Tag Archive | playwrights
Vomit Writing Magic Muse
Being a playwright- finding your muse is very important- having your space, having your music, having your spells, chants, and charms around you as you write is very important. But sometimes it just doesn’t come. My first mentor/friend in playwriting was Stephen Adly Guirgis. Outside of my mother, he was the first person who told […]
An Analysis of Playwriting Residencies
Ever since taking Dramaturgy, I’ve thought a lot about the importance of financially supporting artists who make their livings doing creative work. Grants, fellowships, and residencies are invaluable for supporting the future generations of artists, especially for playwrights. Recently, HowlRound posted an assessment of the National Playwright Residency Program. My interest was sparked not only because […]
Scn Std: wk1
I just had my first rehearsal? meet and greet? chat? run-through? stumble upon? of a short piece I’ll be doing with Sara Katzoff and three undergrad actors/actresses. For the past semester and a half I’ve been working on my thesis play which is this dark tragedy. It’s been so long since I’ve started a new […]
My Favorite Play
My favorite play is Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop. In it she tells the fictional story of the night before King’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel. The play doesn’t ask to be a history play about the hero King but rather serves to be a portrayal of the human King. The opening scene you hear King peeing […]
Playwrights Play with Playlists
I am loving the trend happening these days where playwrights are making public Spotify playlists that accompany their new plays. I’m sure the act of playwrights creating playlist for their plays has been happening for years in various forms; burned CD’s, iPod playlists, etc, but what is special about the current form is how publicly […]
Statement of Objective
These three words together scare the shit out of me. I always question if I want to apply to programs that request a statement of objective – I feel locked in, panicked and I want to scream. I worry that I’m going to deliver a statement that sounds very inauthentic to who I am. It’s […]
As a writer
The setting is the first thing I think about – Where? In my plays the set becomes more than a prop, it becomes as much of an organism of force as the living characters on stage. When I begin to develop a play I think about how I can manipulate the set into consciousness. How […]
WTF is a play cycle – Pt. 6 – Night Cap
Returning to my former naive B.A. acting studies questions: They can do that? Of course they can, the mind and hand of a writer has no restrictions. If the writer feels the stories out of Pine City is incomplete and if there is an audience that will watch or read another visit. There will be […]
WTF is a play cycle – Pt. 5
I remember the day well when I first heard the words – play cycle A week before, my B.A. acting professor had given my small troupe a play to analyze – Craig Wright’s Orange Flower Water. It was my first real touch on something contemporary – very exotic and exciting to me. The play examined […]
WTF is a Play Cycle – Pt. 4
The Purpose of Play Cycles/Artist Prophet The Greeks were not only telling tales to reintegrate their citizens but they were developing stories that encapsulated their history, stories that allowed the viewer to examine civilization. In Julie Spark’s Playwrights’ Progress she states that the greek plays were performed as a mode of civic self-examination. Writers get […]
WTF is a play cycle – Pt. 3
Going All The Way To The Beginning – What Cycles Meant to the Greeks Skimming through the index of old theatre history textbooks looking for modern cycle plays I came across the word – Trilogy. Millennials typically think of a trilogy as a collection of books – that eventually turn into blockbuster movies but looking […]
Writing a Ten Minute Play
In Playwriting I, we just turned in our “final revision” of out ten minute play. We were asked to use the structure outlined in Gary Garrison’s book, A More Perfect Ten: Page 1- 2: set up world, introduce central characters and make sure we understand what they want/need/desire through the journey of the play. Page […]
WTF is a play cycle – Pt. 2
But Why Serializations? Similar to our desires to be intrusive, we have a natural instinct of habit which modernly can perpetually turn into rituals and addictions. Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon in the 1950s, found that it would take roughly twenty one days to create a habit or one episode of Absolutely Fabulous to get […]
On Peeking at Audience Response Forms on the 9:15AM Bus Back to Boston
Just a peek. I’ll take what I can use and leave the rest. They’ll help me contextualize my own notes from the staged reading. I look at the drawings that I requested first: lots of double decker sets, scribbles of inner turmoil, a noose or two and stick figures galore. I take a breath, […]
And on and on and on
In theatre, unless you’re lucky to land an ongoing tour, every piece of theatre is ephemeral not only metaphorically but literally. You’ve got a few weeks or a few months on a project, and then it’s over–you move on to the next, or rather, spend a good deal of energy finding the next. As a […]
American Theatre’s Most Produced of 2017-2018
Last week, American Theatre magazine released its list of the most produced playwrights this season. Even if you’re not really into commercial theatre, the lists may still prove themselves relevant to understand the theatre of the now… the produced theatre of the now. It’s also important to note that plays by Shakespeare are discounted from […]
WTF is a play cycle – PT.1
Since I started calling myself a serious playwright (a writer in general) I’ve been invested in exploring what play cycles are. My goal in this weekly exploration is to expose the purpose and need of cycle plays in our modern day; and to answer some of these questions: What are play cycles? Why do playwrights […]
Maria & Margaret: Part III
In 2013, the year of my graduation, the year of my grandfather’s death, I wrote a pair of blogposts entitled: Make a Difference in the life of Maria Irene Fornes & Maria Irene Part II, A revision & Margaret Zildjian, an Open Letter. Maria Irene Fornes is an explosive, award-winning Cuban-American playwright who […]
An Open Letter to My First Critic
Dear Mr. Critic, You probably don’t remember me. Or maybe you do? Maybe. But, probably not. I’m writing you because, well, because I want to apologize. I guess I should start by re-introducing myself to you. I’m Kira, Kira Rockwell; I write plays. Does the name ring a bell yet? No? Oh–sure, yeah that’s okay. […]
I AM NOT A PLAYWRIGHT
There. Now that I’ve got your attention, I should probably inform you that I am probably a playwright. My caring and loving friends and professors keep telling me so. I remain skeptical. In my little life, I’ve started plenty of plays. I have a marvelous routine. I get to page 8 or so, and then I […]
Drama Lit Blog 2.0: BU School of Theatre 