turned on the treadmill, and I started to walk backwards…

And it DIDN’T HURT! WILD.

He smiled at me and said “Fun, huh? So now you CAN walk but just in the wrong direction. So in addition to our strengthening therapy, I want you to start walking backwards and systematically add more mileage each week.”

“It is 5 weeks to the marathon, I am never going to get to 26 miles.”

“This is not about endurance. This is about walking. In addition, to daily walking backwards, do you have access to a pool?”

“What the heck is going on here?” I thought.

“Yes, I can get access to the SUNY PURCHASE pool.”

Great. I want you to do deep water running and swimming at least 4 days a week, building up to 3 hours by marathon time. That will help build your cardiovascular endurance. Plus you haven’t totally lost your endurance from your earlier training, you have only been off about a week, so this should be fine.”

So there began my “Possibility” marathon training, and I dove in with an insane passion like never before.

I did my physical therapy three times a week, and my deep water running and swimming 4 times a week as prescribed, and I started passionately walking backward. Eventually, I found treadmill walking boring, so since it was a beautiful Indian Summmer that fall, I started walking backwards outside with a mirror so that I wouldn’t run into things.

And I got so good at it, I began to RUN backwards with a mirror and then without a mirror! I would run on the backstreets of Rye, NY, where I was living, and somehow I intuitively missed potholes, dog do and more. It was like my passion and commitment to run this race, was somehow guiding and protecting me.

I got so good at running backwards, I was able to run a 10 minute mile BACKWARDS without tripping or bumping into anything. You should have seen the faces on cars driving by! (I was running backwards so I could see their faces!) What the heck was this man doing, and doing so well?

The day of the race, my training partner and I met at 6 am and took the bus to Staten Island where the The NYC Marathon starts. I had only run forward in water, or swam, or run backwards on land. That day, the day of the race, I would run forward for the first time in 6 weeks and hopefully complete the 26.2 mile adventure ahead.

BANG! The race began and all 33,000 of us started the run across the Verranzano Bridge (Today the race is often twice that number.) With so many people on the bridge the bridge actually bounced, and as the road before us opened up, and as I ran, it almost felt like I was on a trampoline, or I had some sort of super power. It was one of the most amazing experiences in my life, almost flying on the Veranzano Bridge!

Needless to say, I finished the race, as did my training partner. At one point, I was “hitting the Wall” and I sent her on to finish without me.

I was at the Willis Avenue bridge, and my left knee was throbbing and I knew I couldn’t push through pain, so I took some patella-femoral tape I brought with me, and I TAPED my subluxating kneecap in place, and I stood up and started to run slowly. The pain was minimal. This was still possible. I turned on Celene Dion’s Meatloaf Cover “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” and let the song take me, and I miraculously ran the last 8.2 miles to the finish line.

I chose to believe in possibility, and I did it.

That night, I went home and dunked myself in an ICE TUB repeatedly, so that, hopefully, I could walk the next day, and then I bundled up in warm pajamas and went to bed. As I lay there, I saw that all my excuses for not being a creative artist were bullshit. Total hogwash. I had one negative experience and because of that I gave up theatre? I let the pain of 1 event, shape the course of my life?

So lying in bed that night, weeping like a newborn baby, I committed to being a playwright/actor once again, for in that moment, it was clear, it was my life’s work.

That night, after the 1996 marathon, was the beginning of my Renaissance as a playwright and creative artist.

I started writing furiously and producing my plays furiously, and my life transformed, leading to the creation of Manhattan Rep in 2005, all because I choose to believe in possibility, and find a way no matter what.

You can’t let negative experiences and beliefs waylay your playwriting career. All those things that you believe are true that stop you, are bullshit. (Forgive my French, but it is true!) If you commit, choose to adapt when you are not getting the results you want, and keep going, truly living from your creative passion, YOU WILL GET THERE.

So it is time for you to commit to your playwriting career.

Yes, you may be running a marathon, but it is much better than watching from on the sidelines.

Make the bold, and fearful choice, to believe in POSSIBILITY, take inspired action, and live the life of your dreams!

Rebirth Like a Butterfly!

On Sunday, I was biking with my partner Jen, and we stopped to get coffee, and then we went over by the Westside Bike Path at Hudson River Park to relax and take in the beautiful day with a great cup of Java.

Biking through Manhattan was an education. We started by biking through midtown and the theatre district. Usually on Sunday afternoon, it would be bustling with crowds of people coming from brunch and on their way to a Sunday matinee.

It was disturbingly quiet.

As we biked through I felt my gut tighten and a deep sadness came over me.

“How are we ever going to get our Broadway back?”

We continued over to the East Side and headed down the 2nd Ave bike path. All of a sudden, it was like we were in a different city. Restaurants were literally on the streets built around the bike path so at times we would bike through these outdoor pop up restaurants. Many were abiding by the New York guidelines for outdoor dining, maintaining social distancing between tables, and not allowing large groups to congregate, and it was awesome to see NYC alive again… and at other restaurants, it was a free for all with large groups of people without masks, drinking, laughing and pretending it was last year.

So when we sat down for our coffee at Hudson River Park, I was melancholy, and I don’t go there that often, (for I know I am the one doing it,) but seeing NYC in all it’s myriad forms was deeply upsetting to me.

And then we saw the Butterflies!

In the foliage behind where we sat there were literally hundreds of Monarch butterflies! Jen and I pulled out our phones and started taking a myriad of pictures. I have never seen so many butterflies in one place in my entire life! All of a sudden, I was focused on the beauty of the moment and I was energized.

The Butterfly, traditionally, is a symbol of rebirth, technically the “butterfly process” is called metamorphosis. We all know that story: the butterfly begins as an egg, that births into a caterpillar, which soon builds a cocoon around itself, and then the caterpillar magically generates into the butterfly. The process usually takes from 28 to 32 days, about a month.

So as I took crazy pictures of these butterflies, my mind zoomed out to a bigger picture.

This time, where it is unsafe to congreate to share theatrical stories, is our time of metamorphosis. It is a time for our personal transformation into a better writer, better storyteller, better creative artist, and more compassionate human being. This pandemic, right here, right now, is part of our process of metamorphosis, into the beauty of who we really are.

The catarpillar doesn’t complain when building it’s cocoon, and it journeys out of its self-made prison when nature deems it is time. Maybe we need to trust and utilize this time for our own personal rebirth.

What do you need to “metamorphose” during this cocooning time? The type of plays you write, the way you write, your connections to the theatrical community, or the fear you always feel that you are some sort of imposter?

Who will you BE when you make like a butterfly when we find a safe, new normal again?

As I gazed at the dancing butterflies, my melancholy turned to tears of joy.

We are in the right place now, at the right time, and soon, we will take flight in ways we have never imagined!

Use Your Super Power!

I have this firm belief that anything is possible if we use our super power: Creativity!

Since the beginning of time, humankind has persevered and used creativity to solve problems and make this world an incredible place. We have built awesome cities, learned to actually fly, we have populated almost every area of the globe, created governments and societies to live in harmony, built a worldwide digital network so that we can communicate with one another from any place on earth, and so much more.

It’s funny as playwrights who use their creativity to write fantastic plays, we often don’t go to our creativity when we are stuck in writing process. We often use the term “Writer’s Block” which is a bunch of bull in my world. “Writer’s Block” is just a thought form, a label created, so that when ideas are not flowing, we can believe that something is doing something to us that prevents us from writing. It is ridiculous.

We are creators. There is never anything in our way other than our thinking, and when we come from that belief, we become unstoppable.

So how do you develop your creativity to the next level so that you can become unstoppable?

Challenge everything.

Challenge every negative belief you have about your possibilities, your writing ability, and your place in this world as a creative artist, for the world is an open book, and you can do and achieve anything, if you can use your creativity to see things under another light, or through another more positive filter.

When you are stuck with your writing (or in your life,) remember your innate creativity, which is, in a way, the God force inside of you, that can help you find creative solutions and new ways of writing and telling your personal stories.

Here are a couple of questions to access your innate creativity to challenge your negative beliefs about your writing and your possibilities:

1. Is there another way to look at this? (Is this really “Writer’s Block” or am I just tired and dehydrated and need to hydrate and nap?)

2. Is this really true, or just something I have decided is true based on my past, or what I have been told? What if this wasn’t true? How does that change things?

3. If I didn’t have this negative “opinion”, this negative thought about this, who would I be?

   Who am I with this negative thought about myself?

   Which is more fun to live by?

4. How can I start trusting my “creative intuition” and make some new choices and take some risks?

5. My favorite question: HOW CAN I MAKE THIS FUN?

In 1969, over 50 years ago, a man was able to fly to the moon, get out of the spaceship, walk around, and then and come back to earth safely! What can you do, using your innate super power Creativity, to take your playwriting and your playwriting career to the next level?

How to Write a Play in Real Time!

Starting in November 2018, I began experimenting with a cool way to write a play. 

I was working at Manhattan Rep taking tickets and running the board for our short play events, in addition to directing our play production program plays. My days were long, but so much fun, for I was creating lots of theatre, and just loving it.

Sometimes, when I was running a short play event, early in the week (or sometimes the night before,) I would find out that one of the plays participating had to pull out due to illness, or due to some other off stage “drama,” and we would be left with one less show for that week’s short play event. 

So as opposed to presenting a SHORTER evening of short plays, I made the choice to have a series of one man short play IDEAS ready to go, that I could improv, to see if the story idea worked and to see if the play worked in front of a live audience. I would film these plays from the back of the theatre so I could take notes on my performance later.  

My thought was this: I would figure out the BEATS of the play in advance, commit the beats of the play to memory, and then I would improv the play for the first time in front of a live audience. What a wild and exciting way to create a short play, and to be honest, it was a little scary too. But we love “scary” in the theatre, for there really is no down side. If you mess up, you mess up, and you learn from it. And there is nothing better to bring out your best than a live audience!

I decide to make these monologue plays like little TWILIGHT ZONE episodes. This way, when I created 6 to 10 of them, depending upon length, I could turn them into a full length play in homage to The Twilight Zone.

Here is one of my favorite short plays I created called MAGIC.

This performance was a little slow to get to the “Problem that needs to be solved” but once there, it was really fun in a cool Twilight Zone type of way.

So how can you use this idea to write in a new way? 

Well, you could do the same thing I did, but leave out the live audience. 

Work out the beats of the play, then video it, or record it, as you act out those beats and tell the story, and then you can look at it, or listen to it, and see what works, and then edit and shape the story from there.

I dare you. You might be surprised.  

By choosing to act and improv your story idea, you just might channel in something you didn’t know you knew.

This is another one of my “Twilight” real time plays done at Manhattan Rep, based on my Dog Roma. This is fun!

Let Your Characters Follow You!

So I have been haunted by one of my characters for over 24 years.

I wrote a play way back in 1997, which I produced in Pleasantvile, New York, and then we brought it to New York City in 1998 for an extended run.

The play was called Professor Albert’s Love, which was rebirthed into Professor Albert’s Lessons of Love for it’s NYC run, (which I like much better.)

It was about a college Professor named Albert who magically turns into Professor Albert, a Einstein-like wacky, almost comic book character, who teaches these insanely wacky Lessons of Love with a wacky version of his real-life wife, Elsa.

As the play progresses, we come to understand that his real life relationship with Elsa is strained and so not fun, and we soon learn that he just discovered that the real love of his life, the woman whom he dated right before he married Elsa, just recently died in a car crash. So Professor Albert is losing it and losing it BIG TIME! Fantasy, fear, and reality merge as Albert comes to terms with his lost love, and makes some new choices in his life.

This was probably one of the wackiest and hardest plays I have ever produced for we had an assortment of crazy costumes, fantasy lighting and bizarre set pieces, and over 120 fantasy sound cues for our 90 minute play.

And I also acted in it, playing the lead, my dear pal, Albert!

The show was a great success, AND I couldn’t get Professor Albert out of my brain, so 13 years ago for about 3 years, Professor Albert became a YOUTUBE star, garnishing over 5 million hits and he even ran for President against Hillary and Obama! Professor Albert’s Celebrity Scoop was where he continued his crazy hijinx, and I have never had more fun in my life! His girlfriend was Jessica Alba, and he was obsessed with Paris Hilton, and he was unbelievably sexist and quite off color at times, and at other times, he created magic.

Here is one of his motivational music videos!

And I was obsessed with creating his ridiculous videos. Obsessed. I created most of them in a 3 x 5 closet in my apartment, where I put a green screen on the wall behind me, (I am not kidding,) and then I created really cheesey greenscreen effects.

At other times, I would shoot at the theatre, especially the videos where you see Professor Albert dancing! I loved to do the “Professor Albert Strut,” and no one but me really appreciated it, but I didn’t care. Bringing Professor Albert to YouTube was the ultimate fun for me. I did all the work, wrote it, filmed it, edited it, and sent it up to my crazy audience in the sky.

In late Fall of 2009, I started work on my one man play, The People in my Hips, so I set Professor Albert aside, but little did I know, he would return again.

I was a big fan of TECH podcasts back then, and somehow, in some strange way, Professor Albert ended up sending a recorded Dumb Tech Question for Allison Sheridan’s Nosillacast Tech Podcast (for she had a Dumb Question segment almost every week.) And of course, when it was aired, Professor Albert couldn’t stop, so he appeared on numerous occasions on Allison’s amazing podcast over a period of three years.

He just wouldn’t go away!

And then, when I launched The Playwriting Podcast, I knew it wouldn’t be long until he was a guest. He just wouldn’t leave me alone!

And that is a good thing.

Characters that you create aren’t done when the curtain comes down on the final performance of your play. Let them live. Let them show up in other mediums or other plays. For the past 23 years, Professor Albert has brought me so much joy, fun and insanity, and I thank the stars, I’ve kept him alive!

When it Gets Tough, Get Creative!

Five years ago, I had a really great CREATIVITY LESSON. Would I want this to happen again? No. But I did learn something absolutely awesome, for I was able to make a little bit of lemonade, out of a very sour lemon.

For our 10th Anniversary Event at Manhattan Rep, we decided (because it is great fun and we like fun) to bring back my crazy fun play about dating, THE MATCH GAME for a very limited run. Jen Pierro, my partner in life and Manhattan Rep and I actually met during a production of this play many years ago so we thought it would be FUN and fitting to bring back THE MATCH GAME to celebrate our Tenth.

Initially, rehearsals went great. It was awesome to step back into this play and participate in the FUN of acting with Jenny again. It was such fun and going so well, and then suddenly, a week before opening, an original member of The Match Game cast (my dear friend Anthony J. Ribustello) had a health issue and had to pull out of the production. We frantically looked for a replacement who was right for this role who could get it together in time but to no avail. It looked like we were going to have to cancel the 10th Anniversary production of THE MATCH GAME.

I hate to give up. I just do. Giving up is not in my nature. If I choose to do something, I will do my crazy best to make it happen, and I fervently believe THE SHOW MUST GO ON.  

So sitting in front of my computer, late one night a week before The Match Game was supposed to open, I made a crazy choice.  

I would rewrite THE MATCH GAME and make it work.  

What? Pull out this Anthony’s character? What?

Yes, and I did just that.

I literally pulled Anthony’s character off stage and made him a much smaller off stage presence with some creative phone calls which would be voiced by pre-recorded sound bytes. Phone calls were already a part of THE MATCH GAME but I figured I could use this phone vehicle to propel the story and still present the true essence of The Match Game and Big Bobby B, the missing now off-stage character.

The cast was concerned and ready to call it quits but I convinced them to give my rewrites a chance. I was determined to make this work.

So that weekend, I recorded the off stage voice of BIG BOBBY B and I put together a rocking crazy fun soundtrack that would power The Match Game through to its crazy fun conclusion.

Spending hours and hours putting this all together, I just barely got it done in time for our Sunday TECH rehearsal. Luckily, we were blessed with one of the best Sound Light technicians in the world, Katherine Cartusciello, who took my 95 sound cues and created theatrical magic. Our tech took only two and a half hours (The show is 90 minutes.) and when we ended, we all knew it was going to work. We had our dress after that, and WOW, a miracle! The play was tighter, more concise, and more streamlined than ever before! And then we opened, and it was such awesome fun!

(BELOW IS VIDEO TRAILER # 1 FOR THE MATCH GAME 2015 LIMITED RUN.)

Choosing to let go of something in this context worked.  

I let go of the old way of telling this story and I found another way which actually worked too. I had one of our resident playwrights attend on opening night and he was struck by the dialogue and the acting work in the show, AND he had no idea we had actually taken a character offstage. No idea! Crazy fun!

Do I want this to happen when I produce my next play? Absolutely not. But I do know that when the going gets tough, CREATIVITY is the answer.

Accept what is. Get creative with it, and then make it work.

Below is a blind date scene between Peggy Sue (Jennifer Pierro) and Ted Fox (Yeah, that’s me.) This is fun.

Bringing a LGBTQ Play to Life!

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.

Jennifer Pierro, Gerry Glennon, Erika Yesenia & Ken Wolf

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.

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."

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.

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BRINGING A CIVIL WAR PLAY TO LIFE!

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 COURAGE TO CREATE!

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?

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.

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.

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Bringing a Medical Drama to Life!

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!

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WHAT ARE YOUR UNIQUE 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.

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!

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To Plan or Not to Plan?

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?

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.

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When Everything Doesn't Make Sense!

So we are in a challenging time for theatre artists. For the most part, globally, theatre has been outlawed, until a time when, with creative solutions, or a vaccine or cure, it can be brought to life again. Never in the history of this planet, have we been unable to bring plays to life, and for playwrights, actors, directors, and all who participate in creating theatre, this can be a devastating time.

How do we shift this REALITY?

How can you make this time meaningful?

This first thing we need to do is change the DEVASTATING meaning we have given this theatrical speedbump. Yes, it has been devastating for all of us. We have lost friends, family, our livelihood, our passion and for many of us, the reason we get up in the morning! This has been an incredibly terrible event in the history of the world, and we need to grieve for loved ones, for things lost, and for a world that we may never see again in the old way that we loved so much.

So take the time to grieve.

If not, it will follow you.

I remember years ago, when my father passed away suddenly, I was a wreck for months. I was not fun to be with. I couldn’t focus on anything except the fact I missed him. Finally 6 months after his death, I got on a plane by myself and flew to the Greek Isles, and I found a secluded rock that looked out over the Mediterranean Sea, and I howled to the Gods for taking my father’s life! I was there for over 12 hours letting loose the worst pain in my life a la GREEK THEATRE. It was like nothing I have ever felt before, and hopefully will never feel again.

I weep now as I think about it.

But when I climbed down from that rock, I was in the present moment again. I let my pain and my judgments about what life did to me go, so that I could move forward in my life.

If you are BELIEVING that you are stuck, I invite you to LET IT GO and GRIEVE, whatever your pain might be, the loss of a friend, a family member, or simply the loss of a world you miss so much. Take the time to go someplace safe, where you won’t be interrupted until you are finished, and let yourself FEEL.

And when you come down from your rock, make the choice to create in a new way, a bigger way, a bolder way, so that when we get through this pause, you will have created your best work that you could only have created because of the events you have experienced through this pandemic.

The events that shook you up and spit you out. The events which lead you to believe you had no more creative power in you and the events that led you to believe you were devastated, when you were really being born anew.

And now, with fresh eyes, and a courageous, open heart, it is time to write.

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PLAYWRITING IN THIS 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.

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!

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