It's Day 15 here, which means we are halfway through my month-long experiment in whether or not I could write even more about plays without my eyeballs melting and my hands uncontrollably grabbing for my laptop and trying to shove it up my own ass. So far so good. Since this is a natural point for an intermission, I figured we'll do what everyone does at intermission. We'll stand up, stretch our legs and think back to what we have just seen in anticipation of what is yet to come. So, I present the lessons of Days 1-14:
1: If you're going to write about historical people or events, don't just give us facts. Actually, avoid facts altogether. If we wanted facts, we'd read Wikipedia. We want emotions.
2: We have already seen every theatrical gadget, gimmick and trick in the book. We know you're clever. Anyone who can actually finish writing a play is a clever son-of-a-gun so you don't have to prove it by showing off. Just tell your story and be honest.
3: You have to be honest because we have to know what it is you want to be talking about. It can be a journey and a mystery to get us there but we do have to get there. Being opaque does not earn you points.
4: Playwrights are freaking nuts.
5: There are points awarded for ambition. I'd rather a play overreach and end up a complete mess than play it safe and be clean.
6: It's very rarely interesting to watch a bunch of people just sit around and talk.
7: Conflict + Stakes=Tension. Tension is the simplest way to make your play engaging.
8: Playwrights are freaking nuts, but it's a noble kind of nuts.
9: Of all the different kinds of self-conscious cleverness out there, the one currently holding down the title of Most Annoying: quirkiness.
10: The most reliably successful form of theater is one in which characters spontaneously sing their emotions. This fact terrifies most literary managers. Writers of musicals, use our fear to your advantage.
11: Writing for 20-somethings does not just mean filling your play with drugs and sex and booze and then setting it in a dumpy but quirky apartment (blast you, quirkiness!). It's offensive to suggest that's all there is to it.
12: Not all plays have to be intellectual exercises. People don't always come to theater to think.
13: Don't try to sell us your play. This isn't a popularity contest and we're not in it to make money. If we were after money, we would never have gotten into theater.
14: There's really no such thing as "good" or "bad" when it comes to playwriting. It's all subjective. Then again, the plays must be objectively judged which means things are frequently unfair. This is how playwrights go freaking nuts.
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