Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Seeing your work

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I finally got to see my play “The Bank” today at the Santa Cruz Actors’ Theater 8 10s at 8 Festival. Alas for my fans out there: it was the closing day.

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It was such a thrill to be chosen for the production! It’s nerve-wracking when you’re in the theater, waiting for the show to begin: What if it isn’t any good? What if the other plays are so much better that mine just seems stupid? What if other people think it’s great and I think it’s stupid?

Long story short: I thought my play turned out pretty good. I’m never going to be able to see my work cold, though: I always know what was going through my mind when I wrote something, and I know that certain things I wanted to achieve aren’t there (and maybe it wasn’t clear to any of the participants that they were there). The guy I went to the show with (I’ll call him “Darin”) liked my play very much, which is always quite a relief to me, as he is what they call in the business “A Very Tough Critic.” I know what he’s like critiquing my work, and I’m his wife; I can’t imagine what it’s like to work for him.

Still: it’s always easier to see other people’s work from a distance. It’s completely difficult to see yours without knowing how the sausage was made.

Although I did know something about the production of the play in the festival written by a friend of mine, something that affected the final staging quite a bit. I didn’t tell Darin until the play was over, and he was shocked. “My God, that was the worst thing about that play!” he said. Apparently it was an element obvious to everyone except the director, who insisted on running with it anyhow.

One of the “nice” things about being a playwright is that you are, in fact, the final say on how your work is staged. No one can change a word without your say-so. Actors are on book, dammit; there is no “improvisation” or “inspiration” with the text as there is in movies and TV. The playwright has the right to pull the play at any time, because they own the copyright on the play. Screenwriters traded that power for money, so screenwriters get paid a lot to get shoved around and shat on; playwrights make no money whatsoever but are considered the author of the work.

Just depends what you think is important, that’s all.

Anyhow. It’s really exciting to see real live people saying words I wrote in a situation I dreamed up. I can’t imagine getting tired of that.

Much more interesting

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Got an unusual comment from Christina the other day:

You were a joy to read… before twitter. Now, not so much. Seriously, have you not better things to say?

Well, the Twitter is basically a way to have something to say, frankly. I suppose everyone who’d be interested in my tweets have probably added me to their own Twitter lists, so I could probably stop posting them here. (I’m DianePatterson on Twitter, btw, in case you’re looking for me.)

But to answer your question: at the moment I haven’t found a particular raison d’être for this blog. Many of the things I’d like to talk about really aren’t fair for me to talk about much (for instance: my kids—yeah, I know, I win some kind of Mom-points for finally figuring that out) and others are just…well…

[Read more…]

And the show ends

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After two incredibly busy weeks, the Third Annual Foothill College New Works Festival comes to an end. I can’t believe it — I remember looking at the summer of rehearsals and going, Wow, this is going to take forever, and like every time you have that thought: Poof. It’s over.

The whole experience was fabulous. Watching the director work with the actors, seeing the actors try various things, sitting through several rehearsals of not only my show but others to see how they were coming together: priceless. Also, my critical faculties zoomed way up during the process — as I told Mary Ann during our drives to and from Foothill, I was itching to get out my red pen and edit everyone’s play, not just my own. “Give me a chance, I’ll take out five minutes from everyone’s play!” I said. (This wasn’t an option for any of us; final edits were due July 24: they were not chancing playwrights rewriting up until opening night.)

The only thing that had me really, really worried was that the show was really, really long (two and a half hours, including intermission) and my play was last. Why was mine last? Was this a comment on my play? Would the audience even stay that long to see mine? (Seriously, I can overanalyze anything.) I liked the friends who told me mine was last because you always save the best for last. I have no idea how in fact the show order was chosen, but that explanation suited me just fine.

And then, August 10, the birthday of moi, the New Works Festival opened. I discovered that I can’t see a play as if for the first time: all I could see was where the actors did something different, or missed a line. Why didn’t the audience laugh at that? Or, why did they laugh at that line, that was never funny before. I couldn’t accurately judge what the audience thought of any one play, but they sure seemed to like the evening overall. The actors had so much more energy with an actual audience there. Lines went faster, action became more electric. Theater is a participatory sport, whether or not the audience knows it.

Darin went to the show on Saturday night.

Darin’s special genius is being able to honestly assess things for what they are, point out their strengths, and analyze their weaknesses. This turns out to be a very marketable skill (as you might imagine), although a couple of times it’s really, really annoyed some people; they don’t want to hear criticism, they just want to hear how great everything is. If this is what you want, Darin is not your guy. I don’t show everything I write to Darin, because if I ask him what he thinks, he’s going to tell me. Only when I’m sure I’m ready to hear it do I ask.

When he came home from the show, he said, “I’m not sure which was the best, yours or (other play), but I liked both of them for (list of reasons here).” And you have no idea how much that critique meant to me. We discussed some of the other plays too, and he had much the same take on most of them that I did. I’m sure if I would have let him, he would have done an analysis of my play that would show me where I could strengthen it and explain a bit more, and which parts I could cut but I didn’t ask and he’s not going to volunteer (because he likes being married and he knows my process by now).

My friend Rob went with Darin Saturday and told me he really enjoyed it too, particularly mine. He even said, “You should write more of these,” which was nice to hear. And he even explained to me why mine was last: “no dull moments…
perhaps not every joke worked, but one had not time to ponder it because, hey, here’s the next one.”

So, it’s all over now. Alas. I am quite fired up to finish a full-length play and submit to a few festivals. The Foothill Playwriting class starts Sept. 26 — if you’re looking for a great writing class with a committed (and committable) bunch of writers in it, I highly recommend it.