Asking for 10-page samples

Having had to negotiate reading 50+ submissions at a time (on more than a few occasions), I favor asking for 10-page samples. This is not a wholly favorable practice; it frequently provokes pointed questions about the legitimacy of vetting scripts.

And of course I have had ethical issues with this. Does my asking for an abbreviated version of your play cheat us both by not having the full product at hand to judge in its entirety?

Maybe.

But, as one who has 50+ full-length plays to wade through, and as someone with little to no assistance in reading the aforementioned 50+ plays, does it make my jobs as literary manager and producer easier?

Definitely.

I've weighed the pros and cons of abbreviated samples, with fairness as the primary criterion:

By asking for the first 10 pages, I get the beginning of your play, and thus I should know two things:

• The specific importance of your inciting moment, what I call the Passover Factor: What is making this day/moment in time special? Why does this play need to exist? And;

• Is what is happening indeed interesting enough to get me through 10 pages of dramatic action?

Play readers need to judge as best we can what our audiences might think were this text inflicted upon them. It's not enough for me, the initial arbiter, to like it, although that's a definite plus because I will favor its further consideration for production. And to assume that my judgment is of a critical and professional proficiency to instantly and infallibly detect all Scripts of Unusual Caliber is self-righteous poppycock. But if I have the first 10 pages I can make a fair assumption about (again) two things:

• The efficacy of the opening of the play, and;

• The remainder of the work, which I can reasonably expect to be equally compelling. If your first 10 pages kick my ass, I'll gladly ask you for and read through the rest, waiting for the grand payoff. If your first 10 pages don't grab me, then I can safely deduce that the rest will similarly glaze my eyes over.

Remember, I have 50+ plays to read and judge to the best of my ability. And “to the best of my ability” means just that. Few folks admit to play-reading fatigue. One person can read only so many plays before they get tired and lose the energy needed to fairly critique each successive play. If I have to read 50+ complete plays, all ranging from 45 to 95 pages, I'm going to lose my shit.

But if I have to read only 10 pages, I can not only process the bulk faster, leaving me more time to coach my actors, design the posters, sell tickets, and clean the theatre's toilets, but convince myself that I am judging fairly every play on my desk. The job is easier, and my time is better spent.

And as I read those ten pages, I have to imagine the audience experiencing those 10 minutes of performed script. That’s a long time to wait before the play shows its power.

Before we go any further, let me state for the record that, as an eternally hopeful scribbler of dramatic material, I want everyone to read my entire play through. Why? Because they are damn good, and I want literary managers to have the whole things to judge. (Yes, I see the contradiction here.)

Theatres, in order to achieve their noble goals of Producing Killer Art For The Masses, spend an inordinate amount of their time asking for money so they can stay open, have electricity, pay their taxes and rents, maintain heating and cooling systems, pay directors and (we hope) the actors, and keep the artistic director brimmed with skinny double soy lattes and Ramen noodles. All these items are highest on the “Necessities We Absolutely, Positively Need to Pay For” list 

What's far down said list is “People to Read All These Damn Submissions.” That is, people who know how to read plays. People with experience who know how to read plays. We've all seen the opp line: “Give us six months to a year to get back to you.” It could be they have only one or two people to read every play submitted. It could mean they really want to dedicate time to making sure they find the best work. Most of the time, I think, it means both.

And as long as I'm ranting, let me briefly discuss opps that ask for a second option: “Send us your best 10 pages,” or more commonly, “a 10-page representative selection of your play.”

Why is this different from asking for the first 10 pages? Simply because reading the first 10 pages takes us chronologically into your magnum opus, the same as the thousands of future sold-out audiences will experience. That's important. But if the playwright cherry-picks an arbitrary section of the work, the reader cannot reasonably extrapolate the assets and liabilities of the whole work. We're getting what the playwright feels is the best part of the play. I don't want that. If this is the best 10 pages, then I have to think the rest of the play is less compelling.

So why not just ask for the whole play and stop reading after 10 pages? Seems like the perfect answer, no? I remember someone telling me to “just get through the first one hundred pages” of this particular novel, and then “It will all pay off.” Granted, the second hundred pages were thrilling, but if I had not been urged to stick with it, I would have set the book down for lack of interest. Likewise, theatres can't have someone push you back into your seat through the first act waiting for act two to spark joy or other emotion. We all want your work to be fantastic, and sometimes we carry on reading counting on that glimmer of hope you showed in the first 10 pages, waiting for the worthy payoff that many times, sadly, does not come. For us, that's precious time spent. 

In this society which undervalues, or in some cases, negatively values the need for art to flourish and creativity to stir up the coagulated Zeigeist Soup, theatres have one overarching job: survival. The need to do whatever they can to pay the rent and the staff, keep the grid functioning, and find 30-foot hamster wheels for their ex-lover's surrogate father's updated version of Hamlet, now set in a steampunk Habit-Trail. They need plays that are sure winners. And they need to make sure they accrue those sure winners as efficiently and as fairly as they can. It behooves every dramatic writer to make those 10 pages count.

Bad Decisions Make Great Drama.

It's a truth. Look at any great play and see what the bad decision was. Someone fucked up hugely. Someone got badly burned. Someone got irreparably damaged. Maybe someone got killed.

For various reasons, we tend to nurse on others' misfortune. I use “nurse” in its most beneficial definition. Not voyeurism, where we enjoy the vicariously tumultuous ride of a soap opera, but a lesson in which we witness a tragedy and its aftermath.

This is what art does. It holds a mirror up to life and shows what humans truly are, both at our most noble and heroic and our most despicable evil. That's its purpose. Good plays show us both at the same time.

But still. Bad decisions make great drama.

Like killing your brother then marrying his widow and stealing a throne. Like putting profit over safety and shipping faulty airplane engines to the war front. Like using driving lessons to sexually abuse your pre-teenage niece. Like seeking the imprisonment of a teacher who dares to teach science rather than religion. Like leaving your lover when he gets AIDS or denying the truth of yourself in the face of cultural superstition. Each of these is a tragedy. Each of these decisions destroyed people’s lives.

Somewhere in the theatre world there has been an argument about creating new art based on the current Ford/Kavanaugh hearings. I've seen arguments on several sides: why we should use this topic to create, why we shouldn't create something so unfair to men, why we shouldn't create anything new in favor of existing work on the subject, why only certain people should be allowed to create certain work because of who they are or shouldn’t be allowed to do so because of their ignorance of experience.

Someone, somewhere will create a work based on this. It's inevitable. I hope it's profound and sympathetic and above all, truthful. I hope it makes a statement so indelibly formidable that it cannot be ignored.

I hope it's written by someone with a compassionate soul.

And for those who see this as apology for scavenging a tragedy for personal gain, I offer the words of a  profound, sympathetic, truthful, and compassionate woman:

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.

—Toni Morrison

How much control is too much? How much control is not enough?

There's an ongoing discussion (started around Euripides' time, I think) about how far playwrights should go to protect the intent, the mode of expression, the overall tone, the biology of the being – the essential, unique identity that communicates the play's intent..

Unlike movies, where the final presentation is set in digital stone--static, unchangeable, and repeated exactly the same with every viewing--every individual production (indeed, every performance of every production) of The Play I Took Fifty Years to Write will undoubtedly be different. And while this allows flexibility and creative input from the artistic and technical collaborators involved, to uniquely flavor each performance, it also opens the door for individual professionals to alter and even destroy a play's original intention.

Some playwrights are famous for demanding strict adherence to their specific ideas of how a script should be cast, directed, and performed, insisting that every production remain as close to the playwright's personal vision as possible. And in all fairness, playwrights have that right. The play is theirs, and they can be as prescriptive as they like. The play is an entity that represents themselves as artists, and any egregious variations in such representation will mislead audiences as to what the playwright meant to offer the world.

And while some playwrights have made news by exercising strict control over their work, I believe that in most cases their “interference” is not about hyper-control. Yes, there have been productions where a particular piece was so altered through direction and/or actor choice that it becomes almost unrecognizable. It's happened to lots of us. A few years back one of my monologues was presented at a community theatre. What was originally intended as a tender, confessional moment became a threatening, macabre date gone wrong. How did this happen? Performance interpretation without playwright guidance.

It proved to be an invaluable lesson to me about how differently my words can be interpreted, and thus, how much more thoughtful I must be when I finalize those words within the context of the whole piece. Did the director and actor do the piece as I intended? Hell, no. They simply worked with the words they had been given and presented a reality that, while making perfect sense to them, I had never considered.

Was there any harm done? Nope, none at all. The world moved on with nary a ripple in the zeitgeist.

But this experience made me think about how widely my words could be interpreted. (And no, I am not referring to the myriad and innumerable productions of Hamlet Out West/in Space/in a Zoo/in a Brothel/with Zombies.) Without explicit playwright guidance to a certain character's proclivities, limitations, or critical actions, how many possible doors of interpretation might be opened with my use of, say, this particular word choice? Or this sentence? (Or this syllable, even?) What Pandora's Box might I inadvertently open if I employ the use of, say, slang? Every word choice should be a clue to a certain character. And, since in most cases the playwright is nowhere near the rehearsal room, it's possible for directors and players to stray from the playwright's intention.

As a director, actor, dramaturg, and sometime designer as well as a playwright, I have always strived to be as open as possible to interpretative variations. To me, theatre is a room with an always-open door where anyone with a desire and passion can enter and play. Theatre does not look at who you are, nor does it restrict; it is the ultimate playground for any and all to have the chance to exercise their visions and creativity.

And yet casting and directorial choices do affect the production. Change the chemistry, and you change the result. A recent play of mine included a married couple, one man, one woman. Why this choice? No reason other than I am a straight white male and my play did not call for the couple to be anything other than straight. Initially, I thought, making them anything but a straight couple would have been disingenuous. I felt that if I were going to include a gay couple, that particular choice should be relevant to the theme of the play.* In this production, the director found a perfect female actor to play opposite the female lead. The chemistry was so good between the two actors that he asked for permission to cast them as a lesbian couple. 

My entire concern was about the dynamics and tension between the couple, not their genders or sexual orientation. I agreed with the casting change. Ultimately this proved to be without a doubt the correct decision. The two particular actors embodied everything I could have wished for in their onstage relationship: love, truthfulness, strength, and dedication. It was clearly the best actor combination I could have wished for. And I was happy to be able to be a part of the discussion. But I was part of that decision, which is what's important here.

But what if I hadn't been? What if the production company was in West Noodle, AK, and I was on the Riviera drinking away my royalties for The Play I Took Fifty Years to Write? What responsibilities do I have, as a playwright, to ensure that my work is handled with proper creative judgment? I loathe the idea of flooding my work with caveats and prescriptive stage directions, attempting to force directors and actors to do it “this way and only this way.” I cherish freedom and variation, yet how can I as a playwright ensure that the original intent and purpose are maintained?

Guidelines. No director will be able to read your mind to determine your preferences. It's up to playwrights to include, either in the character descriptions or notes, whatever they think is of critical importance to keep the play on its best track. The inclusion of playwright's notes, perhaps such as “X remains calm until the last scene,” “Y exhibits no verbal hesitations whatsoever before page 32,” “Character B is an African American lesbian and should be played by an African American female,” can guide the production team toward performing the work as closely as possible to what the playwright intended.

Playwrights are not prescient. It's hard to envision the many interpretative choices a production will surface. This is why I wholeheartedly recommend a workshop process. With a good team of actors and a capable dramaturg/director, nearly every play will undergo a series of readings and examinations that will most likely bring out possible interpretive pitfalls.

Can one make a play actor- and director-proof? Probably not. But a playwright can take steps to reduce possible future instances of “What were they thinking?” It's part of the job to journey with the play beyond the initial creative phase and into the second part of the process: giving it over to new participants, and therefore new viewpoints. This is an excellent way for a playwright to learn about other possible pitfalls lying in wait within the script.

*Oddly enough, the choice to make the couple gay was welcomed by several same-sex couples who thanked me for (inadvertently) "normalizing" the characters' marital status.

Still Working This One out...

Nike guilty of sweatshop employment practices for years, paying ~20 cents a day to workers working 60-70 hours a week to produce high-end gear for privileged buyers. Most people don't give a shit and continue to buy Nike products.

According to the Guardian: Gino Fisanotti, Nike’s vice-president of brand, said: “We believe Colin is one of the most inspirational athletes of this generation, who has leveraged the power of sport to help move the world forward. We wanted to energise its meaning and introduce ‘Just Do It’ to a new generation of athletes.”

Possible translation: "Using this high-profile situation to capitalize."

(https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/sep/04/nike-controversial-colin-kaepernick-campaign-divisive)

Colin Kaepernick legally exercises his rights as a United States citizen to "petition the Government for a redress of grievances" by taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem, causing a storm of protest. It is a peaceful yet powerful gesture, and controversy explodes. Meanwhile, African-Americans are being murdered with unconscionable regularity in the streets—and on camera--by police with almost no justice for the victims ensuing or change in police oversight. Kaepernick is then “not hired” by any football teams. ANY teams. 

Then Kaepernick then becomes one of the faces of the new Nike ad campaign.

Here's the dilemma. Nike sucks. You can take their asinine swoosh and compost it. It's simply just gear. Clothing. Sneakers, t-shirts...inconsequential, high-priced crap. None of the products really matter. None of them are life-critical. None of them, if they were gone tomorrow, would matter. Oh, right, right...except to its shareholders, who ignore the sweatshop conditions under which this crap is made. Fuck Nike. 

But if Colin Kaepernick needs another venue to transmit his message, then I'm with him. If the slogan “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything” wants to use him and his issue to get their advertising across to a new generation of Americans, and Kaepernick (or Assange or Snowden or whoever else has given up everything because they believe in something) have to be that face to keep their issues alive and current, then fine. I still won't buy Nike's pretentious shit, but I will cheer Colin Kaepernick (and Assange and Snowden and whoever) on wholeheartedly. And if you want to protest Nike and its inhumane production practices, then donate your Swooshy gear to people who need clothing. Give it to those whose shoes are falling apart, whose clothes are filthy, who are in need. That is what we should be doing every day: looking after our fellow citizens across the world. Let's make Nike the unintended and inadvertent brand of compassion and generosity. 

Malcolm X said it in 1965: “We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”

And I'll go with a peaceful yet powerful means any day.

“Ehhhh, Mr. Sapio...this is Harlan Ellison. We need to talk.”

With I heard these words on my answering machine* I knew I was pipik-deep in serious shit. For those of you unacquainted with the legend of Harlan Ellison, allow me to introduce you. He wrote sci-fi...no, sorry...speculative fiction for more than sixty years. He wrote episodes for several popular TV shows including Star Trek and The Flying Nun. He wrote hundreds of short stories, novellas, screenplays, and scathing criticisms. He won dozens of awards. He was as well-known in the genre of science fiction as anyone could be. He had a years-long friendship with the uber-brilliant Isaac Asimov which manifested itself in public dueling put-downs, each trying to out-insult the other, claiming the other was the bigger blowhard.

His prose, like himself, was without restraint. He once claimed an executive at Warner Bros. had the “intellectual and cranial capacity of an artichoke.” He was fired from a job at Disney on his first day for describing his idea for a pornographic film featuring several of the company's beloved characters.

He pulled no punches anywhere in his life, and often wrote about the most disturbing things. He gruesomely described the murder of Kitty Genovese, imagined people trapped in a cyber-landscape, unable to speak. His end of the world featured a Deathbird soaring over a devastated wasteland abandoned by a tattered and insane God. His lexicon was impressive; my vocabulary practically doubled looking up words like meretricious, fantod, widdershins, and my favorite, undinal.

Legend has it Ellison sent 200 bricks (postage due) and a dead rodent to a publisher who pissed him off. He may or may not have locked one of his five wives out in the snow...naked. His language was rife with vulgarities. His opinions would never be regarded by anyone as subtle.

You either loved him or stayed the hell away from his ever-boiling bile.

And this is the guy I managed to piss off.

I've had a few death threats in my time. Not just the usual drunken, swaggering barroom banalities, but ones with unmistakably genuine lethal intent. I've been cornered by a gang of drug ruffians who let me know under no uncertain terms that I was one syllable away from an ignominious demise in a back alley. I've had a greatly put-out boyfriend come after me with a rusty blade after I attempted to woo, okay, steal his girlfriend. But nothing remotely as colorful as the threat I would receive from Harlan Ellison.

To wit: Back in the 1980s, I'd seen the movie A Boy and His Dog, which the credits said was based on Ellison's novella Vic and Blood. This cheesy, terrible movie starred a young Don Johnson and a highly intelligent, wisecracking dog. It quickly became a personal favorite. Curious, I sought the original story and became a fan of Mr. Ellison's work, reading every volume of his I could find.

Fast-forward to June or so of 2001: I had been a playwright for several years. I'd recently been honored with a major award and was feeling pretty darn peachypoo about my ability. Remembering that a certain short story of Ellison's had always fascinated me because of the ethical and moral dilemmas it raised, I thought, Well, Albee-to-be, why not turn it into a one-act? Wouldn't that be a great subject? Of course it would!

So I sat down behind my PC and proceeded to type out what I envisioned was a rather gutsy first draft of what I hoped HE would see as a credible dramatic rendering of his original idea.

(You can see where I'm going with this, can't you? It's a train wreck in slo-mo. Like jabbing a sleeping ogre with a pitchfork and asking him to admire the instrument's polish. Read on.)

So I sent it along to HE's agent with a polite and respectful letter explaining who I was and what I wanted permission to do.

I heard nothing for three months. Then, on September 21, 2001, I got the call. Even though I'd correctly interpreted the tone of HE's attitude, I still managed to entertain the slimmest of possibilities that it might not be too bad. He left a number. I called him back.

I wouldn't say I received a drubbing. Or even a chewing out. I was told in no uncertain terms by the man himself that my transgression violated not only copyright laws but the laws of respect, historical tradition, and nature. I was obviously the imbecilic spawn of a leprous pig and a brick. My unbelievably dimwitted transgression would no doubt cause major geologic faults to slip, thereby causing a reign of physical catastrophe so severe we'd be back in the ice ages by Wednesday.

Who was I, he railed, to tamper with a writer's work? Who did I think I was, he snarled, to steal an idea and rewrite it for myself? The fury coming out of the telephone receiver was so intense that it made a wall calendar across the room spontaneously explode into fiery fragments. And up until now all I'd said was “Hello, this is George Sapio returning Mr. Ellison's call.”

I was warned that unless I wanted every lawyer in Los Angeles attaching all I owned I'd leave the project alone and never try to make contact with him again. Meekly, I agreed. On the other end the phone slammed down with vehement finality.

A week later I received another call. “Mr. Sapio, this is Harlan Ellison.”

Oh Christ. I dreaded another onslaught. “What did I do this time?”

Instead he chuckled. “No, Mr. Sapio. After speaking with my wife, Susan, I realized I may have been too harsh on you.” Clearly a woman for whom sainthood would be too trifling an honor, I thought. I sent her a grateful virtual hug.

“I'm gonna send you a contract and I'm gonna pay you $20 to do up a first draft, after which I will read it. If I like it we will proceed. If I don't I will tell you so in no uncertain terms and we will hear no more about this. Do you understand?”

“But... I already sent you a sample ten-page first draft.”

“I'll read that later. In the meantime Susan will send you the contract. I advise you to take this seriously and not fuck around.”

Holy SHIT. I was on fire for for a week. Lil ol' Me...I was working for...no...no, that's not right...I was working with Harlan Ellison. One of my literary idols.

One week later he calls again. This time there's not even time for a hello.

Every word of that conversation is still etched in letters two feet tall and a yard deep into the granite of my memory:

“This is the worst piece of shit I've ever read. By anyone, anywhere.”

And:

“Whoever told you you could write was a fucking moron.”

And the finale:

“If you ever try to write and market this execrable pile of vomit I will sue your fucking ass. I will take everything you have right down to the switch plates. I will then come to your house, rip out your alimentary canal and strangle you with your own intestines. Am I clear?”

I am by no means the only person to be a target of Harlan Ellison's vitriol. There have been many over the years. And to be perfectly fair, looking back at the script I sent, he was right. It was effluent. Amateurish. Cloddish. I really wish I had done it better.

Few people have passed through this life as loudly as he, or with as much passion. While not every story he wrote may have won an award (although many did), every one was written with a gripe, a lesson, a skewering, a condemnation, and cries for generosity, civil humanity, and love. Responding to criticism about his less than rosy outlook, Ellison wrote that he preferred to be sand in the cogs rather than grease, because, he said, sand makes things slow down and require periodic examination and restructuring, while grease just makes the giant machine operate faster without any oversight.

And recently he passed away at age 84. To me it seemed as if he was much older, maybe because I've been aware of him for so long. 

I wonder where his soul is now. He wrote about so many dimensions and alternate realities that he may just have had his pick about what comes next. I'd like to think that might be true.

* A device for recording messages for when you were not at home. Pre-mass cell phones.

Obstacles. Those bits in the middle.

We've all had issues with obstacles--those pesky road blocks that all protagonists have to navigate successfully in order to achieve their goals. Every play needs 'em. But some playwrights have trouble finding them.

I almost always know the beginnings and endings of my plays. Can't start unless I do. I usually also know of some first-act cliffhanger or Momentously Dramatic Moment I need to have happen.

Some folks road map their projects, using index cards or spreadsheets. I think I envy that technique, but I also wonder if by the time I've drawn out the entire plot I may have lost the urge to write it. I say this because I tried it. I spent more time trying to arrange the cards so I could see them all at once, but half of them fell off the wall and behind my desk and they are still back there, presumably talking amongst themselves and the dust bunnies. 

I tried again with the string-path thing, sticking things on the wall and running strings between relevant items. Although that was a complete disaster (it made me dizzy), I did end up with a ten-minute play set in a spider web and about a dozen new political conspiracy theories so it wasn't a complete loss.

In any event, how do we negotiate the ascent up the shark fin (see diagram)? What gauntlets do we design for our protagonists to bravely fight through? What are the individual obstacles? How do we playwrights find them?

I usually take a look at the world of the play itself and see what difficulties it may provide organically.

Assuming I have my basic characters and a general idea of the world of the play, I start to think about some of the following things. Let's start with the basics:

- What does the protagonist want?
- Why does he/she want it?
- Is the protagonist good, evil, or complex?
- Why does the antagonist try to foil the protagonist's efforts?
- Is the antagonist good, evil, or complex?
- Where are the ethical limits/moral boundaries for both protagonist and antagonist?
- What actions do I initially envision the protagonist taking? What would be the results of those?
- What would be the next logical step?
- What would be the next illogical step?
- What dramatic moments do I imagine taking place within the play?
- What are the breaking points for the protagonist/antagonist?
- What are the protagonist's flaws and how does he/she work against him/herself?

Next, let's look at the world of the play in all of its aspects.
Is the world “real” as we know it, hard-wired and limited by our current reality, or is set within magical realism? If not real, what rules apply that don't in the real world (because even in magical realism there have to be rules) and how do these exceptions affect the characters? What limitations or freedoms does that world impose or allow?

Politics: What are the political aspects and boundaries? Are the characters discriminated against? Do they discriminate? Are they endowed with political power or under political restraint? What are their views? Are they active or passive? What form does the government take? Democratic? Authoritarian? Absent?

Sexual/gender: What natural empowerments or liabilities do the sexual/gender aspects of each character impose? What views of life? What past experiences? What possibilities for the future? What ways of creating joy in a relationship? What ways of destroying a reputation? Are they out or closeted? Are they bigoted or welcoming? Is it against the law to be anything but straight...or gay?

Geographical: How does the physical world of the play affect the characters' actions? Is it oppressively hot or freezingly cold? Is it dangerous? Is it unremarkable? Is it lush? Destroyed? Post-apocalyptic or Garden of Eden? In what settings does the world of the play take place: a bar, bowling alley, a castle, a resort, a tenement, a living room, a detention center? What aspects of your setting can be used to challenge a character?

Physical/Medical: Look at the physical traits of your characters and see how they relate to the world around them? What aspects make it easier/more difficult for them to interact? Are they too good looking? Shunned for disabilities? Comely/plain? Sick? Contagious? Can they speak/hear/see?

Other things to think about:

- Time/date/era of the work
- Technological: age of the plow/industrial revolution/computerization/cybernetics?
- Psychological: are there any neuroses/phobias/past events that may inhibit action?

And: Is the protagonist's goal actually reachable? Or are they doomed to failure?

I examine all the elements of the world my characters inhabit and I look to see how they can either aid or work against them. Every particular in the world of your play may serve as an organic problem or a tool used by another character to trouble your protagonist.

The Best of Us (II)

Photo by NMU Northwind

The call came in the early afternoon. That very morning I had seen three—count 'em—three rejection slips. This was the fifth year of my burgeoning playwriting career and I still had not learned most of what I should have known about the profession. (Before the Interwebs, you see.) Hence rejections on plays that were still largely undeveloped.

So I was having a pity party and whining about how this wasn't worth it, etc. Sad. Pathetic. Then the phone rings.

Me: Yes?

Voice: Is this Mr. George Sapio?

Me: Yes. (Oh god, it's a bill collector.) Who is this?

Voice: My name is James Panowski...

(Where do I know that name from...?)

Dr. P: I'm very pleased to inform you that your play, Ghosts, was selected as the winner of the 2001 Mildred and Albert Panowski Award.

Me: (What? Did I hear that right? I just got three rejection slips. Is this a joke?) I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?

Dr. P: (Slightly slower and with more enunciation) My name is James Panowski. Your play, Ghosts, was selected as the winner of the 2001Mildred and Albert Panowski Award.

(Two beats of silence)

Me: Are you shitting me?

Dr. P: (Holding back a chuckle) No, Mr. Sapio. I am not. If you are willing, we'd like to fly you up to Marquette, Michigan for a week to workshop your play. There will be a staged reading which I will direct at the end of the week. And you'll receive a full production in November, five performances, at the Forest Roberts Theatre at Northern Michigan University. All expenses paid for both trips, by the way.

Me: (Completely gobsmacked. “Fly” me?) Um. Yes? Willing? Yes. Sure...

(I try to find intelligent syllables to say but I'm cut off before I can damage myself any further)

Dr. P: Wonderful! We'll be in touch within the week. Expect an envelope in the mail in a few days. It was a pleasure to meet you.

(Dr. P hangs up. I stare at the phone)

ME: (Thinking: Production? Which university? Michigan? Bob Roberts Theatre? Wait...Did he say ALL EXPENSES PAID?)

(Then, after a few seconds: What the hell is “workshopping”?)

And with that phone call, Dr. P almost single-handedly saved me from abandoning my playwriting career. For better or worse.

At that date, the Mildred and Albert Panowski Playwriting Award had already celebrated twenty winning plays. Mine was number 21. My wife, Maura, and I were met at the airport by Dr. P himself. We found him to be businesslike, but outgoing, genial, and generous to a fault. We were housed in a nice hotel room (and an apartment later that November!), given a car for the week, and had much of our board covered. All supernova material in the eyes of a neophyte dramatist like myself. But the best gift was yet to come: Workshopping.

I had absolutely no idea what I was in for. The word had been mentioned, but I never thought about it much. I'd idly figured that it would be a tweak here and there, with much of the process dealing with production values. You know, production stuff and all that.

I walked into the rehearsal room to find the entire cast assembled. There was an extra participant: Doug Hill, a playwright serving as the dramaturg for this production. (I had no idea what the hell a dramaturg was, but I shook his hand anyway.)

I was greeted warmly by all. And then we all sat down at the table and the process started.

What a week. I had no idea they were going to actually ask me to consider things about the play. I thought, “Well, it won, right? So it must be perfect.” But they did. I had a day or so of consternation; I never knew this kind of thing happened. But Maura, who is in many ways smarter than I am, counseled me to stay with it and see what happened. Best advice ever.

By the time the week was over, I felt like the next Broadway-bound playwright. I had a much better play. I had done a huge amount of rewriting—not because I was asked to or told that I should, but because these professionals were adept at their craft. They pointed out things here and there that I “should think about.” One of those things kept me up till 4:00 a.m. rewriting, but it turned a so-so scene into my favorite scene of the play--and one of my favorite scenes ever.

Dr. P's knowledge of theatre and Broadway was prodigious. He knew every Broadway show. He knew who starred in them. (He knew who should not have starred in them as well.) He knew the hits and the flops. He knew how long they ran, which theatre they played in, and details upon details. He had attended every Tony Award ceremony for years. He spent months collecting tales of Broadway trivia from theatre doormen all over the district. (I do hope these are recorded somewhere.) He spent hours regaling us with stories of Broadway, of actors and directors, of successes and misses. I knew little of what he was saying, but I loved listening to his tales. His passion for “the life” was unquenchable. (I also realized that he wasn't that good with names. He had a tendency to call everyone, “Poopsie”: “Go ask Poopsie over there”; “Poopsie will take care of it.”)

Dr. P was a lucky man, and he knew it. Adopted into a loving family and encouraged to be who he needed to be, he believed it was his mission to pass his good fortune on to others. Every student who came under his tutelage and every lucky winner of the Panowski Award were the beneficiaries of his kindness and endless knowledge. I was a nobody from nowhere, but Dr. P made me feel like a celebrity.

He also made me realize that if I wanted to succeed as a playwright I had to become a viable working artist as well. He asked me to serve as dramaturg for two later Panowski winners. Once again he'd done me a favor by putting me in a highly beneficial learning experience. It was an honor to serve as an important part of the workshop process and it made me think as a dramaturg should, critically, honestly, and with care and consideration for another's work. It was a job I loved—and still do. When an opening came up for a playwriting teacher at Northern Michigan University, Dr. P sought me out and encouraged me to apply. It was only my lack of a Ph. D. (we later learned) that kept me from the position.

My how-to book, Workshopping the New Play: A Guide for Playwrights, Directors, and Dramaturgs, would most likely never have happened without Dr. P's influence. Workshopping is a process that not every playwright values. And that's fine. But I believe it helps playwrights step back and look at their work critically. And that helps the play.

Of course, I dedicated the book to Dr. James Panowski. Without his gifts, my theatre career would not have been as rich. Dr. P was one of life's true shining stars. His generosity and love for our profession were gifts to all who knew him. He will be sorely missed; we were all very lucky to have had him with us for a time.