What I Learned from My Last Play Reading
Once upon a time, I wrote a play.
It’s not the first play I’ve ever written, and it probably won’t be the last, but it is one of the most personal scripts I’ve ever attempted to put to paper—that’s for sure.
The play was called Within 10 Feet. At the time, it told the story of a mysterious masked lady named Mrs. Stevens, who goes to an old, burned down dormitory where she used to go to college. She’s gone to pay a visit to Mr. Warrick, a current instructor there who was an old flame of hers back in her college days. In between dozens of cigarettes, the pair reminisce, argue, and theorize about how the dorm building burned down—but since Mr. Warrick was such a notorious liar in the days of yesteryear, can she really trust his account of events? Or his declaration that she did, in fact, mean something to him after all?
Neither of those characters are in the play any more.
Well, that’s not true. They are, but their names have been changed, they’ve evolved quite a bit, and they are no longer burdened with a framing device that naggingly reminded me of a clip show on a sitcom.
The fact that the framing device was not working was just one of the things I learned by having a play-reading in 2017, almost exactly two years ago.
Background
The reading was part of a local writer’s group called the Ashland Atelier. It had been around for about 10 years at that point, and I had both acted in readings there and had the privilege of having my own scripts read there, as well.
I was in New York City, on vacation, when I submitted the script. I felt good about it. In the months leading up to the reading, I even had a read-through at a small writers group I was involved with at the time. That went over very well and I got very useful feedback, (including a few warnings that the script seemed a tad too long, which perhaps I should have taken more seriously, as you’ll see.)
Still, I remember saying something like “This is dark! This is edgy! But it’s also funny! People will eat it up! Someone will see it and want to stage it somewhere, or make a film of it, or something. This script is really going places!”
Where it ended up going was back on the shelf for a couple of years, and that was probably for the best.
Now, I will say that I know I did a few things right. I had these things going for me, in particular:
A fantastic cast of actors
People actively helping me promote the show, print scripts, etc.
A good story. I knew the story was good.
But there were a few things I was forgetting. And now I know them.
And now that I’m planning another reading for April 5th, just around the corner at Theatre Convivio, I’ve done what was hard to do. I’ve made cuts to the script. I’ve changed things around. I’ve made it better.
What did I learn?
1. Know Your Audience and Don’t Lose Track of Time
After the reading, an elderly man from the audience took the time to reach out to me via email and let me know that “the play is too long for seniors with shortened bladders.” It was funny, and it was probably very true. The play was too long by a mile. (And as a side note, another senior reached out to me later to let me know that his bladder is weak too but that he didn’t mind it at all because the play was so engaging. That was sweet of him to say.)
Bathroom complications of the elderly aside, there is definitely a lesson to be learned there. You need to remember your audience. It’s something I’ve struggled with sometimes as an eccentric weirdo with a tendency to speak in long anecdotal diatribes. When my characters do the same thing, one’s ability to stay attentive can become a problem.
I remember the evening of that reading in 2017 very clearly. Things got started around 6:30. The cast was doing a great job, and the audience was loving it… at first. For the first hour and a half, every line was greeted by a chorus of raucous laughter. During intermission, quite a few people congratulated me on my witty comedy.
The second act was much less of a hit. Five or so people left during it, and two ladies behind me kept saying things like "they just keep talking in circles; it's so annoying" during a big climactic scene. When a major plot twist happened, one of them said, "well we already knew that." At the end of the play, one of them said "Finally! Good lord!"
During the very brief and uncomfortable Q&A, all I could see when I looked out at the audience was the faces of those two ladies, bored and agitated. I was very eager to go be anywhere but there. It was 9:30, I had a headache, and needed to escape.
So, how did I let this happen? How did I let my memory play about emotionally challenged chain-smokers turn into the “The Iceman Cometh” of Ashland play-readings?
Technically true for most theatrical experiences, right?
2. Not Every Great Moment From Your Life Belongs In a Play
Well, I’ll tell you. It was a self-indulgent mess. It was sloppy. It meandered. Many, many pages of it simply had the subtext of “Isn’t Mig clever for writing this joke?”
It’s hard to rewrite things like this. Things that are so personal. Because even though this is a fantastical story that spans decades and never happened, there is a lot of truth in it. There are passages of dialogue ripped directly from my real memories. There are characters who share traits with people I’ve known. While the play isn’t based on real events, a few fragments of reality made it in there. More than usually make it in there when I set out to write a thing.
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”
(Note: Stephen King was quoting somebody else. A lot of people argue about who actually first said “Kill Your Darlings,” but I like the way Stephen King said it so I quoted him.)
If you know me, you probably know that I get inspired easily. What inspires me? Plenty of things. The way a girl talks excitedly at a party. The way a grizzled old man holds his cigarette while cussing out a bird. The way a group of friends laugh with each other in the street except for that one friend who just isn’t getting it. The way two people having a hostile public disagreement will drop it the second they see a cat wandering their way.
Sometimes the things that inspire me are more personal. A nasty emotional scar that formed in my heart, caused by someone’s callousness and deepened by my own emotional sensitivity.
Sometimes, it’s circumstances, which can be the biggest scar-makers of all. You can make peace with a callous person someday, maybe. A callous circumstance, though, is faceless, and can’t be swayed by words.
Sometimes, it’s me. Sometimes I’m the person who didn’t realize my actions left another person feeling those sad, horrible feelings, and I have to sit there living with the knowledge that I know how they feel, but my words won’t do anything to make things better.
But maybe, just maybe, my words can have an impact on somebody else. That sense of “Hey, this story gets you. You’re not alone” might come across, and it just might help some stranger in a chair in an audience feel a little better about what they’ve gone through, and maybe also a little better about sitting in a chair for so long.
And that’s when I head back up to the data center of my memory, which is great at remembering moments and feelings and ideas but terrible at remembering math equations, and I start shaping together a story.
But what’s important is that I remember later to tighten the script, trim the unnecessary bits, and keep in mind that, if the audience is getting their ass flattened, if their bladders are bursting, and if their attention spans are limited, then the words won’t land.
If you know me, you might know that I’ve had the immense fortune and misfortune of caring for some pretty exceptional people. I lost some of them in outrageous ways. Most of the time, it makes a hell of a story.
Some of them are lost forever.
And some of them are still around.
And all of them are always inspiring me, and always will be.
…But sometimes, I need to go back in and take out the weird thing that happened to me and that loved one—the thing that I thought belonged in this bloated script. Sometimes, I need to cut that hilarious conversation we had about pottery one Tuesday on that warm patio in the gentle spring rain, or that time they were romantic, or even a time they were horrible. Why?
Because the things that make for good memories don’t always make for good plays. Touches of real life can help a play, but they can also hurt it. You have to remember that the audience is there. They have patience, sometimes, but patience runs out.
You have to remember who you’re talking to.
My 2017 Cast: Mark B. Ropers, Diane Nichols, Lauren Taylor, Jamin Jollo, Aleah Zimmer, Reece Bredl, and Will Churchill (not pictured) all did a fantastic job at bringing my script to life back in 2017.
3. Monologues Are the Sticks and Stones of Playwriting
Words CAN hurt you. If you write a play with a long-winded monologue on every other page, the minutes are going to pile on. And on. And on. Sometimes, there’s an easier way to say something that doesn’t require a monologue.
In this most recent draft, I had to cut one of my favorite monologues of the entire play, where a character discusses a lengthy D&D campaign she went on, all of which was a metaphor for the characters and situation of the play. I was in love with it for the following reasons:
It set up how much the character had changed since we last saw her
It was partially inspired by a real D&D game I’d played
It was funny
It contained some good exposition about what had happened since the scene before
The fact that her scene partner didn’t say anything during it communicated that he was lost in thought and that he had changed since we last saw him as well
That’s all well and good, but reading it again, recently, I discovered that the monologue—and by extension, the entire scene—had one huge, big, unsustainable flaw…
…NONE OF THE THINGS MENTIONED IN THAT MONOLOGUE EVER COME UP AGAIN.
For that matter, the following scene further communicates the same things I want to get across, in a shorter amount of time, and doesn’t present the awkward situation of “how did the narrator know they talked about this if she weren’t there?”
What was once a 15 page scene is now considerably shorter. Do I miss the D&D monologue? Absolutely. But the play is better for it, and for the other things I’ve cut.
4. The Audience Can Only Take So Much F***ery
If you’ve read one of my scripts before… you might know that I like twists. I’ve always liked twists. One of my nicknames is Mig Night Shyamalan. (How can it be a nickname if it’s longer than the real guy’s actual name? Must be a twist!)
But yeah. I love stuff like that. I love it when a play or a movie is surprising, and I love to be a storyteller who can do that. It’s fun. And when the twist is loosely inspired on an actual twist you yourself experienced? So much the better. Nothing gives you quite the same cathartic and validating experience as when a room full of people watch someone onstage discover their whole world has been a lie, gasp, empathize with them—
—and you get to sit there in the back of the room, vindicated. You get to say to your memories, “Yeah, past Mig. That WAS insane when that happened, and that collective gasp agrees with us!” Then you can sip your wine and watch the Sept of Baelor crumble or do whatever else you need to do for your ego. Right? Oh, that delicious feeling.
But here’s the thing about twists… you pack too many of them into your play, or you don’t set them up right, and people are going to get CONFUSED.
Now, granted, there are some movies and plays that totally master the art of the confusing narrative that the audience needs to discuss. Look at Mulholland Drive, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, or anything else the guy who used to work at a video store recommends. There are some really great stories out there that exist to be dissected and analyzed like philosophical tomes. Did I write my play for that reason? Sure, a little bit. I definitely do want people to discuss their interpretations, but there’s a point when the audience just stops following.
And there’s a difference between executing a well-prepared twist, and sloppily throwing in a “Oh, and by the way here’s how the fire happened—JUST KIDDING I’m gonna give you a dream sequence that may or may not be how the fire happened—oh and did we mention that X was really Y and that A didn’t actually do B after all and that Z really had Q going on all along???”
Yeah. Guess maybe I deserve that nickname.
But for you twist fans out there, fear not. There are some shocking revelations still in the script, but I definitely toned it down to the ones that matter.
5. Be Prepared for Negative Feedback
Not everyone is going to like your play. Not all of the jokes are going to land. People might leave, or get bored, or not “get it.”
Just remember that what you’re presenting as a reading isn’t finished. It isn’t perfect. You presented it with these music stands in this library or church basement or wherever to see how the bare bones work. Can the skeleton walk? If so, good. If not, fix a couple of bones before you add the muscles and flesh to it.
Apparently plays are Frankenstein’s monster or something in this analogy? But yeah, you get it.
Don’t take it personally. When you put your show out there, you’re becoming an experience. You’re an experience people decided to have. They went with their friends to go see a reading. They didn’t come there deliberately to insult you. (And if they did, that’s messed up of them, and they probably have no life.)
6. Don’t Give Up
Your play reading might not go the way you want it to. You might think you’re untalented, and that you should give up.
Don’t do that.
I was so excited when Theatre Convivio reached out to me about doing this upcoming reading as a fundraiser for them. At first, I had doubts about the play. I wasn’t sure it was ready. But then, I took it out, dusted it off, and realized that it it could be.
And you know what? My doubts about the script? Those fit perfectly into a major theme in this play… artists having doubts about their work. It all comes together. Amazing.
So with that, I just want to shock everybody with the twist-ending of thanking the people who were vocal about their criticisms, especially while the reading was happening. While I think that talking during a play-reading is definitely something you should NOT do, I will say that the things that those people whispering behind me said during the show actually did lead me to some rewrites that helped streamline things quite a bit.
I also want to appreciate all of those people, again, who were involved with the reading back in 2017. From the spectacular cast who really brought the characters to life (especially Jamin Jollo and Aleah Zimmer) and to all of the people who sat there in the audience, braved the epic run time, and congratulated me afterwards. I didn’t believe you then. I believe you now.
Sincerely,