Tuesday 2 – June 5th – Day Two

Wake up early ( 6 am) and work on my play and answer e-mail. It never stops but I actually like hearing from you.

Get to Lincoln Center at 9 am – an hour early and a third of the group is already there.

They told us that this was not a training program but we sit through three hours of Collaboration building – you know “Collaboration is made up of “co” which means together and “labor” which means working – working together!!! Get it? Three hours of this today and three more Wednesday and three more Thursday.

Anyway, I get to meet several other attendees including a guy who has been commissioned by Seattle’s Theater Off Jackson to write a hip-hop opera. He said that there was a lot more money in opera than musical theater. Investors put money in musical theater and big donors put money into opera.

For those who I’ve talked to before I left, I told you that LCT was rehearsing five plays for three weeks before we got here. Actually four plays and a musical. None of the five has ever been produced. These plays were cast by the Director and playwright from lists of actors provided by LCT.

The big deal is that the plays are being directed by the playwright who wrote them with a professional set designer and Stage manager and director in case there are any questions.

Today’s play was The Maestro’s Garden. It was REALLY good. Subject matter not suitable for Orcas plus it needs one African American. Two things knocked my socks off. One was the quality of the acting – really there – 99% off book. The other thing was the actors. Six in the cast an one only had a dozen lines but the other five were really top drawer. Roy Thinnes and Richard Masur were two of them. Both of whom I’ve seen a lot on TV and the movies.

As I sat there, I wondered if our actors on Orcas could do as well. The answer I came up with was pretty much. Our people would be 90% as good. But this was in three weeks, we would take eight weeks. But then I got to think: These actors rehearsed three weeks at five hours a day six days a week for a total of 90 hours. For Enchanted April we had 35 rehearsals before opening or 32 before tech. At three hours each that makes 96 hours total rehearsal – about the same time as the professionals – plus we would have had the blocking down too.

Not too bad for Orcas.

The last session for the day ( 7 to 10 pm) was a small group program. We had seven in our group – 3 directors, 2 playwrights and 1 set designer plus Roy Thinnes. We were given an outline of what to talk about but that quickly went out the window. Everyone talked about problems and successes they have had – directors, playwrights and the set designer. Roy threw his thoughts in and was a real participant but didn’t try to control the flow of the discussion.

I was really put off by one young director who challenged and argued everything that Thinnes said. He is due more than a little respect for what he has accomplished. After a while every one pretty much tried to ignore her. For example, we were talking about playwrights (I knew very few of the names) and if Thinnes said he liked one she said he was no good. That kind of thing.

I didn’t have a lot to offer because all the discussion was about professional theater and I didn’t have much to add.

One time a playwright was talking about attending rehearsals but not wanting to interrupt. She used as an example a line that was supposed to be a joke. She wanted to say something but she thought that maybe the director was aware of it but wasn’t ready. I echoed that statement, saying that the director needed to know each actor and push them at a pace that worked for them. Thinnes said Bullshit. Rehearsal time is too precious and it takes more time not to tell the actor the line is a joke than to do it later when it is harder for the actor to change the delivery of the line.

Thinnes told us of the best notes he ever got from a director were from Garland Wright (I have no idea who he is/was). Wright gave notes that always started with “Wouldn’t it be nice if . . . .”

We were told to finish up any time after 9:30 and be out of the building by ten. They finally came and kicked us out at 10:15.

A good day but I am really tired – even more so than AIRE.

Monday – June 4th – Day one

Rain!!! The tail end of a hurricane. NYC got 2 1/4 inches of rain between 7 am and 1 pm. Guess when I was out running around? 8 am to 2 pm.

Got my laundry without a problem but they didn’t get the stains out of my shirts. Two less shirts to wear. I’m tough on shirts.

The program started at 2:30. Big security at LCT.

Here are my notes – in the order I took them:

Afternoon session – 2:30 to 5 pm

This is a big deal for LCT – the end of their season.

LCT sees themselves as the testing and proving ground for the future of American Theater.

We were welcomed but the President of the LCT Board and the Director. There were several LCT Board members present.

1. The Lab is for attendees
2. It’s an idea place not a career place (although many of the LCT directors have come through this program and been noticed here.
3. Most are in their 20’s and early 30’s without a lot of experience.
4. Not a teaching environment (I’m not certain that is totally accurate)
5. Most directors do their best work in the first third of their careers.
6. The Lab works best when it is intense – thus the long tiring days.
7. All great theater is made by groups of peers – from Shakespeare to Moliere to Steffan Wolf.
8. Theater training has moved away from the apprentice/mentor model to the colleges and universities. Too many don’t have much real life hands on experience – just the false reality of the college environment.
9. Today we have playwrights learning how to be playwrights, directors learning how to be directors, designers learning how to be designers. No one is learning all the pieces anymore.
10. This lab is a change in direction for LCT. For the first week there will be 150 of us. (70 Directors – 14 from other countries and the rest from the US – 15 playwrights – 15 Designers – 35 professional actors – 15 others – primarily those working on the five plays that have been in rehearsal for the past three weeks. Next Sunday everyone but the Directors go home.
11. We are to try to answer two questions:
A. Have we reached the end of the play development cycle in the American Theater as we know it today?
B. What is the relationship between young (ie, new) playwrights and actors and directors and designers?
12. The top of the food chain works well for those who started in the theater in the ‘70’s or ’80’s: Stoppard, Wasserstein, etc. Today there is no room for playwrights under 45 +/-.
13. The costs of presenting a play have put so many constraints on the play development process that there is no room for the old way: A group of peers get together and do a play that they write, develop and present.
14. Today, no young writer has access to that old model – even the repertory theater model is being replaced by the graduate school experience.
15. Today the new actors and new directors do not have access to each other. The actors are working in theaters that the new director can not access.

A few random comments:
1. Do any of the young people today have the time to work with their peers – they have to spend all their time trying to earn enough to stay alive.
2. What an actor can do in a reading has no relationship to what that actor can do in a rehearsal. (In response to a question about all the readings of new plays that go on now around the country.)
3. Who controls access and selection to the designers? In many theaters the director is given the designers and not allowed to chose his/her own. Does this work?
4. “Why are actors so marginalized in today’s atmosphere?”
5. Some writers are writing plays that can not be acted by actors as they are trained in the traditional way. (???)
6. Why is there such a big divide between actors and playwrights? (Read: Why do directors keep them apart.)

The five plays we will see have been directed by the playwrights with a director available as an adviser to the playwright. They have been using the standard rehearsal schedule: 5 hours a day, six days a week for three weeks. In theory, these plays are one week from tech (although none will go any further after this Lab).

Monday night 7 to 10 PM

We had two panels tonight. This kind of belies the no teaching they talked about.

In the last 20 years we have seen American theater move from the “theaters running the backers” to the “backers running the theater” There are many examples of this.

In the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, the theaters were new and had boards that were the contemporaries of the actors/directors/writers that were part of the company. Now the actors/directors/writers have moved on but the boards haven’t. The need for money from he boards needs older people who can come up with the big bucks. This is a major problem because the people who are paying for it want to see shows that appeal to them but the new talented playwrights are writing for their age group.

Today, Broadway is using focus groups to determine what content a play should have. There are even rumbles of advertiser tie ins (make sure we see a bottle of Michelob in this play.)

After some period of time ALL institutions become self serving.

80% of the directors work is defensive – trying to keep other people happy so he can keep his show together.

There was a lot of criticism of the unions and how difficult it is to mount a small inexpensive play.

It is not the number of hours of rehearsal that counts but the number of days. Actors need time to find their characters and have it settle in.

In many cases the total time between first rehearsal and opening night is the same but now half or more than half the time is spent in previews so the theater can sell more tickets. Most seemed to feel that previews were counterproductive because the preview audiences are not the same as the final audience.

Even though this Lab is about more involvement by playwrights in the process, the panelists (actors, designers and directors) seemed to think that it is a mistake. The reasons:
The playwrights try to get everything they need/want from the actor the first day. (I agree with that.)
Each actor is different and needs a different approach from the director – a skill that most playwrights don’t have. ( I agree here too.)
It takes understanding and skill to help an actor move outside his/her comfort zone – something very few playwrights have any experience in. (I agree here most of all.)

“No matter how good you are and how hard you work, someone in the audience will fall asleep”

“If you have an audience of people who love George Bush and you do a play that says George Bush in a good guy, you haven’t accomplished anything.”

Got home after 11 pm . Rain stopped.

Sunday – June 3rd

Supposed to rain this afternoon.

I slept in till 8:30 today. Clean up the room, copy the latest play to my memory stick and head up to Broadway to see if Staples will be open to print it out (for some reason, I can only effectively edit one of my plays when I have it printed out. I doesn’t work well on the computer screen.) They don’t open till 22 and it is just after ten but they have closed off over a dozen blocks on Broadway for a street fair. They have everything but sun glasses, t shirts and food pretty much cover it.

I walk to the south end of the fair and walk north stopping from time to time. Buy a pair of sunglasses for $6 and a watch for $5. I offer the guy $10 for both and he takes it. Hank calls and we agree to meet at the Boat House in Central Park at noon so I hit Staples at 11 when they open and print out the play. I walk to the boat house – a half hour at a good pace. Work on my script for a half hour till Hank gets there. They have a waiting list an hour and a half long so we get a cab to Times square to get tickets. (Hank is big on cabs I’m big on walking.) We decide to see Company a 1970 Sondheim musical in revival.

It was good but all of Sondheim’s musical’s are incredibly difficult musical pieces. In my limited knowledge of any musical, this one is one of the worst to stage. This particular revival has the actors acting, singing and playing all the instruments. I reminds me of Radio Gals which I saw at Taproot in Seattle years ago where the actors acted, sang and played the instruments. I have the script if anyone thinks we could cast it on Orcas.

Company was all right and the male lead (Raul Esparza) is up for a Tony but there is no real plot – just a series of vignettes. One highlight for me was a young actress with no real credentials: Heather Laws. In my opinion she stole the show.

It was raining but not hard (just harder than it rains on Orcas) so I beat feet to the Subway, back to my room to drop off my notebook and other things I didn’t want to get wet. Then up the street to get dinner.

You know what’s expensive in New York? – Besides everything, I mean – Liquor. A draft beer is $6 to $7, wine is $8 to $10 and a whiskey is $9 to $11.

Came out from dinner and it is raining – hard. I walk as fast as I can back to the hotel but am soaked when I get there.

I’m really getting excited about Lincoln Center tomorrow. Hope I can sleep.

Saturday, June 2nd

Remember that I couldn’t find my ticket for my laundry? Well, I searched the room again – remember this is a VERY small room. Still no ticket. So off I go just after eight am to get my laundry. Closed till Monday. Yuck.. Bad way to start out the day. Now I have to go there on Monday just before I go to Lincoln Center and hope my laundry is there.

Back to the room and get a bottle of OJ and head for Riverside Park. I take my current book on play writing and my pad. I get there just before 9 am and by noon I had finished the first draft of my second play of New York. By the way – the first draft is about 15% done with the play. Although some (like the Hal and Cathy plays) never get finished.

Sitting in Riverside Park on the weekend is interesting. The fathers are there with their young kids and the joggers are out in force as are the dogs being walked. Several people stopped by to chat. All in all a pleasant morning.

Hank was going to call me in the morning and we’d set a time to get together. I finally call him just after noon and he didn’t remember his promise to call me. He couldn’t get together so I was on my own. I had picked up a copy of the Village Voice (a free newspaper – like the Seattle Weekly). So I looked at the off-off Broadway shows. I finally settled on a show all the way down in Greenwich Village. Off to the subway again. This time I take the local to 59th street and get an express to the Village. Still a long ride. I would have missed a 2pm matinee but I had picked a 3 pm show. I see a show named Phallacy (Yes it was spelled that way). One of the reasons I chose it was because the theater company specializes in plays that marry science and the arts. THIS PLAY WAS GREAT!!! It is by far the best play I’ve seen in years. I mean Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon was a better actor but this play was wonderful.

To start with the female lead (Lisa Harrow) is like Judith Densch at 50 years old. She OWNED that stage when she was on it. The male lead was almost as good. There were two other, younger actors that did a workman like job but were clearly overshadowed by the two older actors. The technical multimedia aspects of this show were unbelievable. I really want to do this show but I don’t think Orcas could handle the technical requirements. Without those, the play wouldn’t be half as good. When I get back to Orcas I’ll start tracking down the show and see if I could get the tech stuff we need.

What an afternoon of theater. I decide not to see a show that night. It would be hard to follow that show. I go back to my room and type the new play into the computer. Boy I hate doing that. It takes me almost four hours over two sittings.

I go to look for dinner three blocks up from the hotel. It is wall to wall restaurants for block after block. The places are either so full the sound level is above the pain threshold or they are empty and that sends me a message too. I finally got to a place called Fred’s – not named after my friends named Fred. It seems that this Fred was the first seeing eye dog. See I learned something. A good dinner of barbecued ribs. Got another shirt dirty. If I don’t get my shirts Monday I’m going to be in real trouble.

Back to the room at 10 pm and look at my e-mail, lots that need responses. Get to bed just before midnight.

Friday, June 1st.

Got some chores to take care of this morning. I know there’s a wash and fold up the street so I’ll drop off my laundry. Also hit the grocery store and get some orange for the refrigerator. Amazing how much laundry I can go through in four days but I’m changing shirts twice a day.

I show the guy at the laundry the stains on my green shirt but he says all he does is wash them. So I’ll cross my fingers and hope for the best.

I take my bottle of OJ and my pad to the park and look at a new play. I work on a play about Hank and I meeting but I keep getting drawn off the subject by the play “Dinner With Friends” I saw last night. The problem with the Hank and me play is that I can’t come up with an important, life and death subject for it. If I don’t get there the play will just start, run and stop and nothing will have been accomplished. That’s what I get for reading too many books.

So I sit there in the park and outline a play about Beth telling Karen that she’s having an affair. In the play it was Beth telling Karen that her (Beth’s) husband was having an affair so see, I’m not plagiarizing. In my play Beth’s excitement and enthusiasm for the affair makes Karen rethink her relationship with her husband Gabe. That’s good. I fill out the rest of the outline and I like it. So I start to write:

Karen: Gabe, can I talk to you about something?

Gabe? What’s this about? I’m not writing about Gabe. But I very clearly see them sitting in bed, he’s working on a crossword puzzle and she’s reading a book. Okay, so I stole the setting from Dinner With Friends. Anyway, off I go for three hours with Karen and Gabe talking about Beth and their life and Karen decides that her life is pretty good after all.

I’m about half done writing it.

Past time for lunch. I head for Times Square on the Subway. Get off the subway and look for a place for lunch. What do I find? A place called The Playwrights Tavern. So I go in. It’s mostly Irish pub and Sean O’Casey’s stuff is everywhere.

It’s just before one and all the construction workers are in there drinking their lunch and the sound level exceeds even the usual NYC roar. Too loud to think let alone write. By the time I’ve finished lunch, I’ve had two beers so it’s back to the room for a nap.

I get a return call from a friend of Mazz’s. Her husband is in the final stages of directing Romeo and Juliette for NYC’s Shakespeare in the park. I’ll have to see it if I can. She said he wouldn’t be able to get back to me till after it opens. I mentioned his name to Hank and Hank knows of him. He’s a pretty big name in the NYC theater community.

Then I clean up, head back downtown to buy tickets for a show tonight. Hank’s just having dinner with me. I’m on my own for theater. I get a ticket for an off-Broadway version of the Fantasticks. I get the ticket then head to a quiet bar I’m starting to frequent on 46th street and write a little and have a beer. Just one because I’m meeting Hank for dinner and that means three martini’s for him. I settle on wine. If I’m paying fifty dollars to see a show I don’t want to fall asleep during it.

I have to say, this theater was tiny. It had an eight or nine foot ceiling height. Makes the Grange look real good. Hang lights from that ceiling then have the actors get up on boxes (which they did) and the actors have to duck. That started it. I decided to see Fantasticks because it is a staple of American Theater. Like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I thought it was dumb. Really dumb. Now I have to see it again sometime to see if it was just that production or if it really is dumb. One side note: The playwright who originally wrote it was in the cast.

On the way back to my room I remember that I was supposed to pick up my laundry after five. Well, 11 pm is after five but the place is closed. When I get back to my room I realize that I don’t have the ticket for my laundry. Well, something to do tomorrow.

I update my journal and get to bed around midnight.

Another day in the big city.

I’m getting excited about Monday.