Beginning the rewriting process: Keeping your script to yourself

As you enter the initial phase of rewriting your first draft, it's important that you resist the often times compelling urge to share your work with others.  That day will come soon enough.  Now more than ever as you proceed with this first examination of the draft, you still need to protect that private relationship between you and your script.  It's your impressions at this point that are the most important.  Your reactions.  Your ideas for changes.  I realize that the urge to share, to get the opinions of respected, trusted friends can be almost overpowering at this point.  You want to know how others respond, what they think, what they understand and don't understand.

The First Draft of Your Script: Getting Some Distance

A finished first draft is like a freshly baked pie.  When you first take it out of the oven you have to put it on the rack to cool.  If you try cutting a piece hot, it falls apart, the insides oozing out as you attempt putting the piece on a plate.  If you try tasting it, your tongue gets burned.

It's mysterious how this works, but distancing yourself from a finished first draft is absolutely essential.  The degree of objectivity gained with even a few days of cooling off helps enormously as you go back to appraise what you've come up with.

More often than not, when you finish writing that final page, that negative voice will have grown from a whisper to a shout.  However loud it may be, resist concluding that what you've written is terrible.  Realize these feelings are normal.  There’s also the outside chance the opposite may happen and you're so excited about what you've written you can barely contain yourself.  Or you may be somewhere in the middle, uncertain as to its merits.

Whatever your feelings are toward that stack of pages, however, the worst thing you can do is to immediately start reworking them.  You need, instead, to put your newborn draft away and totally forget about it for awhile.  Two weeks to a month will permit you to gain some distance, but some writers need much more time.  During this break try to engage yourself in some other all-consuming project, perhaps even starting work on another play.  Or, as Marsha Norman suggests, "You should just find wonderful things to read between the time you put the play away and the next time you pick it up.  You should fill your mind up with other language, other characters' concerns."

I also highly recommend that you still don't share your work with anyone else even though the urge to do so now that you have a completed draft is often compelling.  During this cooling off time you and your play are still incubating together.  It should still be a private process.  Getting input from others now could forever destroy that special, intimate, personal relationship you've been nurturing.  So fight off the impulse to share your play quite yet.  You'll be happy you did when you come back to it.

Usually what happens when you return to your draft after such a distancing period is that it'll surprise you.  If you hated it when you put it away, now it'll most likely read  better than you thought it would.  If you loved it, now it'll probably be obvious that it needs more work.  The point here is that your ability to judge its merits can only really be trusted if you've allowed yourself to gain some objectivity and the only way you can achieve that is to put it on the rack and let it cool off for a while.  I've never encountered an exception to this.

Film Festival Magic

Last weekend I attended a new film festival in the heart of New England called the Monadnock International Film Festival named after the famous mountain that looms over the region.   Put together by a group of dedicated folks who simply decided they wanted to celebrate the artform, this three-day inaugural event was nothing less than a blowout success.

 

Held in Keene, New Hampshire, it became quickly apparent that this seemingly modest attempt at pulling off a new film festival was turning into something much more.  Public support was amazing.  Every screening was standing room only.  So were the panel discussions.  As were all the downtown after parties.  Ticket and pass-holder lines for closing night went around the corner from the main venue and stretched on for over a hundred yards back into a parking lot. I was amazed (as were many others) at the overflow crowds for every item on the program.  Throughout the festival, there was a special and highly charged energy that was clearly felt by everyone attending. 

     

The culminating screening on Saturday night was the pre-television release of Ken Burn’s powerful documentary The Central Park Five to be broadcast nation-wide on PBS next week on Tuesday, April 16^th.   Burns, who with his daughter and son-in-law, wrote and directed the film, was there in person to receive a special award.  And along with two of the men whose story was being told in the film (Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam), Burns took part in a stimulating Q and A with a packed house of over 900 people who to a person stayed for over an hour after the final credits rolled to discuss the film. 

As I sat in the last row of the old restored Colonial Theatre in downtown Keene that night, I was struck yet again at the power of film when it is screened for a flesh and blood live audience.  And how this was proven again and again with every screening I attended during the festival.  I was reminded of the continued hunger that people obviously have to gather together as a special community for a brief time to experience a work of art.  Live theatre offers this special coming together, but so does cinema. 

With all the talk and speculation about how the digital age is rapidly eliminating the desire or need for people to see films in theatres, this festival was, in a sense, an answer back.  Or, maybe more accurately, a shout back, saying that the movie theatre experience still has life in it and that cinema is only fully realized when that community of audience is there experiencing as one the unfolding of a film’s story. 

So I send out my own shout to the Monadnock International Film Festival with a loud BRAVO!  And for reminding me and everyone else who was lucky enough to be a part of this event that there is still real magic to be found in going out to the movies.    

Too Many MFA Programs in Playwriting and Screenwriting...?

Yesterday I came across a comment in a LinkedIn discussion that suggested that there are too many MFA programs out there turning out second-rate playwrights and screenwriters.  The thrust of this person's thinking was that as a result the market is being flooded with new mediocre scripts that are actually doing damage to the profession.  And inferring that most of those who graduate from these programs--in addition to sending out their inferior scripts to every theatre, production company, and literary agent in the country--are looking for teaching jobs that will allow them to turn out even more wannabe successful writers, creating a vicious cycle and further exasperating the problem as the years tick on.

Having taught scriptwriting for over three decades on both the undergrad and grad level, worked professionally in new play and screenplay development nearly as long, and had many of my own scripts developed and produced at writers' conferences and productions, I have to say the comment may have hit on something that's been bugging me for years.

To my mind, the only kind of MFA program in playwriting and/or screenwriting that is worth its salt is when working professionals are doing the teaching and the focus of the program is on the serious testing of student work with other working professional collaborators.  Student scripts need to be put through the ringer of a carefully structured lab environment where actors, directors, designers and other theatre and film artists are allowed to get their hands on student writing and see what works and what doesn't. An environment where the student writer engages directly with seasoned people who have been in the trenches for a long time--and still are--and who know how to give voice to material, spot strengths and weaknesses, and offer targeted suggestions for improvement in a way that may sometimes hurt, but is offered sincerely and can be trusted.

It's this kind of writing program on the graduate level that is sorely lacking (with a few notable exceptions) and the main reason there's a growing negative attitude in the professional world about the perceived treadmill of MFA programs turning out writers whose work has not been truly battle-tested and that, for the most part, forever remains gathering dust on the page.  So when I was approached with the prospect of designing yet another new MFA in playwriting and screenwriting, I jumped at the chance to put together a different kind of program that would be truly hands-on and have the capacity to turn out writers of plays and screenplays who know the ropes and whose work reflects a professionalism several notches above the norm.

The Initial Test of Your New Script

One of the things I've observed in my career as a writer of plays and screenplays and as a producer of new scripts is the critical importance of that very first test of new material with other artist/collaborators.  In other words, there's a lot at stake when your new script is being given voice for the first time.  This phase in the life of a new screenplay or play is--for you, the writer--often a make or break moment.

When I founded the Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey many years ago, my primary motivation was to help writers with this delicate first "release" of their new script to the wider world.  I knew that the actors assembled to give the work its first read had to be carefully chosen for each role and had to be very good at bringing words on the page to life with little or no rehearsal.  I knew that to do otherwise would risk the writer concluding that they'd lost their hearing, as playwright Wendy Wasserstein told me when she described her response to a first reading of a new play of hers.  Some of the actors were simply not right for the roles and she had trouble recognizing the play she'd just finished writing.

Or as playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley told me when he first released his wonderful play Danny and the Deep Blue Sea:  "I thought [it] was a dead loss on the basis of a reading.  I heard the reading and I said, 'Well, I guess I was wrong.  I thought it was good.'  Then I did another reading and I thought, 'Well, it's better.'  And then I got some good people and I thought, 'All right, now we're talking!'  So you have to be very careful not to write off a [script] on the basis of a bad reading."

Just realize that your initial launch with new material--allowing other artists to connect with it for the first time--is more significant than you may at first realize.  As eager as you may be to hear your script come to life for the first time, be careful to gather actors that are talented, are a good match for the character they're reading, and know what their character's function is in the play or screenplay.

Screenwriting and Playwriting Teachers Can Make the Difference

When I was asked to put together a new low-res MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen, the first question I asked myself was: who could I bring in to teach and mentor students?  And the answer was an immediate no-brainer, because one of the great blessings of my career has been the long list of talented professionals I've gotten to know and have worked with over the years.

To my mind, nothing is more important in a graduate degree program in scriptwriting than to gather a powerhouse group of dedicated working professionals who are in the thick of their careers--playwrights and screenwriters and other artists who are out there on the front lines getting their work consistently produced and applauded.

I've been fortunate to have made a lot of close and productive connections with these kind of artists. And so it was a pleasure to make contact with a select group of them and ask if they'd be interested in joining me in launching a new MFA. To a person, they all immediately and enthusiastically wanted to be a part of this adventure and suddenly, as Program Director, I knew I had a first-class and not-to-be-beat program in the making.

One of the great features of a low-residency program like this is that it's possible to attract working professional writers and other artists as teachers and mentors without requiring them to commit to a full-time faculty position.  In other words, these individuals can continue in their active careers as they also lend their expertise and experience to the program, both at the 10-day residencies and in semester-long mentoring that takes place between residencies.  These artists love teaching and helping emerging writers find their own voices, and so I wasn't really surprised when everyone I contacted said they'd love to be a part of the program.  In fact, to a person, these pros can't wait to start giving back and to share what they've learned in a hands-on and no-nonsense program like we've designed.  Naturally I'm excited because students in the program will be surrounded by a talented group of nurturing and challenging teacher/mentors dedicated to equipping each student with what they need to excel in their careers.

Hope you check out who they are!

Why a Low-Residency MFA?

Since announcing our new low-residency MFA program, several people have asked me what exactly is a low-residency degree program and what are its advantages.  Here's a short list of some of its attractions, at least regarding our program:

-- Anyone considering an MFA in playwriting and/or screenwriting has one looming decision to make from the get-go--namely can I afford both the cost and the time involved with going after the degree?  The low-residency MFA came into being as a credible alternative to the two- or three-year graduate programs requiring full-time residency by all students for the duration of the course of study.  Full-time programs require turning one's established life upside down as students have to move to within shouting distance of the institution offering the program, quit their job, and put life as they have come to know it on hold until they've earned the degree.  The low-res programs, in contrast, require students to attend one short intensive residency each semester of the program (ours is for ten days every June and January for four semesters) where a carefully worked out series of courses are taken in a workshop format under established working professionals and then throughout the following semester students work one-on-one with a faculty mentor from their own home workspace.  The student's life and livelihood is not significantly disrupted and a writing schedule can be determined that fits each student's particular set of circumstances.

--In our low-res program, another distinguishing feature is the focus on testing student work at each residency in a lab-like environment with an ensemble of working professionals (think Sundance Playwrights Lab or the O'Neill or New Harmony to name a few).  Having spent my career developing new scripts with actors, directors, and other artists, I know the absolute necessity of having a writer's work given voice and having the opportunity to feel and hear feedback to new material.  A student writer works all semester on projects knowing that at the next residency his or her scripts will be put through an exploratory development process.  I can't think of a better arrangement.

--With the line-up of faculty/mentors and other working artists that a professionally-oriented low-res program can attract, a natural benefit for students is getting connected to a vast network of people working actively in the field.  This, of course, is also true in the best of the full-time residency degree programs, but no more so than in the low-res programs.  In fact, in our low-res program, we've designed it so that students make direct contact with a large number of working professionals at each residency. This networking component will always be a major consideration for us, and an important measure of our success will be the degree to which we can help launch students into successful careers.

--Finally, when push comes to shove, the final determining factor for the majority of potential students considering an MFA program is cost.  The low-residency approach in most cases runs about half as much as full-time programs with the return on investment being about equal.  To me it's a no-brainer and why I jumped at the opportunity to put together this new program.