Nobody Knows Anything

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

Interview: Earl T. Roske

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Earl T. Roske is the most successful playwright I know of. I met him in Carol Wolf’s Playwriting class at Foothill College (unfortunately killed due to budget cuts; thanks for your support of the arts, state of California), and he was a little different than the rest of us: to begin with, he was a truck driver named Earl. Trust me, that stood out. Earl’s plays get produced all the time, all over the world, and he’s extremely prolific. (Although…according to one of the answers he gives here, not as prolific as I thought. Seriously, I thought he’d written hundreds of plays now. Image is everything, I guess.) Earl’s play “The Measure of a Man” was also in this year’s Eight Tens at Eight Festival in Santa Cruz (and is not only listed after mine, but was staged right after mine as well).

Earl

So I asked him to answer a few questions about how he got started in playwriting.

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Did you really start writing plays in Carol’s class, or did you do it before that? 

I wrote a play, once, when I was in second grade. It was about three pumpkins on a fence before Halloween. That’s all I remember about it and it never got performed. My hiatus lasted until I took the playwright class with Carol Wolf.

My fifth grade play was about the Hope Diamond. It did get performed but nobody had any idea what the Hope Diamond was, so it wasn’t a successful production. Did you do a lot of other types of writing before you started writing plays?

I did. I wrote short stories infrequently and a rough draft of a rough novel.

Why did you decide to start writing plays?

I took the playwright class in the hopes of improving my dialogue in my stories and just to take a writing class. I figured I’d take it for a year and then go back to writing stories. I got lost on the way back it seems.

So the first assignment was to write a three page play. I brought it that next week to class and I was terrified that people were going to laugh at me and tell me what a horrible piece of garbage it was. It wouldn’t have mattered. Just seeing people standing up and reading my words, reacting to them as they read was instantly addicting.

How did you decide to start sending them out? Lots of people took Carol’s class and never sent their stuff out.

This was Carol’s fault. I had one short play and she said I should send it to Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre’s Eight Tens @ Eight competition. If she hadn’t I probably wouldn’t have and that might have been the end of it. But, the play got accepted and I was like, “Wow! Where else can I send plays to?” So I began looking for places.

Where did you find the places to keep sending them?

I started on the internet. I use Yahoo! because I have a sentimental streak. And just type “ten-minute play submissions.” Then I started clicking through the results and found places that way. I joined the Chicago Playwright Center (www.pwcenter.org @ $60/year) because they have a “playwright opportunities” posting site where places looking for plays post their openings. I purchased a book, A More Perfect Ten, by Gary Garrison, which has about a dozen opportunities in the back. Also, the Dramatists Guild Resource Directory lists opportunities. And lately I’ve been watching a form En Avant Plawrights (http://enavantplaywrights.yuku.com/) Where opportunities are also listed.

You’re 4 for 4 (I think?) with the Santa Cruz Actors’ Theater 8 10s at 8 Festival, and your play “The Fruits of War” has been performed on 6 continents. I assume you’ve had other plays performed in various venues. What makes your plays so awesome in terms of getting produced?

6 continents? You flatter me. But, three continents, 5 countries.

Dammit. Really thought you had the 6 continent thing going.

No other play has been [as] successful [as The Fruits of War]. But most of them have gone on to have several productions. I don’t know for sure, but I think that it may be a simplicity of set requirements in most cases and a universal appeal. Most of these plays don’t take place in a specific place but they touch on values and ideals that exist around the world and the directors and actors can put their local touch on the play. For The Fruits of War, although it’s always the same script, it is seen very differently in Brisbane, Australia compared to Chennai, India to Oakland, California.

How do you go about writing your plays? I assume like most of us you get your inspiration from that small “Writers’ Ideas” store in Madison, WI. How long does it take you? Yes, it’s the horrifying “Your writing process” question.

Depends on the play. In every case except for the first play I spent a lot of time thinking about the idea of the play, what it is that I’m feeling and what it is I’m trying to say. And I try to think of a way to say it that might give it a twist. The Fruits of War is about the stupidity of retaliating against an enemy because they retaliated against you. The concept would pass as a farce if so many lives didn’t pay the cost.

So how do I make people see it differently. Then I write. The Fruits of War was written in a week of mornings as I sat in the truck I used to drive. I wrote furiously until it was time to drive. Then I typed it up and took it to class. I got feed back, rewrote, got feedback, sent it to Short + Sweet and the rest is, well, interesting.So ideas come from everywhere. I listen and allow myself to react to what I hear and read. Then I ponder and sometimes it’s short and sometimes I may ponder on an idea for a year or more. Oh, and I often try to write more than I need since it’s easier – my opinion – to edit out rather than to fluff it up.

I always find the plays that I write the fastest tend to get the best reception. Does it work that way for you, or do you rewrite a lot?

Mostly, yes, I agree. I think that’s because those plays are coming straight through from the sub-conscious straight to the fingers. But bad plays happen like that, too. The real trick is to be willing to abandon the play/idea when it turns out to be a dud. On my computer I have 30 files for 30 plays. I’ve only have 9 ten-minute plays that have been produced. Half those files hold stinkers that I may never work on again. There isn’t any reason to go back when there are new ideas already percolating in front of me.

What about for sending them out? Do you keep a schedule or a checklist? Like, “I must send out 5 plays per month…” 

I keep a submission record for each play in the file with the play. I keep track of when I sent the play, to whom I sent it, and when the production is. Most places don’t tell you you’ve been rejected. So when I go through the file and see a date has passed I know the play has been rejected. You should also not be afraid of submitting to multiple places at once. Everyone wants an unproduced play. I figure that if I hit the jackpot and two or more accept the play at the same time, the table are reversed and it is I, the playwright, that gets to do some rejecting.

Best thing about writing plays?

Seeing the play on the stage. Knowing that I am part of a creative process that includes other people who are compelled by what I’ve written to bring it to the stage and in turn affect an audience. (Or should that be infect an audience? Hm.)

Worst? 

A constant fear that I’m going to run out of ideas. It’s a constant fear that eats at me while I am hastily writing down yet another idea for a play that I won’t be able to get to for a year or more because of the dozen other ideas I’ve already committed myself to.

You’ve clearly done well with your 10-minute plays. Are you going to move into one-act or full-length plays? Or is it simply easier to get produced writing 10-minute plays?

I’ve written three full-length plays and they have gotten progressively less awful. What’s nice about ten-minute plays is that you have a greater chance of getting produced. (In Short + Sweet Sydney they produce over a hundred plays in a five week period. That would never happen with full-length plays.) There’s not much call for one-acts that I can see. I’ve written a couple and they haven’t been produced. But I do submit them when I can. Also, consider my production resume – which theatres ask to see when you submit a full-length play. I have 9 plays and 30+ productions. That looks good and I hope will improve my chances of getting a longer look when my play lands on some artistic director’s desk.

Every screenwriter in Hollywood was first a playwright. (Seriously. First thing out of their mouths.) Any plans to start screenwriting? 

As an evolution of writing I think that would be a step after I have had a full-length play produced somewhere. It’s a different mindset as I look at it. With a screenplay you can literally be in Paris and then in Moscow in moments and jump back again. You can have characters with one line and are never seen again. Frugality does not seem to be a watchword for screenplays. And the formatting is different and the guardians of the gates are different. But, yes, I’d like to try to write a couple screenplays to see how that feels.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how useful is “I’m the playwright” as a pickup line?

I’m married so I don’t have to worry about it. But, I think when it comes to being in the theatre world, in small theatre, to say – and of course casually, as if almost by accident – “I’m the playwright,” will indeed get you attention. I’ve been taken out for coffee and inundated with questions. I will say this, though: if my play was the worst one of the night, I’d keep my mouth shut.

So…has this happened to you yet?

No, it hasn’t happened to me. I have had directors come and tell me that the actors are scared/nervous once they find out the playwright is in the theatre. That makes me wonder what kind of playwrights they’ve dealt with before. I’ve been fortunate so far.Oh, in one of the Short + Sweet festivals my play did get the lowest votes by the audience. But I wasn’t there.

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.

Diane’s Writing Advice

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Here is everything I know on the subject of writing:

“Put black on white.”
— Guy de Maupassant.

Seriously. All of writing comes down to actually doing the writing. And doing it some more.

Oh, need more? Okay.

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.”
— Ernest Hemingway

Look at a professional’s story. Now look at yours. Now back to the professional’s. Do you know where you went wrong? Do you know why your stuff isn’t as good, as polished, as exciting, as whatever? Work on it. Just because you know the alphabet doesn’t mean you know jackshit about arranging it in the right order.

Sigh. Still not enough? Here goes.

  1. Nobody cares whether you write or not. Honestly. We get so many stories bombarding us each and every day (TV, movies, the Internet, blogs, Twitter, Facebook updates) no one’s going to notice whether or not you do yours. So if you want to be a writer for any other reason than you can’t imagine a better way of spending your time, just stop now. There are easier and more pleasurable ways to get money, sex, and fame than typing.

  2. Write everything. Fiction, plays, newspaper articles, diary entries, poetry, letters to the newspaper, fan fiction.

  3. Write what you know? Fuck that. Write what turns you on, write what excites you, write what you want to read. If you don’t want to sit down and write it, we don’t want to sit down and read it. What book do you want to go buy? Write it.

  4. Finish what you start. (This is my personal bête noire.) Everyone has fun with the initial burst of energy when you start a new project. Go through the long slog, because that’s when you really learn how to create.

  5. Your writing is never going to be good. Do it anyhow. Imperfect and real stuff >> perfect, nonexistent stuff. No reader in history has ever pointed to the brilliance of a book someone was going write “someday.”

  6. Stop waiting for someone to tell you your work is any good or you have promise or whatever. YOU have to know if you’re good. It’s really as simple as that.

  7. If no one goes out of their way to tell you you’re good, you’re only just kinda all right. “All right” is my gentle way of saying your work is mediocre. Try harder. Try bigger. Try bolder. Read your stuff with a critical eye — honestly, would you shell out hard-earned money for what you’ve written?

  8. When you get criticism, hear what they’re telling you, not what they saying. I’ll let you in a secret: When someone says there’s a problem with your work, they’re right. When they tell you what the problem is, they’re almost guaranteed to be wrong. Most writers wouldn’t know a story if it came up and bit them on the ankle, why on Earth would a non-writer know how to fix a story? Readers always know when something’s wrong though.

  9. Creativity is a muscle. You have to use it. You have to work it.

  10. I need a tenth thing? Stupid lists of ten.

And, oh yeah, the best writing advice (and possibly life advice) ever:

Nobody knows anything.
— William Goldman