It's All An Act

2-Act vs 5-Act

The way in which my writing has changed with the passing of time is evident in every facet of the process and the final product. I write in verse because that is simply the way I write. I wish I could say there was something purposeful about it, but the truth would remain unchanged. I like it. It's structure has become more sophisticated over time, and large part of that was intentional, but I think it would be more interesting to note one of the unintentional transitions.

My early play-in-verse structure, in both form and layout, drew from the heavy hitters of yore. My original emulation of Heroic Couplets strove after the flavor of Milton and Paradise Lost, while the structure itself pulled upon the Bard; William Shakespeare. I had read more Shakespeare than any other playwright, all those years ago, and I recall being somewhere in Hell, then, too, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that they influenced my beginning. Of course, I was certainly nowhere near capable of accomplishing so daunting of a task with any degree of success... which is not to say I didn't finish that first play, but that I slowly started to change my methodology in the second... and in every play since, too, for that matter.

On Writing, Playwrighting, and Theatre

In the last couple of days, the conversation on Twitter with @DramatistSteve and @DGFund and on Facebook have been on writing: what keeps you writing and what started you writing. Now, the context has revolved around the theatre, but my writing history and my theatrical history are not linked. I've been writing, in general, at least six years longer than I have been a playwright (which is clocking in at fifteen years.)

I feel like most people who have found their lives in theatre, had a lot of early theatrical experiences. It seems like a lot of people either had very active theatre families, or they got involved in the theatre at a very early age. There are of course other stories from people who stumbled into it, and I feel I probably fall into the later category.

Gaaah! Or, Post-Conference Mayham

As the title might suggest, Lordy, Lordy, have I been busy. There is a lot to be said for trying to assemble an infrastructure from the ground up, and it's definitely given me a new appreciation for the entrepreneurial spirit that I never believed I had. Now, let's not get too crazy. I haven't gotten around to attempting to self-produce (not that there's anything against that). If you know me, you know that's the thing I fear most. I want to sit down opening night and see the show for the first time, having never met the cast, if at all possible. To me, that is when I know how well I did my job. But I'm not there yet, and I'm writing today to talk about the road I've been building to that end. So...

Where to start? That was one of the battles I had to face after attending the Dramatists Guild Conference #WriteChange a few weeks back. There was a lot of chicken-and-the-egg conversations I was having with myself. Honestly.  Here's my post-conference to-do list: