Mr. Emery, thank you for agreeing to meet with Glossy, I’m a big fan.
Me too.

You’ve been called the Voice of your Generation.  Do you feel that title comes with a sense of responsibility?
Well – sure.  To be the voice of your generation is always a responsibility. It’s just– you know.  How responsible can one be?

You’ve already experienced amazing success at such a young age.  Where do you see yourself twenty years from now?
Dead.
(Laughter)
You find that funny?

Not optimistic for a long career?
Well, I mean, look at whose died. Great talent has died young. And with the lives that they’ve lead – how does that make me any different, y’know.

Sounds like you believe this is something you were meant to do.
Yeah.  It’s not something I want to do, but it’s something that… Clearly… (a pause.) What magazine is this again?

Glossy.
Pretty girls on the cover? Yeah, I know that magazine.

Do you think of yourself as primarily a singer or as a poet?
(long pause) Neither.

What do you think of yourself as?
I’m gonna leave it at that.

How would you classify your music?
I’d say it’s pretty good.

Could you tell us a little bit about your creative process?
(pause.) No. (pause) My creative process is mine.

Plans for your first European tour are in the works.  How do you think your reception will be different in Europe than here in the States?
I can’t wait for that. They love us. Back over in Europe, they’re very appreciative of um – American music.  I’m very excited to go there.  Plus there, I could y’know, have some beer maybe over in Germany because–

Right.  You’re not even twenty-one yet.
Shh!

Are you currently seeing anybody special?
No.  No I’m not.  Why, are you interested?
Who, me?
Yeah.
Hey I’m just doing my job here.
That red dress you have on is very stimulating, I have to say.
“Stimulating”?
A little bit.
Okay.  Well that’s actually the last question I have for you, so–
No! Come on–
Thank you for your time.

[ANDY TAKES A HUSBAND premiers this weekend at The Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Studio 6.  Friday, July 30th @8:00PM, Saturday, July 31st @8:00PM, and Sunday, August 1st @ 2:00PM and 6:00PM. All performances are free. Email reservations@icbins.com for your tickets.]

Oh Roman, Oh Roman, Oh Roman

Now, this is my first experience directing a piece of my own writing, and attempting any sort of neutrality of perspective as a director can be a sort of preposterous thing to ask.  A writer often feels they want to communicate so much with a piece, but a director must focus on what they want to say with this production.   Through rehearsals, I am reminded again and again that discovering this focus comes through a process of open collaboration.  Thank goodness for my assistant directors Lauren and Manuel, and thank goodness for my amazingly open and creative cast of Stella Adler actors.

It can be a scary thing for a writer to watch characters that they’ve seen so vividly in their mind’s eye to take shape through the imagination of an Actor.  The characters you felt you knew so well are transformed before your eyes into sometimes radically different, often more complex, and always more exciting people than those you’ve imagined.  Finding those surprising moments in rehearsals has been absolutely exhilarating.  This is what the theater really is; the script is nothing more than a blueprint for a real piece of art constructed in the rehearsal studio, and born on opening night.  Two weeks away from Friday!  Hope to see every one of you there the weekend of July 30th.

- j.

"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.

but you know what? you know what, College?  i’m glad it’s over.  turns out things are pretty all right here out here in the cold.  and by cold i mean my 90+ degree non-airconditioned convent cell that I’m forced to live in because i had to pay for you and now i have no money.

just so happens lots of us NYU-exes are keeping busy this august.  this friday, I’m planning on catching Dan Moyer’s play Winnemucca at The Fringe which has been getting great reviews.  especially looking forward to this because last october, icbins had the pleasure of hosting a reading of an earlier draft as part of our reading series.

also, our pals at new york neo classical continue to be the shit.  Yesterday, i saw their workshop of Henry VI (abridged) directed by our favorite, Bill Griffin.  i love these guys.  even as it continues to evolve, Henry VI was every bit as much of a pleasure as their spring production of Measure for Measure.

more good stuff from us ex-tischies to come in 2009 i’m sure, even as we welcome the freshly dumped class-of-2009 into our comforting open arms.

- j.

You got one more chance to catch Winnemucca at The Fringe – Friday, August 28th at Venue #5, The Lafayette St. Theatre @ Theaters at 45 Bleeker.   Performances by Jenni Putney, Grayson DeJesus & Will Brill, written by Dan Moyer & directed by Wren Graves. Buy tickets here.

fuck yes

there are few good feelings like the exhilaration of finishing a draft of a play but this time i feel tremendous relief to be moving on to other projects – some short form, completing that screenplay, etc.. And although i have little justification for feeling this way, i’ve been scolding myself for months for taking too long and doing too much work on what is essentially a first draft. my gut is telling me that i must have done something wrong to be trudging along in the mud and obsessing over and incessantly tweaking this silly draft in a way i’ve never obsessed or tweaked before.

Am i being a little mean to myself?  To expand on some themes Chiara touched on in her last post…  How can a young writer ever measure how successfully they are doing their job? by the number of completed works? by hours spent plugging away? cups of coffee consumed? What?

as unanswerable a question as this should be, there are always those with strong opinions indeed:

when you are a writer first learning your craft, there is never a shortage of people available to give you some advice on the topic of productivity:  you should get up early. you should set goals. you should let it happen naturally.  you should write in solitude.  you should write in cafés. you should take criticism.  you should listen to your own voice. you should not worry if you’re not producing work.  if you aren’t writing every day you aren’t a writer at all.

Mario Fratti, badass playwright

while at NYU, i had the good fortune to meet Mario Fratti – a playwright who was a guest speaker in my renaissance drama class.  he was pro-structure, pro-discipline, pro-craft and big into the de-mystification of the writing process – no “muses” no mysterious natural “voice”, just hard work and craft. And if I really needed more proof that this guy had it all figured out, the gentleman is a master of productivity. according to his website, Fratti has written nearly 70 plays and his work has been produced in over 600 theaters. what the fuck.

the time i had to question Mr. Fratti on his incredible success was sadly limited. I squeaked in just one question: “Mr. Fratti,” I asked. “You must work on multiple plays at once, am I correct?”

“Never,” he said.

Never?! You gotta be kidding me, sir! Like many college students it was in my very nature to be a multi-tasker.  How could such an extreme level of focus be possible by a mere mortal…? But this was Mario Fratti talking. Mario Fratti, my newly adopted Hero of Playwriting. It had to be true.  The only conclusion to be made was that I was on the wrong track and I needed to seriously rethink my process if I was ever going to amount to anything at all.

Three years later I am not yet the Perfect Playwriting Machine – and I’m afraid I’ve even let other more loosey-goosey, hippy-dippy writing philosophies infiltrate my otherwise robotic mind.  Sometimes… I even let writing happen all on its own.

I figure probably 95 per cent of why I have been discouraged with my progress on this piece has nothing to do with not feeling productive – but rather that I am disturbed that this piece has been the sole, primary focus of my heart and mind for nearly a year.  Where does that come from?  I got the idea somewhere along the line that as a young person I should be a certain kind of writer. I have the enormous expectation of having dozens of projects, one after the other… simultaneously — dozens and dozens of projects until damn, you can’t believe I’ve got so many projects because really – that’s a lot of projects. But this year – my first year out in the real world as a real writer – that just hasn’t been the case.

If I can put forth my own self-serving platitude for the ermging writer, I believe that the most difficult thing that (s)he will have to learn is when to stop listening to all the damn advice about what a writer is supposed to be – and just allow his/herself to be a writer of whatever kind that works.

the good ol' days

though i frequently look back on the days of the typewriter with false nostalgia, there’s no doubt that macbooks decked out with Final Draft have changed the writing process in many ways for the better. how great is it to be able to edit drafts instantly, format automatically, and have years of your work in an aesthetically-pleasing five-pound package? (pretty great.) unfortunately, what’s created with ease is destroyed with ease, and with that in mind i bring you:

the broody writer’s guide to blunting the pain of the computer disaster that will inevitably befall you too, (yes, you!):

• back up. yeah, this is some “no duh” advice, but even the best of us don’t do it enough. my last backup was May 22nd – just a little more than a month ago, but enough time for me to write 70 pages of a draft i’ll never get back. i keep my external HD on my desk instead of tucked away somewhere to encourage me to just plug it in and back up after i turn in for the night. (obviously this wasn’t encouragement enough but the idea sounded pretty clever at the time.)

• register with final draft (if you haven’t already). this is key. as long as you’ve done this, getting final draft up and running again on your new machine is as easy as pointing your browser to www.finaldraft.com, downloading the software and recovering your serial number via your registered email address. you don’t even need to keep the box. depending on what version of the software you originally purchased, your computer might tell you that you’ve tried to load the software on to too many machines, but a 2 minute call to final draft customer service will clear it up immediately.

• gmail is just about the greatest thing to happen to broody writers since coffee! upon finishing a significant draft email it to yourself – or to your collaborators – right away. it’ll then be accessible from any computer with an internet connection forrrreeeevvverr. (although i wasn’t smart enough to do this with the new play, such an action did save the new screenplay i’m working on with matt patches from complete annhilation. oh boy.)

• and speaking of coffee, drink coffee with lids. but in the event of a spill, don’t panic. turn everything off, unplug everything, remove the battery, and let your baby dry. it takes an absurd amount of willpower, but don’t turn your computer on again for at least 24 hours. the longer you wait, the more likely your data will be recovered – this is a case where impatience can definitely cost you big. Spills void apple’s otherwise generous warranty, but in the event of the worst, Tekserve offers spill cleanup at as reasonable rates as you’re gonna get.

• get over it. sometimes there’s nothing you can do but get writing again. you may end up with a completely different 70 pages than you had a week ago – but so what. your memories of what worked and the fresh start may bring about an even stronger product than you had before. all you’ve really lost is time. and you’re a broody writer – which means all you really love in life is writing and feeling sorry for yourself, right? i mean, this sounds like your kinda situation, pal!

- j.

well now i’ve definitely flipped it.  not only am i willingly working again with matt patches, but i’m going to be working in a medium that doesn’t come naturally to me at all.  i always loved my screenwriting classes at NYU with Joe V (holla), but when it came to screenwriting, i always felt like i was swimming upstream.

so why is that?  screenplays are scripts right? with dialogue? and characters? i love characters! so what’s the deal? what makes writing a screenplay so horribly different?

i have a few thoughts:

1. screenwriting is visual

i could go on and on about this.  this is probably the fundamental reason why i find writing for the screen so irksome.  i’m an audial thinker.  i feel a closer kinship to poets and musicians than i do to my screenwriting cousins.  when i’m thinking of a play, i’m constantly thinking of how the play will sound to an audience.  all that visual stuff?  eh… director can handle that.

as lauren has touched on in a post last week, a play need not rely on spectacle to be a great play.  the writers that i like best have a great understanding of sound.  and even in the most lavish theatrical productions, all those sets, lights, costumes can only suggest a world to an audience, who are left with their imagination to fill in the rest.  movies on the other hand?  they can transport you to another world.  with pretties.

further observations:  when i write a play, the arc of the story usually comes through an organic process of doing what feels right, writing, and rewriting.  However…

2. screenwriting requires meticulous planning

lookie! for my project with patches, i drew a diagram and everything!

my diagram, so very very proud

of course, upon closer inspection of act II, one might suspect plotting out a story in detail isn’t my strong suit:

"stuff stuff stuff | stuff stuff stuff"

3. screenwriting is a medium in which you can actually make money (in theory)

now, this one is just isn’t fair.  even the most successful and famous playwrights tend to have some sort of auxiliary source of income.  but i don’t want to be a secretary for the rest of my life.  i want to make a living. hey – i’d love to make a killing.

i complain to lauren about this. Hey, Producer.  why is it i can’t be a playwright… for a job?

another excellent observation, lauren: screenwriting is nothing like vomiting.  if anything, it’s more like a really persistent itch that never feels quite right even if you scratch at it all day.

anyway, here’s to hoping this project has incredible unforseen success. hooray for collaboration.  hilarious hijinks are sure to ensue, despite my obvious handicap.

- j.

Fernando Pessoa: Poet, Loony

This has been my first exposure to the work of Pessoa, who wrote poems under dozens of “heteronyms” – beyond pseudonyms, the names he wrote under – Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, Álvaro de Campos, etc. – were poets unto themselves with complete histories, astrological charts, politics, personalities, and poetical styles.  The heteronyms engaged in debate with one another, criticized one another and wrote each other letters – as well as writing letters to Pessoa’s polygamist (?) girlfriend, Ofélia Queirós, who we can only assume was very confused.

In his writing, sometimes Pessoa views his own personality as a blank – a medium for the voices of his heteronyms.

One of the poems written under his own name begins:

I don’t know how many souls I have.
I’ve changed at every moment.
I always feel like a stranger.
I’ve never seen or found myself.
From being so much, I have only soul.
A man who has soul has no calm.
A man who sees is just what he sees.
A man who feels is not who he is.

Pessoa himself (whatever that means) would compare his work to that of a playwright, although he claimed to be more than a playwright because the identity of “Pessoa” is left completely behind.  While I’m not ready to abdicate the playwright’s personality completely, I’ve been fascinated by the idea and how it correlates to the relationship between a playwright and his or her characters.

Pessoa (which appropriately translates from the Portuguese to “person”) claimed that  whenever he thought he felt his own personality emerging he would soon realize that it was actually the birth of another heteronym.  When my characters are well developed and I’m deep into the world, writing a scene feels more like taking dictation than creating words of my own.  But a playwright must still function as a sort of architect – structuring a world for the other voices to sound in – choosing what to include and when to include it.  Even Pessoa had to decide, (whatever he may have claimed to the contrary), What to Write, Who to Be and When to Be Who.

Pessoa’s perception of having many souls reminds me of the words of another poet:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.

And though it is said that Portugul’s four greatest poets are Fernando Pessoa, I do not believe that his fragmented personality is unique or even so unusual.  I’d go so far as to say that splitting oneself up into contradictory pieces is a necessity for effectively creating voices that an actor can play and that an audience can believe. It would be a boring play indeed in which every character on stage were speaking for the playwright.  (Especially if you’ve known some playwrights.)

- j.

OFELIA’S LOVERS is a new play by Mariana Carreño King, directed by Henry Guzmán with original music by Sandra Rubio and performances by Arjun Gupta, Maria Helan, Brian Homer, Robert Jiménez, Armando Riesco, and Aaron Schroeder.  Performances will take place June 12th and 13th at ToRoNaDa, 150 First Ave (corner of 9th st), 2nd floor.  Reservations can be made by calling (212) 473-1991.  The workshop reading is free.

Davey Crockett, B'ar Hunter - Michael Schreck, artist

Further Life and Times, a play i wrote about my hometown, is having a free, public reading as part of INTAR theater’s New Works Lab a week from today. the play is a romantic comedy about david crockett coming back from the dead & causin’ a whole heap of trouble!

performance will take place at 5:00 PM, thursday june 4th at INTAR Theater, 500 W. 52nd St, 4th floor.  mention ICBINS and i’ll make sure you get in extra free.

- j.

for me, a bit of a goody-two-shoes raised in a texas school system that made you feel guilty about taking that second tylenol, a problem has emerged.  take a look at some of my heroes and lemme know if you see a pattern here:

Bob Dylan

Jack Kerouac

William Shakespeare

shit. i’m way too lame to become a smoker.   i’m not even an alcoholic. so what does an aspiring broody playwright do when she can’t get what she secretly wants…?

oh right.  she lives vicariously through her characters.

here’s a little excerpt from my newest play:

SC. 1

(Everyone is sitting around smoking.)

ROSA

Did you hear? I have become universally renown for my art and am currently making enough money to live comfortably doing only what I love.

LAYLA

No kidding? I hadn’t heard. It must be because lately I’ve been so busy having great sex.

- j.