Getting ready to ride the B.U.S.

The B.U.S. is coming!

B.U.S. (otherwise known as the Bricolage Urban Scrawl) is a 24 hour play festival extravaganza put on by Bricolage Theater in downtown Pittsburgh.  This is its sixth year running and I am fortunate (or unlucky) enough to be invited to participate as a playwright.

Last night I ran into Tami Dixon and Jeffrey Carpenter, the dynamic duo that run the theater company and I told her I was psyching myself up for it and getting into training.

Cue Rocky Theme Music and workout montage now.

Okay, the thing with this 24 hour play festival, as with others, is that you can’t really do any prep work.  They give you a theme on Friday night.  You go ride a bus and observe people.  You don’t even know who your actors or director is yet.  Then you have twelve hours to write a ten minute play.  The beautiful thing about this is that you will probably end up riding a bus through a new neighborhood, seeing different people and literally getting of your comfort zone.

But just because I can’t do any prep work for the festival, doesn’t mean I can’t get myself ready.  

Ballet dancers do physical drills.  Musicians practice their scales.  Actors do voice, movement training and work on their monologues.  We playwrights and screenwriters should be exercising our creative skills in the same way. 

B.U.S. is like one giant writing exercise—like a test.  Here are your parameters and limitations—make something out of it and oh by the way, the clock is ticking.  This is not just a fun whimsical idea, but a task that can develop real world writing skills.  It prepares you for on-the-spot rehearsal rewrites or trying to polish up a script before sending it off for a commission. 

You don't have to do the madness of B.U.S. to workout your writing muscles, though. There are plenty of exercises you can do, even if all you have is a spare fifteen minutes.

For instance, my favorite has and always will be the six-line play.  The rules are easy.  Write a play using only six lines.  You can have two characters or six, but the goal is to create a real situation, real characters, with a story that has a beginning, middle and end.

A great book, chock full of playwriting exercises on various techniques is Playwriting in Process by Michael Wright.  

For you more advanced playwrights, check out New Playwriting Strategies by Paul Castagno.

Or just make up some of your own.  Like any workout, it should be fun, right?  

A ticking clock is always more interesting

Wait, no...not that kind of clock...

(That's the Doomsday Clock, if you didn't recognize it.)

My next post will be a little bit more about the progress of the solo show I’m working on.  I have many new pages, all random thoughts and scattered stories right now—it’s a big mess basically, and perhaps even a possible title: Dreaming to Fly.

However, what I really need right now is to give myself a deadline.

I had a wise, old theater teacher named Davey Marlin-Jones who used to joke with us that the reason he got into the theater was because he was so bad with deadlines and this profession forced him to confront that weakness.  There’s no pushing back opening night.  Once a date and venue is set, the clock is ticking.

So I realize I need a deadline.  That means setting a date and time and getting a space (even an informal one) and doing some kind of reading of material.

This really scares the hell out of me, actually.  But in a good way.

The deadline needs to be realistic, by the way.  It’s no good saying “I’ll have a 70 minutes of material ready in two weeks” if you have only a few pages of random thoughts.

Also, think of your workload and other projects you might have in the pipeline.

For instance, I have been cast in a production of Shining City by Conor Macpherson and therefore, will want to wait until after that show closes in mid-May.

Now that the clock is ticking, time to write more pages.

Write about what you love

World premiere of Measure of Love  in 14/48, Seattle

It’s Valentine’s Day but I have a different kind of message about love for you today.

There have been times I wrote a play because I thought it was funny, or a good idea, or was intellectually stimulating, but if I lacked any emotional connection to that play, the idea or story would never really take off.

This has happened more than I would care to admit, actually.

Which is why I want to stress to you the importance of writing about what you love.  They say you should write about what you know (and I think that’s true to some degree, as well) but what will really pull you through the dismal days of rewriting or writer’s block will be the emotional connection to your characters and material.

This idea to “find the love” is true of all artists, actually, from actors to designers to directors.  I make a conscious effort sometimes to start conversations about a show I’m working on by saying, “What I love about this play is…” 

If you can’t come up with one or two things you love about the play, you shouldn’t be working on that play.

If there is no ache inside your gut to tell a particular story, then walk away.  This is not an easy decision to make, of course, but you’ll know when you need to just let it go.  For instance, if you started writing the story but a year later you just can’t get interested in finishing it, you probably didn’t have the emotional connection you needed.

Although I’ve never run a marathon, I imagine that writing a play or screenplay is much like that arduous activity.  No one wakes up one idea and says, “I think it might be a good idea to run a marathon”.  Most marathon runners have some kind of inner drive, or compulsion.  There is a deeper need.  That’s what gets them through all the training, and the pain, and the psychological hurdles they have to overcome.  There's a deep love there.  Either that, or they're just masochists.

If you are passionate about what you’re writing, that will be evident to the audience.  They will pay attention.  And then, once you have their attention, tell them a damn good story.

Spalding Gray, I wish I had known you

Tonight we're off to see the show Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell at the Warhol Museum.

If you don't know of Spalding Gray, I'm sorry.

Look him up.  Now.

Especially if you're reading some of these posts about building a solo show.  Everyone from Eric Bogosian to Mike Daisy who are doing autobiographical solo shows or performance works are standing on the shoulders of his groundbreaking work.

I remember seeing the video of Swimming to Cambodia years ago when I was in undergrad.  At the time, I'm not sure I fully appreciated the scope and power of it, the audacity and the genius of it.  I did know though, that I was completely mesmerized by the electricity of his writing and performance.

Spalding Gray is one of those performers I wish I had seen in person.  Although I'm looking forward to the presentation tonight, I know it won't quite be the same.

And Everything Is Going Fine Trailer 2010 HD

Love, Art & Sexual Perversity at the Rogue Festival

For those of you who might be able to check out my plays next month in the Roque Festival in Fresno, CA, you'll be able to see some funny, short plays, including the ever-popular Green-Eyed Monster, Love & Death in the Time of Crayola, Painting by Numbers and Dog Park.

Get more info and your tickets here.

(Photo: original NYC world premiere of Painting by Numbers at Brass Tacks Theatre, directed by Lisa Jackson and starring Matthew Wilson (of Cyberchase fame) and Judy Jerome.)

Put yourself on the map

Have you ever thought, "If only I were on the map as a playwright?"

Now, you can be!

So this New Play Map is kinda fun, and informational and could be quite helpful, though I'm not exactly sure how unless everyone uses it (and by everyone, I mean all theater companies and labs and workshops and such).

Hit the tab and find me on the map:


This new play map is developed by American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage (in DC).  The goal is a visual mapping of where new plays are being developed and by who, from playwrights to ensembles to other theater organizations.  First thing you'll notice is that theaters center around cities, of course, and also, that the information is few and far between.  I do hope that others will put themselves on the map and see if we can track data on how many new plays are being developed.

So, what are you waiting for?

Take a few minutes and put yourself on the map.