I Can't Believe It's Not Shakespeare

 Nepotism Alert: ICBINS is doing a table reading of my play, “When You Die You Go To Target“. This is going to be an interesting experience for  me, so I thought I’d blog about the whole process. Hopefully we can get some some other people to blog about it from an Actor’s/Dramaturg’s perspective as well.

Right now the table reading is scheduled for June 28th. The actors will be sent their scripts on the 24th, a week from Wednesday. That means that I have ONE WEEK to do what I hope will be a significant rewrite of the script….

I always find it helpful to have specific goals in mind while doing a rewrite…otherwise it’s easy to lose yourself in other, less important specifics without actually fixing the things that need to be fixed. My goals for my Target rewrite are:

• The play, as it is right now, has around ten characters….quite a lot crammed in to a relatively small setting! In general, I don’t have a rule against large casts, but in this play, I do think it gets a little crowded, and some characters are developed more than others. So I might (gasp!) cut or consolidate a few people.

• Story Arc: this play is a comedy, and a lot of it was written for the jokes. There is definitely pathos in the play, but I think it probably needs a stronger basic story line to propel both the comedic and tragic elements.

• My weakness as a writer (well, not weakness, but trap I often fall into at first) is to overwrite the dialogue. I need to go through and make sure things are as snappy and succinct as possible!

So those are my three goals for this rewrite. I had a playwriting teacher who suggested focusing on one character for each rewrite, and really making sure their arc was sound. I think that’s solid advice, and maybe later on I’ll try that (provided I’ve cut some characters!)

If all goes well, I will be able to fix those things in time for the table reading, so that I will be able to focus on other aspects of the script that need attention. There’s nothing worse than going into a reading already KNOWING the problems with a script…it’s completely unhelpful because people will just point out issues you were already aware of, and you won’t be able to do anything except say “I know, pacing, I know.”

So, wish me luck! By the next time I blog for ICBINS, the reading will be over, and I’ll let you guys know how it went!