Happy Anniversary EWG Blog!

By Sevan Kaloustian Greene, member of the 2011 Emerging Writers Group 

This is all too cliche and pat to say, but I can't believe it's been a year since the EWG blog sprouted in cyberspace. When I first brought up the idea of starting the blog I wasn't sure what the response was going to be, but the The Public gave me their blessing and bit of space on their site to try it out. It's been slow to take roots, but in the past 12 months we've seen an amazing slew of topics and responses that I hope have been informative and challenging for readers. We've covered everything from race to rejection letters and profanity to hair styles, and still managed to make it all relevant to the industry as it exists today. 

I hope you've enjoyed getting to meet some of the EWG bloggers, past and present, and getting to know them as people and as playwrights. I think we represent such a diverse tapestry of opinions and perspectives - a diversity sorely lacking in the theatre. While we've recently seen voices speaking up for equality and recognition (for example, the AAPAC), I think we have a long way to go in diversifying the storytelling on the American stage that moves beyond tokenism and commercial pandering. Lest I get on my sopabox in a celebratory post, I just want to express how much I hope that the melange of cultures in the EWG does one day, sooner rather than later, becomes a part of the American theatre in a recognizable way. We owe it to ourselves and to our art form to meet the standards being set in other places such as the UK. I believe that now is the time to start seeing and hearing those different voices even though we may be bombarded by whitewashed TV and film (oops - got on the soapbox). 

I hope you've enjoyed this rather mild, and wet, summer. I can't wait for the fall cycle of blogs to kick off next week as we head into our second year. I hope you'll continue to come back every week to see what we have to say and to pass it on to friends and colleagues. Changes have to start somewhere, no matter how small and insignificant they may seem now. 

My immense thanks and gratitude to all the EWG bloggers who have contributed and to the folks at The Public who entertained my silly little notion to start a blog and have supported it all the way. 

Sevan K. Greene is a member of the 2011 Emerging Writers Group. He's got some readings and things coming up which you should check out on his website (www.sevangreene.com) which he'll update as soon as he's done putting the finishing touches on his play about Lucifer. Yes...THAT Lucifer. Intrigued now, aren't you? An Apostolic Middle East-born Americanized playwright writing about a traditionally Christian force of evil in a romantic and heroic way. Oooo...prepare ye. 

This post is part of a weekly series from the Emerging Writers Group community of playwrights. The EWG is two-year playwriting fellowship at The Public Theater seeking to target playwrights at the earliest stages of their careers. In so doing, The Public hopes to create an artistic home for a diverse and exceptionally talented group of up-and-coming playwrights.

The Lazarus Play

By Pia Wilson, member of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group 

I let it go too soon. 

My play. I let it go too soon and moved on. I had a public reading of the play and handed it off to my agent and went on to write the next play and the next one. 

I knew there was trouble with the play; in my gut, I knew. It was in decent shape though, and I can be impulsive. I wanted to get it out there. I’d heard the play out loud in a wonderful reading with great actors, and although the ending was far too happy for my taste (yes, I said happy), I figured I could work on that trouble spot if I got a production for the play. 

You see I say “if” because in America, we’re not as big on producing plays as we are in “developing” them with readings, barebones productions and the like. I’d already had a solid reading, and the play had gotten a chance to breathe, if not live, so .... 

But then I was sitting at my kitchen table on a Sunday morning, ready to write, and I opened the play by mistake. I opened the play, glanced at it and then closed it. I went on to write something else. Then, months later, I became obsessed. 

I am still obsessed with this play that was, by all accounts, done. I am consumed by this little, Lazarus play, which has been quite patient with me. I can now see the play in a different light than I had before. I was too close before. With time and emotional distance, I started rewriting the play, knowing what needed to be changed. 

An entire character is gone from the play. I indulged my instinct to go darker with the tone, and that lead to other insights, changing key relationships in the play. Previously, I had been resisting the coupling of two characters I thought were morally wrong to be together. I let them go for it, with happy results (happy for me, not the characters). The happy ending has been painted with much darker colors, and although the characters say similar things, the meaning of the dialog has changed. 

I’ve come to think that half of rewriting is uncovering instincts and thoughts the writer has buried or has yet to find hiding in the subconscious. Of course, there is craft involved in tightening dialogue, pushing some themes to the foreground while relegating others to the background, and making sure the structure is sound. But there’s something to be said about exploring the ocean just beneath our smart, awake brains. I think we could stand to let the lizard brain slither about a little more, hissing into our ears. 

The funny thing about the theater, though, is that once the industry has read something and passed on it, the play doesn’t get a second chance. This is understandable, considering how busy literary departments are and how many plays they read. Yet, knowing all this, I went back to fix the play. I’m still working on getting it right: not because I’m hoping some theater will pick it up, but because I want to do right by my characters. I love them, even if they are really, truly bonkers (or terrible or funny), and I can’t get along without them. I owe them for filling my life with their absorbing chatter. I owe them and so I’ll give them another chance to breathe. 

Pia Wilson is a member of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group and is also obsessed with coffee, whiskey, traveling and finding the secret to life in big, old, dusty books in obscure bookstores (not necessarily in that order). This post is part of a weekly series from the Emerging Writers Group community of playwrights. 

The EWG is two-year playwriting fellowship at The Public Theater seeking to target playwrights at the earliest stages of their careers. In so doing, The Public hopes to create an artistic home for a diverse and exceptionally talented group of up-and-coming playwrights.

things that other people aren’t willing to do

By Akin Salawu, member of the 2008 Emerging Writers Group 

I’m endlessly chastising myself for not writing as much as I could. When I’m lucky, I manage to maintain a regular writing schedule. Of course life, work, dating, the gym, and lately the Olympics are powerful distractions from writing. 

Marveling at the determination and commitment of Olympic athletes has had me thinking I need to approach writing the way an Olympic athlete approaches training for their sport. Granted, athletes seem fundamentally different from artists, but we do share key challenges. Athletes and writers share an endless drive for improvement, an unquenchable passion for our respective disciplines, and we are constantly struggling to conquer ourselves. 

Michael Phelps trained 365 days a year for 5 years straight without missing a single day. He told Piers Morgan: “If you wanna be the best, you have to do things that other people aren’t willing to do.” 

A decade ago, I was much more disciplined about writing 4 hours every single day. Lately I’m lucky to get 2 hours a day. Since the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony I told myself I would get up at 5AM every day to write for 2 hours before leaving for work and then write for 2 more hours before going to bed. It has not been going so well. 

For some reason, I find it easier to get to the gym every single day than I do to get in 4 hours of writing every day. The physiological benefits of exercise may far exceed the satisfaction of writing 4 hours a day. However, the endorphins released in the gym ought not be more powerful than the joy of writing. 

Even training for my first triathlon 2 years ago came easier than writing 4 hours a day. But if I’m honest, my time in the gym is fairly mindless and I just have to get through the motions. The caliber of training achieved by Olympians is anything but mindless as writing is rarely mindless. 

Yet forcing yourself to write when you are completely uninspired is truly grueling. Lack of inspiration suggests writing should perhaps not be approached the way an Olympic athlete trains. Phelps surely had countless mornings where jumping into the pool was the last thing he wanted to do. When we writers just aren’t feeling like writing, it’s just so easy to surrender. I sometimes tell myself, “It won’t be any good if I force it.” 

Strangely, the first days back in the gym after being away for a while are truly brutal. But you know that as long as you keep going back, it will get progressively easier and more enjoyable. And every writer knows that the more diligently and consistently you face the blank page, finding that ever elusive inspiration gets progressively easier and more enjoyable. 

And some days I fail. The writer in me occasionally fears failure. But then I remember the Michael Jordan quote up on the corkboard above my desk: 

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career, I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over in my life. And that's why I succeed!" 

Akin Salawu is a Brooklyn based reality tv editor and sporadic triathlete working on a screenplay about a groundbreaking doctor at Harvard McLean. 

This post is part of a weekly series from the Emerging Writers Group community of playwrights. The EWG is two-year playwriting fellowship at The Public Theater seeking to target playwrights at the earliest stages of their careers. In so doing, The Public hopes to create an artistic home for a diverse and exceptionally talented group of up-and-coming playwrights.

Musings on Eight Months in New York: MORE, BIGGER, BETTER

By Riti Sachdeva, member of the 2013 Emerging Writers Group 

I hesitated to move to New York. “Go on,” people tried to persuade me, “New York’s the center of theater.” Having made theater in Albuquerque for the past fifteen years, I know one doesn’t need to be in New York to make compelling theater or to cultivate discerning audiences. One does, however, need to live in New York to get paid to make theater. Thus, the truer statement, New York is the center of the economy rang clear as I headed back to the east coast. Being admitted into the Emerging Writers Group at the Public has led me to commit to being in New York for at least two years. 

As we were walking to Union Square one night after an EWG meeting, my sister EWGer asked how I was doing. I replied that July was a month of reflecting on the excess data in my brain and body about the last seven months as a theater maker in New York. Was it the thin tone in my voice or the slump of my shoulders that lead her to ask, “Yeah, kind of heartbreaking, huh?” Well… yeah… kinda. It seems like New York is my new squeeze, the honeymoon period’s been over, I’m learning to accept its offerings and rejections, wondering what I can live with and what is a deal breaker, contemplating a monogamous vs. bi-coastal relationship, and anxious about how long it might last. 

Don’t get me wrong, New York has given me so much love: friendly people, eager collaborators, wonderful sublets, lucrative projects, brave productions, and so many opportunities. What I didn’t expect to experience is the crisis of NOT ENOUGH. With all the blessings I’ve received and continue to receive in this city, I find myself in the abyss of “it’s not enough, I want more, there is more.” The feminist socialist in me thinks, “Of course you’ll think this, you’re in the gut of capitalism and the bile of the system is all about MORE, BIGGER, BETTER.” The meditating spiritual seeker in me thinks, “You’re here to work through this – it’s a core issue that has arisen, once again, to pass.” The underdog artist in me thinks, “Fuck this New York theater caste system and the contest for the theater elites’ attention.” 

All the banter in my head still can’t stop the rise of the noun that acts like a verb- AMBITION: a desire for personal achievement. In Albuquerque, ambition was an internal gauge of continuously pushing myself to write, act, perform, produce, create, build audience, and generate dialogue. Within the EWG, ambition is to rise to the standards of nine peers who are phenomenal writers and generously sharp, critical thinkers. In the larger context of the New York theater pecking order, ambition has come to mean acknowledgement or recognition from theater institutions with resources and networks. I’ve spent over twenty years being an independent artist, telling stories of people whose experiences are largely invisible, casting people who otherwise have rare opportunities, bringing in audiences who are sure theater is utterly irrelevant and now, having moved to New York, I crave the approval of important people who run important institutions? Really? How did I get here? 

Part of the issue is that what was once my art is now becoming my profession. Money and economics walk hand in hand with power and prestige and create a hierarchy. The insidious way in which I’ve bought into the theater caste system over the last eight months is a little scary and embarrassing. What I mean by the theater caste system is the top down pyramid of levels of shows that presume quality through economic investment: Broadway, off-Broadway, regional, off-off Broadway, and community-based theater. Admittedly, even the idea of attempting to climb this ladder of success wouldn’t have entered my consciousness if I weren’t part of the EWG. That the play I submitted to get into the group is a fourteen character piece set in 1947 South Asia, weaving the intimate, epic, and speculative, makes me sometimes hope there just might be room for my voice in the “upper rooms” of the theater hierarchy. The questions then are about my attachment to this ambition-this moving up in the hierarchy to be bestowed the resources so I can have MORE, BIGGER, BETTER. 

What will happen, what will it mean if I don’t get MORE, BIGGER, BETTER? 

And maybe more importantly, what am I willing to do to try to achieve it; give up to achieve it; to say/not say to achieve it; who am I willing to befriend/avoid to achieve it; who/what am I willing to support/ignore to achieve it? What will mark the “achievement of it” anyway? Or is it a bottomless desire? 

In conversation with the EWG compañeros, we’ve talked about not begrudging each other’s opportunities and achievements because recognition for one makes us all more visible. We trust this to be true. Spiritually, however, I know that any attachment to receiving opportunities and accolades is a set up for envy, misery, resentment, and the no-win situation of comparing myself to others, in which, I will always come up short. 

The interesting aspect about my struggle/discomfort with ambition in the context of the New York theater hierarchy is that I belittle my achievements in a way I do not judge others. These are things I’ve caught myself thinking and saying about my work: it was only an off-off Broadway production; it wasn’t an Equity so-and-so; it was just a short independent film; it wasn’t a national commercial; it wasn’t a paid blah blah. The list in my head of why it is not enough, why it should be MORE, BIGGER, BETTER goes on and on. 

I have a friend who would read this and say, “Girl, you just being a damn ingrate – that is-ungrateful.” I smile as her voice in my head reminds me that I’m taking my professional/creative salvation through the theater caste system way too seriously. Other theater makers have shared that these thoughts and feelings are part of the transition of being a working artist in New York. As I finish writing this, I look forward to the next EWG meeting when an agent is scheduled to come to talk to us more about the business. I can’t help it - I’m seduced by the vast opportunities and encouraged by the endless trajectories…and grateful for a spiritual practice that occasionally challenges me to act on principles like integrity, generosity, and compassion to help keep MORE, BIGGER, BETTER in perspective. 

Riti Sachdeva is a theater maker, dancer, and cultural worker currently writing a revenge fantasy with a boring working title so let’s just call it UNTITLED REVENGE FANTASY. Her piece SCENE/UNSEEN, which she conceived, co-choreographed, and performed in, was awarded Overall Outstanding One Act at the 2012 Planet Connections Theatre Festival. You can check out more of her work at http://www.facebook.com/midniteschild. 

This post is part of a weekly series from the Emerging Writers Group community of playwrights. The EWG is two-year playwriting fellowship at The Public Theater seeking to target playwrights at the earliest stages of their careers. In so doing, The Public hopes to create an artistic home for a diverse and exceptionally talented group of up-and-coming playwrights.

Procrastination, My Love...

By Bridget Kelso, member of the 2009 Emerging Writers Group 

Procrastination. You are the siren call that lures me away from all the important activities and projects that must be accomplished. Our love affair started in college, where I discovered that I could actually research and write a twenty page paper in 24 hours, and get a decent grade. To this day, my brain has become so accustomed to generating great ideas at the last minute that it continues to be the best way for me to work. Unfortunately, it wreaks havoc on my nerves, and damn near kills me. You ain’t no good for me baby, but I can’t put you down. 

Two weeks before the deadline: 

I’ve got a play draft due in two weeks. (Or maybe a blog post – this one actually). It’s all pretty much written in my head. I jot down a brief outline of what I want to write. Maybe even a few lines of dialogue. But the Olympics are on. Who can resist that? And I’ve got two weeks. My draft will only add about 4 or 5 pages to my script. It’s already written in my head, so it’ll only take one or two nights to get it onto the page. And did I mention that the Olympics are on? 

One week before the deadline: 

Well, I really should get down to work. I stare at the pages. And then go on Facebook for a minute, just to clear the cobwebs out of my head. Usually I spend a few minutes a day in the morning or the evening checking my newsfeed. (I’m lying. I’ll sometimes spend hours there, but that is not the focus of this article. I will deal with the love that must not be named some other time.) 

Five days before: 

“This is ridiculous” I tell myself. “You had two weeks, and now you’re going to be rushed.” But five days is five days. I turn the laptop on, but I don’t even open the document. Instead, I play some solitaire or Words with Friends, “to get the juices flowing.” Yeah right. Nothing gets written. I realize that I’m losing some of the stuff that was “written in my head.” And even worse, Procrastination’s evil twin, Easily Distracted, has arrived. I can’t focus on anything. The deadline looming is like a monkey on my back. Why did I do this to myself? Never mind. It’ll come to me. Is xypy a word? 

Two days before: 

This is absolutely the last block of time in which any reasonable writer would allow themselves to accomplish a task. At this point, I could conceivably still take my time and get the draft done. All I have to do is plan accordingly. I put my son to bed, grab a light snack (maybe some cheese and crackers), and turn my laptop on. After an hour of my fingers hovering over the keyboard and watching TV (“I’ll write during the commercials,” I tell myself), I realize – I got nothing. There is nothing in my head. And there is nothing new on the page. 

The night before: 

Out of desperation, I just start typing. I end up hating what I’ve written, but it’s too late. I have a crazy busy day tomorrow and know that I won’t get a moment to write. So I’ll just have to go with it. It’s not bad, but it’s not my best work. I don’t have that feeling I get when I know something rings true. I’m missing that feeling of smug satisfaction when I’ve written something that’s so good, it surprises even me. 

Two hours before I need to email my revised draft: 

This is it. I can either hunker down and get this thing together, or turn in the crappy, sloppy work I slapped together last night. And suddenly, it kicks in. Those elusive lines that have been missing since they first appeared in my head now jump onto the page. I keep one eye on the clock, and continuously readjust my time needs: “I can keep writing for another half hour and take a quick shower and be out the door in an hour.” Forty-five minutes goes by, and now the half hour needed for the shower has been reduced to 10 minutes, because the stuff I’m writing is LEGENDARY, and I cannot stop. If I had started earlier, I’m not sure the writing would have been this good. There is something so very satisfying about that last-minute brain surge. If writing this way is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right... 

Bridget Kelso is an Adjunct Lecturer at the City College of New York. She will get back to working on her solo performance piece entitled SLIDE SHOW: THE EVOLUTION OF RADICAL FEMINIST THEOLOGY, as soon as she... 

This post is part of a weekly series from the Emerging Writers Group community of playwrights. The EWG is two-year playwriting fellowship at The Public Theater seeking to target playwrights at the earliest stages of their careers. In so doing, The Public hopes to create an artistic home for a diverse and exceptionally talented group of up-and-coming playwrights.