Monday 3 – June 11th

A whole day off. What will I do?

Lots.

What I did today was walk. And walk. And walk.

But let’s get it in order. I finished the major rewrite of my latest play: Coffee with Friends is he working title. It was inspired by the play Dinner With Friends that Rob directed and had Lisa Benner in the lead role. I think it might be my best effort yet. Of course, I think each play is the best yet. Until reality sets in. It is the longest at 29 pages and will have a running time of between 40 and 45 minutes. We’ll see. We’ll do something with it when I get home. If you want an advance copy let me know.

I printed off a copy of the play so I could edit it.

Time for a haircut. I checked out a couple of places and a haircut is $30 plus tip. Do I need a haircut that bad? No but I will in a week which is the next time I could get one. So give in. Actually it was good haircut. Worth $30 plus tip? Probably – this is New York – everything’s expensive. It took about 45 minutes to get shampooed, cut styled and so on.

It’s really hot today. Everywhere i walk I end up sweating profusely.

I called Rob O’Neill and we set at time to get together for lunch. I had a couple of hours so I walked to Riverside Park and walked around for a long time. I got to the restaurant about 20 minutes early and ordered a beer., Then I remembered that I left the Enchanted April pictures back in my room so I beat feet back to the room then back to the restaurant. Rob was there by the time I got back. It was a great lunch. He loved the pictures of all of you that he has worked for. He and Patrick (I don’t remember his last name) have written a play and they are going to act in it. Rob got his boss at NYU to agree to direct it. He is taking off for Paris at the end of the month. He teaches a class there every year. We talked about him coming to Orcas for a weekend sometime. I gave Rob the copy of my script to read. He said hi to all of yo and I told him all of you wanted me to say hi to him.

Rob has a new web site: www.embodimentworkshops.org If you look closely, you’ll see a picture of Leslie and me in our bathroom scene at AIRE. The picture is one of several on the first page of his site.

Back to the room for a little cleanup. I got a call from Austin Pendleton, the director friend of the Mazzarella’s and we will get together after the Lincoln Center thing finishes. He is directing Romeo and Juliette in Central Park and he is in previews.

Decided I’d go a little further afield for dinner. I don’t know how long a New York block is but I walked 50 of them to and from dinner. I walked to Broadway – two blocks from my hotel. Then turned north and walked along Broadway up to 102nd street. Nothing of interest. I’m now 24 blocks into this hike. Then one block further east to Amsterdam Street. It’s now 25 blocks. Amsterdam in nothing but restaurants. In any four or five blocks you can find any kind of restaurant you want. There are vegetarian restaurants, organic restaurants and organic vegetarian restaurants. Every kind of ethnic restaurant you can imagine. It starts to rain on my way back. Not hard rain like Monday but the individual drops are so big they feel like little pebbles when they hit. Anyway I pick Mexican tonight. Very nice restaurant. Then the rest of the 22 blocks south back to 80th. I’m into this hike 47 blocks then the three blocks west back to the hotel.

My legs are really tired. I really felt the stiffness when I got up after dinner.

Back to the room at 9:30 to edit the play and write this.

I’m looking forward to getting back to LCT tomorrow. All the playwrights, designers and actors have gone home leaving just the 58 of us directors. Looks like a busy week.

Sunday 2 – June 10th.

They actually let us off early today – I think it has something to do with everyone wanting to watch the Tony’s (except me) although I did see several nominees. I actually met and had cake with and talked to Bob Chambers who is up for three Tony’s. The cake was because it was his birthday. Of course the play The Coast of Utopia was done at Lincoln Center. I just saw that Bob won two Tony’s tonight.

Today we had a clambake. But before that I need to tell you some more about New York.

Anywhere there is construction, which is everywhere, there is a plywood wall to keep the gawkers out. And on every plywood wall, every square inch is covered with posters. For the most part these are big posters – maybe four feet high and 30 inches wide. They are an art form in itself. Here are some that I walked by on my way to Lincoln Center today:

Rebok is there in large numbers. Here are a few samples:

Run to the beat of your own drummer. Run easy. Rebok.

A ten minute mile is just as far as a six minute mile. Run easy. Rebok.

Stop and smell the garbage. Run Easy. Rebok.

One had a picture of a cow with “Inject care not hormones.”

From Blue Cross: In 1995 250 New Yorkers were bitten by rats and 1401 were bitten by humans.

I don’t know where this one came from: Every day 340,000 New Yorkers walk to work burning 2,380,000 pounds of fat a year.

From Fresh Direct: Our food is fresh. Our customers are spoiled.

Here is a true fact from yesterday: Someone asked me if I was a dancer. I told them no. They thought I had a dancers body. A great compliment I think.

Now to the clambake. Not a clam in sight. Not a bake in sight. For whatever reason a clambake is an opportunity for directors and designers to get together and talk and look at the designers work. I’ve already told you how impressed I am with their work. Today just reinforced it. These guys are really good and really add a lot to the production.

We had a long discussion period at the end of the clambake to talk as a group. On designer told us his best job as a designer: The director of A View From The Bridge, Michael Mayer, who was directing the Broadway premier came to the first production meeting and said “This play sucks. What can we do about it?” Every one pitched in.

Another thing I learned was from the designers was “ The directors tells the story with the actors the designers tell the same story with the set, the lights the costumes and so on.” You can bet next time I do a play, I’ll involve the designers much more in the vision of the play.

After a nap, I went over to Amsterdam Street and found a quiet bar and worked on a new play. This one is getting pretty long for me. We’ll see how it turns out. One of the things I love about traveling is the time to write. I have trouble finding time to do it on Orcas. So far I’m pretty impressed with this play.

The only down side to today was an e-mail I got indirectly from Orcas Center. Why do I always have to fight them? Some times I just don’t feel up to it but I have to defend our program or they’ll just take us apart piece by piece.

Yuck. What a crappy end to a nice day.

What I’ve learned as of Saturday, June 9th

In order of priority to me.

1. These professional designers have a lot to offer. But whoever we use as designers, we need them in the rehearsal room.

2. Writing is a solo sport. Directing is a team sport. Our personalities causes us to gravitate to one direction or the other. I am not at all certain that playwrights who come from the writing side of the business (as against actors or directors) have the skill sets necessary successfully direct a play even if they wrote it.

3. LCT’s hypothesis for their playwright as director theory would have been better served if the five plays had been more finished products so the rehearsal time could have been used to test the hypothesis rather than working on the basic structure and dialog of the play. I was pretty thoroughly criticized for this opinion although two directors approached me after the session to agree with me. The criticism’s were based on a statement from LCT not to worry about a product of any kind. That the emphasis was to be on form and process. I think that all of the playwrights took advantage of the opportunity to develop and refine the dialog and structure of their plays to the detriment of what I viewed as the overall goal of LCT.

4. So far, I believe that the playwright as director model is flawed and in most cases will not work. Looking at the Tam Lin lawsuit (which, unfortunately, did not resolve the right of Directors to copyright their blocking and direction of the play) and other emerging changes in the American Theater (most notably the increasing use of multimedia presentations as part of the play) is moving the theater towards a modified Disney model where the producing organization will own (or at least license) the product (which includes the play itself) to other theaters. (That is probably the longest sentence I have ever written.) The licensing theater may buy the script outright from the playwright or enter into some joint licensing agreement.

Saturday 2 – June 9th – Day Six

A different day today.

We didn’t need to arrive until 11 am today so I picked up my laundry. Good to be back in shirts, socks and skivvies.

First, we had the fifth of the five plays that they have been rehearsing. It was a 65 minute play titled “Minor Gods”. A very interesting premise: A man has developed a test that will tell if a fetus will turn into a gay or lesbian. The man is seeking government funding to find a “cure” for those for those fetus’ who may turn gay.

What could have been a very heavy play was lightened considerably but some very well done humor. Nevertheless the play at times seemed disconnected and talky. There were some very long passages that need to be shortened.

Of particular interest is that the cast spent 2 ½ weeks at the table and only three days on their feet. Also of interest, the play takes place in a motel room and on the three days they were on their feet, the set designer changed the size of the hotel room. The actors liked the challenge.

But – – – again they spent most of the time working on rewriting the script.

This afternoon, we split up into groups of 25 with some directors, some actors, some playwrights and some designers. They gave us a page with a lot of questions on it. Most related to how things worked with the playwright in the room. I offered my thoughts on how the process went was roundly criticized. (What’s new?) I still think I am right. What I heard over and over was that the process produced a far better play than before the rehearsals. Duh! Hire professional directors, professional actors and professional designers and spend three weeks working on the script and it should get better.

The question in my mind is whether that was an efficient use of resources and my answer is no. Remember that the initial question proposed by Lincoln Center was how to bring a new play to the stage in the four week rehearsal period allowed. If they took 2 ½ weeks to get up from the table we are looking at a seven or eight week rehearsal period.

The schedule for today listed “Reflections on what we’ve learned so far” as the topic. So I spent a couple of hours writing out my thoughts. I’ll post them after this. Remember you read up .

After this talk back period we had cookies and soda and said good bye to the actors and playwrights. I will miss Roy Thinnes and several of the playwrights. Tomorrow the designers go home after we spend a couple of hours looking at their work. Then we’re down to 58 Directors for the next two weeks.

After dinner all the Directors got together and introduced ourselves although we already know many of them. Got out early tonight: 9 pm.

That’s all for today.

Now I have to type my comments.

Friday 2 – June 8th

All in all a good day today.

Our first session was cancelled since the speaker couldn’t make it.

We didn’t need to get there until 2 pm.

I took another load to the wash and fold. I put the claim check in my wallet so I won’t lose it. I’ll pick it up tomorrow – supposed to have showers tomorrow – there must be some tie between my picking up my laundry and rain. Have to think about that one. I wonder if there is a play in there somewhere?

I talked to Rob O’Neill today and we’re going out to dinner on Monday. He said to say ‘Hi” to everyone on Orcas. I told him that everyone on Orcas says hi to him (and Lisa Benner).

Now to the rest of the day.

Last things first. The evening session (7 to 20 pm) was very different. We were broken up into small (7 person) groups. Each group was headed by a playwright who gave their group ten pages of a script he was working on. The play he is working on is a one man opera. Really! It is based on the true story of a Chinese man who was trapped in an elevator in NYC for three days. We listened to a couple of songs from it and they weren’t too bad. Not high opera – just a musical where every line is sung. By definition that makes it an opera.

We read parts of it aloud then we spent an hour talking about it and our ideas on it. Here we have a guy trapped in an elevator – not a whole lot of room for blocking. Wrong!!! One of the guys in our group is a costume designer but also does set design. He came in with a possible design for the set and it was REALLY great. It gave the directors a lot to work with and we just brainstormed. It was really good. The playwright is coming to Seattle next week to have a reading (singing) of his play at The Theater Off Jackson.

That reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to mention: My biggest revelation so far is the important part Designers play in the play presentation process. Each type of designer brings something different to the process – far more than what we are used to on Orcas. Of course these guys get paid big bucks. This guy tonight was talking about a show he is currently costuming. He analyzes each character and knows more about the character than the playwright or director. He even put a medallion in the pocket of a costume because he decided that the characters mother had given it to him. Not mentioned in the script anywhere.

After we finished with the opera, we talked about working with playwrights in general. It was a really good discussion and one of the best I have been involved in since I got here. We had actors, the designer, the playwright and four directors all participating. It was an amazing discussion.

Before this session, we had the fourth of five plays that they have been rehearsing. This one was called “Green Zone” after the name of the American compound in Baghdad. It was a comedy/drama and poked a lot of fun on the American Army and the civilian support people but also had a more serious overtone. A fourth play very different that the others.

It was also the first play that effectively used the new collaboration model with great success. The actors, designer, director and playwright all felt that the more interactive model provided a much better product. It was funny and well done.

The first session today was cancelled because the expected speaker could not be there.

We start an hour late tomorrow so I have time to get my laundry.

Good night. It’s 11:20.