Adam Szymkowicz

Jan 18, 2008

quote of the day

From the Chester Theater Company website: "My primary goal is to make CTC a fully integrated part of the Hilltown and Pioneer Valley community. The function of a theatre is to provide a forum in which artists engage the community in the lasting questions of life. If a theatre fails in the honest attempt to pursue that end, it has no function at all." The full quote, Byam tells me is this: "My primary goal is to make The Miniature Theatre of Chester a fully integrated part of the Hilltown and Pioneer Valley community. Not to educate, nurture, or enlighten, but to serve. People are rightly wary of artists who pretend to have answers. That function (pretending to have answers) is best left to schools and churches. All a theatre can claim to do is provide a forum in which artists engage the community in the lasting questions of life. If a theatre fails in the honest attempt to pursue that end, it has no function at all... The theatre is here to provoke, stimulate, excite, horrify. Actors, like shamans, enact the mysteries so that the audience may, by the leap of faith, take the hero's beautiful and terrifying journey. That is how we may serve the community." And here is another: "It is not unusual, these days, for arts organizations to serve notice about the great good they perform in a given community. As if the community was an under-served, undeveloped country lucky enough to have somehow attracted the artist's beneficent presence. Artists can, and do, make contributions to the quality of life. But is it truly greater than the shoemaker, plumber or grocer? As confirmed a theatre-lover as I am, I have often gone longer playless than shoeless or hungry. One doesn't even want to consider a world without plumbing... The fact is we would make plays even if we didn't believe they somehow improved the quality of life. We would make plays because, like all creators, we love the making."

us and them

This is taken from a description of an undergraduate theater program. I don't understand exactly what it means but I think it's safe to assume this particular college will not be producing my play Deflowering Waldo this year. "Christians are called to use their creative abilities to the glory of God. For those whose talent lies in theater, this calling can pose a difficult challenge, given Jesus' admonition to live in the world but not be of the world. Unfortunately, today's entertainment industry often promotes values that run counter to a Christian lifestyle. For this reason, any Christian young person considering a future in theater - whether as a performer, teacher, or graduate student - needs a positive Christian environment in which to nurture both creative ability and spiritual growth. Lipscomb University offers the opportunity to study under professors who are concerned about values: the value of imagination and creativity, the value of discipline, the value of excellence in the classroom and on stage, and most important of all, the value of a life lived for God and for others. If you share these values, if you want to grow as a theater artist and as a Christian, Lipscomb may be the place for you. A Christian education can help put talent, career, and spiritual life in the proper perspective, so that Christian faith and involvement in theater need not conflict." What I find most interesting about it is all the unspoken and half spoken but assumed "values" that supposedly go with being a Christian. I was raised Catholic but this is not that. And I'm not from this community so I'm not certain what they mean when they say Christian or if it indeed means anything at all. Perhaps it's just a theater program that is presented to parents this way. I don't know. But I am curious to hear your thoughts.

Jan 17, 2008

It takes courage to be an artist. Or stupidity

Jan 16, 2008

fascinating story on sleep and schools

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/opinion/14kalish.html?em&ex=1200632400&en=546e61aa52ea3027&ei=5087%0A

In 2002, high schools in Jessamine County in Kentucky pushed back the first bell to 8:40 a.m., from 7:30 a.m. Attendance immediately went up, as did scores on standardized tests, which have continued to rise each year.

Huckabee Wants A “Faith-based” Constitution

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/01/15/huckabee-wants-a-faith-based-constitution/

h/t Joshua

http://writerjoshuajames.com/dailydojo/

Jan 15, 2008

the News

I signed a contract today so I think it's safe to say that the amazing people at South Coast Rep have in fact commissioned a play from me. I'm very excited!

Reduced price on Brooke Berman play

As we gear up for our next production, Hunting and Gathering, we are searching for a new audience. The vital theater audience that everyone is searching for – younger people! In honor of this dubious task, we created $20 tickets for all preview performances, available to anyone 35 and under. And, these tickets can be purchased in advance! We see no reason to make you stand in line just because you’re physically able to. Purchase online by clicking here, by phone (212.279.4200) or at the 59E59 Street box office on 59th Street . All you need is the code (PS35), a valid ID, and you’re in.

reprinted with permission

From Jeffrey Sweet on why he's a playwright: I'm not going to speak for all of us. I do this because it's cool to stand at the back of the theatre and listen to hundreds of people laugh at something I thought was funny maybe a year or six years or twenty-five years ago. I do this because I can't run a multi-billion dollar company so I need to find some sphere in which I can run something. I do this -- or did this -- because, since I was lousy at sports, I needed some other way to make girls think I was cool. And it worked -- the lady I've been with for the last 17 years looked me up because she liked my plays and was particularly struck by how sensitively I wrote for women. (Oh, that's a tip -- if you're straight and write well for women, a lot of actresses will indeed want to meet you.) (If you're gay, odds are you write well for women anyway. How's that for a sweeping generalization? ) I do this because the world is chaotic and my experience of the world is also chaotic, so to make this a safer place to myself I take chunks of it and organize it into plays that have shape and coherence. Does this really make the world safer? No. But, as O'Neill has told us, illusion is sometimes necessary to keep functioning. I do this because I have a mostly screwed-up family and I needed to put something where a healthy family should be, and that's turned out to be the community of actors, writers and directors I've gotten to know (except for the hostile, psychotic ones, who remind me too much of my family). I do this because it's a way of tricking myself into finding out what I'm really thinking. I usually don't know when I start a play. By the time I've finished a play, I get to ask, "OK, why did I write this?" And sometimes I come up with responses that are surprising. A little like a burst of fireworks over a battlefield at night. I do this because I want to be fabulously wealthy and see my picture in the paper and meet and get compliments from famous and accomplished people. Obviously I have a firm grasp on reality. Jeff

Jan 14, 2008

this evening

We had a roundtable reading of Temporary Everything at MCC. It went well but I could still work on it some more. This is the second reading of the play. The first reading was about 8 months ago--the last thing read at the last class at Juilliard. Perhaps in another 8 months there will be another new draft of the play. There are only a couple more scenes left to write of Hearts Like Fists (which is what I'm calling it now). I kind of want to drag it out. I'm not ready to let it go.

must read

Must read on Daisey show, a must see when it returns this spring:

http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2008/01/how-theater-f-1.html

It makes me want to form a theater company on the Ridiculous Theater model:

i.e. one that does plays (preferably my plays) in rep for months and months.

The First Ever Caption Contest on this blog

My nephew and their cat. Please leave LOLcats captions of your invention in the comments. I mean, unless you're chicken.

...Or it could be LOLbabies.

something new

A new blog by a playwright friend set up to showcase writing.

http://gettheguests.blogspot.com/

A piece of my play is the second post.

new scene, 1st draft as always

(NURSE 2 enters the room. DR. X is handcuffed to the bed. They look at each other for a long time. Neither of them moves. Then, finally, NURSE 2 approaches.) NURSE 2 I have medication for you. It’ll allow you to sleep. DR. X It’s you. NURSE 2 Yes. DR. X It’s really you. NURSE 2 Yes. DR. X I can’t believe it. NURSE 2 I didn’t know if you’d know me. DR. X I couldn’t ever forget you. NURSE 2 I thought you might. DR. X I thought I’d never see you again. NURSE 2 Me either. DR. X You’re all I think about. Day and night. Afternoon. Morning. When I’m dreaming. When I’m awake. When I’m loading my syringe or washing the dishes. When I’m thinking about getting a cat, really I’m thinking about you. I do it all for you. NURSE 2 I wish you would stop. DR.X If I can’t have love, no one can. NURSE 2 That seems unfair. DR.X Tell me--What is your name? NURSE 2 You don’t know? DR.X No. NURSE 2 Well, let’s keep it this way. DR. X Why is it I can’t remember your name, yet all I think of is you? NURSE 2 Maybe it’s because I hit you on the head. DR.X You did? NURSE 2 Before I left. DR. X Oh. NURSE 2 You were sleeping so peacefully. I wrote the note and I put it where I thought you would see it. DR. X You didn’t sign it. NURSE 2 I thought it was a very polite note but I thought maybe you didn’t necessarily understand polite based on my past experiences with you. So I hit you over the head with a frying pan just to be sure you got the message. You didn’t wake up so I hit you again just to be sure. Then I checked your vitals and everything was OK so I went to work. And I never saw you again. Now it turns out you’re Dr. X. DR.X And you’re, Molly? NURSE 2 No. DR.X Sylvia? NURSE 2 No. DR.X Gertrude. NURSE 2 No. DR.X Betsy? NURSE 2 Listen, I’m not going to tell you. In fact I’m thinking of hitting you over the head again just to make sure you don’t remember that I work here. DR.X Why didn’t it work out between us? NURSE 2 It just didn’t. DR. X Your face. NURSE 2 Please don’t say it. DR.X It’s like a plate. NURSE 2 Oh, God. DR. X I may be handcuffed to the bed right now, but that won’t always be the case. We can run off together. You could even help me escape. NURSE 2 I’m going to transfer to a different hospital. DR. X Don’t do that. NURSE 2 I might move to a different state. DR. X We could move together. NURSE 2 This is the last time you’ll see me. DR. X You don’t know that. No one ever knows that. NURSE 2 I’ll make sure this time. DR. X No. NURSE 2 It was good to see you. I think I had to see you. I had to know. Now I know I made the right decision. DR. X No! NURSE 2 Good bye Dr. X. DR. X Nooooo! (NURSE 2 exits.) DR. X Noooo! Come back! Come back.

Jan 11, 2008

you can too

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/

"No Impact Man is my experiment with researching, developing and adopting a way of life for me and my little family—one wife, one toddler, one dog—to live in the heart of New York City while causing no net environmental impact. "

I recommend

Amazons and Their Men

https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/23881

I saw this show over the summer. It's well worth seeing.

Jan 10, 2008

why

do i wink at myself in the mirror?

article

on the amazing Adam Driver:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/theater/10driver.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=theater

language

I've been thinking a lot about things that you can do onstage that don't work on TV or in film. Definitely there is a theater spectacle that won't work in the small box or the big screen and this usually asks for the audience's imagination to play a role. There are pieces missing from the set perhaps or the staging is not literal and we must imagine that actors are in places they are not actually. Sort of like a blue screen when the audience is asked to create--which can make for a much more amazing setting because when one creates it oneself, it is much realer on an individual level. But that's not what I want to talk about, because that is the realm of the director and we writers rely on their genius to create beautiful things and we all rely on the audience to make little leaps with us. And I don't have the vocabulary to discuss it nor can I create it myself or understand why it is so pleasurable to watch a hint of something instead of have everything filled in. What I want to talk about is the current movement that might be called language-based expressionism that I find exciting on the stage. Often a vocabulary of stage imagery and spectacle is also there. Chuck Mee does this a lot or think of Ruhl's house of string in Euridice. But what is just as exciting in my opinion is the non-naturalistic language that characters use. Sheila Callaghan does this. Sarah Ruhl does this. Adam Bock, Anne Washburn, some of Mac Wellman's students. Many of the poets of the stage from Brown do this. And a lot of other people dabble in it. It's become a movement of sorts. When TV and Film are catching up it's one of the last things we have left. (although you might argue that Deadwood or even the Sopranos sometimes leave the realm of naturalism, they don't do it to the extent that it can be done on the stage.) I'm not sure why this works exactly for the stage. And it doesn't always, but when it does, it's amazing. Perhaps it is because we are more willing to suspend disbelief. Perhaps it has something to do with the space between the stage and the people. Some kind of energy transformed through the air. But enough of that. What am I talking about that I'm so excited about? Here are some examples: Some Adam Bock Sheila Callaghan here or here. The blogosphere's own Matthew Freeman here. I can't express this movement as well as I'd like. I'd love to hear what others have to say about it. What it is, where it's going. Here is a site about Mojo Theater, a much more specific delineation. I do think that a playfulness of language and a flexibility of it is necessary to the future of our great American theater. And I'm looking forward to seeing where it will take us.

a translation

Jan 9, 2008

The Page 73 blog

http://www.p73.org/news/

Jan 8, 2008

Everything's Coming Up Playwrights

Yesterday K got some great news.

Today I got some great news.

Will tell you soon. I swear.

but yay! The sun came out.

voting machines

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06Vote-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

"Introduced after the 2000 hanging-chad debacle, the machines were originally intended to add clarity to election results. But in hundreds of instances, the result has been precisely the opposite: they fail unpredictably, and in extremely strange ways; voters report that their choices "flip" from one candidate to another before their eyes; machines crash or begin to count backward; votes simply vanish. (In the 80-person town of Waldenburg, Ark., touch-screen machines tallied zero votes for one mayoral candidate in 2006 — even though he's pretty sure he voted for himself.)"

Republicans and Democrats

http://mrexcitement.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-they-won.html

How the right stopped the health care plan

Jan 7, 2008

reprinted with permission

When I read the recent Playwrights Horizons mailing promising Ruhl's new play, I was surprised to discover some entertaining and enlightening articles. Here is one by Adam Greenfield about dramaturgy. Not a Four-Letter Word It never fails. You drop the word in conversation, perhaps at a dinner party, and eyes begin to glaze over. Whether you’re surrounded by dearest friends, closest family, or even your most sinister rivals, nothing can so reliably promise a blank stare in return as the mere mention of this word. Which is totally understandable: 1) In the greater context, it’s a relatively new word; 2) Nobody knows what it means, except the people who do it; 3) Even the people who do do it have a hard time explaining what it is, exactly, that they do do; 4) Its combination of consonants and vowels simply do not fall prettily upon the ears. I fear, even, that once you come upon this word in print after this sentence, you’ll grow immediately bored, roll your eyes, and turn the page to read about subscriber perks. “Dramaturgy.” (Still there?) I decided to spend my column-inches in our newsletter this month writing about this word in the attempt to identify, specify and de-mystify the many meanings it has. Perhaps, if I do this right, the word won’t evoke so much awkwardness; perhaps I’ll be more suave when the subject arises; perhaps my parents, who still tell their friends that I’m an actor, will get what I do. We know, of course, that the “wright” (as opposed to the “write”) that we see at the end of the word “playwright” suggests that this artist is not simply a writer of plays, but a “maker” or a “worker” of plays, just as a wainwright is a maker of wagons and a wheelwright is a maker of wheels. Similarly, the word “dramaturgy,” comprised of the Greek root drame (“play, action, or deed”) and the suffix -urgy, (“process, or working”) reflects an active process, the examination of what makes the gears of a play move, just as metallurgy is the working of metals and thaumaturgy is the working of miracles. A dramaturg strives to understand the building blocks of storytelling and performance, seeing deep into the soul of a play, discovering the tectonic plates a writer has arranged to make a story unfold, and to make sure the story, the storytellers, and the spectators are all aligned so that the live theatrical event works. The birth of the capital-D Dramaturg as a job title came when Gotthold Lessing was hired by Germany’s Hamburg Repertory in 1767. A playwright and theatre critic, Lessing’s careful evaluation and advocacy of new writers led to the development of a new repertory of German works. He became a kind of resident moralizer for the theatre, seeking a theater climate freed from commercial pressures, striving to continuously challenge an audience who was at first resistant to the growing German Romantic movement of the time. Quickly, the Dramaturg was established in all of Germany’s major repertory companies. In time it took hold in European theaters, but it wasn’t until the 1960’s that this position emerged in America. So, in the spectrum of theater’s history, this job is quite new. Time is sure to bring a continued evolution of this job; consider how much the role of Director has evolved since it became prevalent in nineteenth century. Today’s dramaturg is constantly being defined and redefined, both in the context of a production and a theater company’s day-to-day operations. At his or her core, a dramaturg seeks to ensure that the stories selected for the stage in a given season are being told as effectively, according to the playwrights’ intents, as possible. The greatest ally, one hopes, of Playwright, Director, and Producer, a dramaturg is a shape-shifter, keeping a watchful eye on how the story lands on an audience. But every play operates according to its own unique system of rules, and every project evolves according to its own unique process, so the dramaturg is forced to be enormously flexible, changing the manner in which he or she works according to the varying dictates of each day. Perhaps this is the reason a dramaturg’s role in the process is so hard to pin down. Any dramaturg will have coined a different metaphor for their role in rehearsals. Depending on the play’s needs, you’re asked to be an atlas, a glossary, a muse, a mediator, an editor, a biographer, an historian, a therapist, a fascist dictator, a court jester, a philosopher, a watchdog. But working on productions is really just one part of the job. A dramaturg also acts as a sort of in-house critic for a theater company, keeping an eye on a theater’s artistic mission, holding its actions up against its stated purpose. In many theaters, “Literary Manager” is synonymous with “Dramaturg” because the act of tracking new plays and writers is a dramaturgical function. Working with marketing and development departments, a dramaturg will also help to make sure that a play or production is being accurately represented and contextualized to its patrons, funders, and audiences. (If Long Day’s Journey Into Night, for example, is being billed as “a family comedy,” we’ll step in.) I write this from the Southwest corner of the Playwrights Horizons offices here on the third floor of 416 W. 42nd Street, where the winsome Christie Evangelisto and myself collaboratively head the dramaturgical goings-on of the theater. While Christie focuses on musical theater and I focus on non-musicals, she and I take turns working on productions, and we’re blessed with a staff of dramaturgically-minded cohorts. Steven Levenson (Literary Assistant), Elliot B. Quick (Literary Resident), and Katie Courtien (Musical Theatre Resident) are all a terrific support staff with a keen ear for dramatic storytelling, and under the leadership of head honcho Tim Sanford, the six-member Literary Department is dramaturgical dream-team. Together, we’re busy reading and advocating new stories and new writers, supporting the development of new voices, and helping to ensure our programming remains aligned with Playwrights Horizons’ mission to promote American playwriting. We’re just sorry that we killed the dinner party.