"That's it kitty, breeeeeeeath"
Recently I’ve started an acting conservatory program at Stella Adler, which includes a round of classes including a voice and speech class – a technical aspect of training that any actor will tell you is unthinkable to neglect. Early in the term, voice and speech class has mostly consisted of my classmates and I lying on our backs and breathing deeply. As I stared at the ceiling and imagined my intercostal muscles spreading apart, I couldn’t help but consider how this strange work to playwriting:
It’s been my feeling that playwriting and songwriting are sisters – perhaps more closely related than that reoccurring pair, playwriting and screenwriting. I’ve come to believe that any good playwright is as conscious of the Sound of his or her work as any songwriter, and unfortunately I feel that this is an aspect that many aspiring playwrights neglect. Although an emphasis on storytelling for a young playwright makes perfect sense, an almost equal emphasis could be placed on the aspect of lyric.
In the poetry world, before printing became widespread and affordable, poetry for the masses was primarily a spoken art. But in the Renaissance, poetry also became a visual art and poets became conscious of how their work appeared on the page as well as its sound. They were aware of their readers in their homes with books in their hands.
But here plays and poetry diverge. Play scripts are not a visual medium. And yet too often today they are treated as such – scripts in development are passed around via email to be read by a collaborator in silence – a convenient practice, and a necessary one - but one I think could actually be detrimental to the development of new work if relied on too heavily. Plays must be heard out loud – even in the earliest stages of their development. The actor is our instrument. And the closer our relationship is to our actors, and the deeper our collaboration and our understanding of what they do, the better our plays will be.
-j.
icbins
jraemaldonado
misterpatches
lbferrel
chiatola
mannycbins
rmaranoff
An actor’s reading of your play is also going to be among the closest readings you have of it. Aside from you, actors can be some of your best critics, because they are the people working most intimately with the text after you distribute drafts of it.