Wrong approach — if you want it to get a reading, then it’s up to you to make it happen. Find friends, find a living room or whatever — but, at this stage, you have to be the pimp for your own work. With luck, you’re already at the point where you need to hear it. The next step is to make that hearing happen.

The worst thing you can do as a writer is wait around for other people to notice you. The best thing you can do is shove it in their faces, Precisely the reason that a google search for my name led me back to this page.

This whole discussion has been meaningful for me because (as might be guessed) I’ve done some theater work in the past. And I hope it’ll have some resonance in the future, because I’m writing a play myself, and with luck I’ll get to the point where somebody is willing to give it a reading.

And, on the subject of audience feedback — I have yet to have an experience in which I have not made rewrites based on previews. That’s what previews are for, and in every such case, things that the director and I thought were perfect and unchangeable just didn’t go over with breathing audiences, and so were altered.

Developmental readings are no different, and are a totally necessary part of the process. Again, if you’re not connecting with an audience, you’re not telling your story effectively. Certain arts — painting and sculpture come to mind — are different. They should emerge inviolate from the artist’s hands, because that’s how they work. But the living arts — theatre, film, opera, ballet, TV — always, always must include the audience at some point in the process because the audience is part of the production. That may seem like a sad thing, but it’s not. It just depends on how strong the artist’s vision is, and how they can figure out how to make the audience see it — rather than, as is far to common in TV and film, alter and castrate the vision to match what the audience wants. A big difference, but an important one.

It’s a separate question whether the people presenting a reading really want or think they need detailed feedback from an audience after the work has been presented. After all, most theater people are pretty highly attuned to the reactions of others; a writer and a director can judge some things about a script just by giving it to some actors, and they can judge more by putting the actors in front of an audience and seeing how it feels. (This is what previews are for, in the case of fully staged productions.) Whether you want to go one step further–invite questions from the audience as well as ask them questions–would depend, I’d think, on whether the writer or director wants it and also on what kind of audience they think they can count on. And there’s also Clifford’s point, which I agree with: that you can dull your edge if you’re not careful.

Incidentallly, a play by Mac Wellman on the subject of Hypatia (its title was her name) was produced in New York in 2000. A review I just re-read at the NY Times used words like “enigmatic” and “obscure.” It sounds as if Jon Bastian and company are eager to avoid those labels.

You said:

However, I’ve been through this enough to know which comments to ignore. I’m sure you know that quite often in the process, the writer gets to a point where they can’t “hear” their own work clearly, because they’re so deeply involved with it, and external eyes and ears are necessary — not to give ironclad notes on how to rewrite, but to indicate whether the work is connecting with the audience.

This is extremely well put indeed. You’re clearly a writer who can usefully pick and choose, and make the process be one of true value. And yes, I do know those “I can’t hear my own work” moments….. sometimes I need to go sit on top of a mountain to hear it again though…. more voices sometimes confuse me. But you’ve infinitely more experience in this area than I, so I am watching and learning.

I’d be interested in hearing more of your or others thoughts on how the different (UK vs USA) traditions with regards the feedback process came to be so distinct (if indeed they are…I could be totally wrong), and how it affects the overall scene or “industry”, positively or negatively overall. It’s an interesting issue.

Do pop by from time to time…. there’ll be more chat of this type, I hope.

Best,

-cvj

Thank you for this insightful commentary on The Heretics of Alexandria and the development process — and be assured that I definitely did not ignore your comment to not change a thing. That seemed to be the consensus of the audience and, in fact, the reason for the “Did anything confuse you?” line of questioning is to determine precisely that. When we ask that question and get blank stares, it’s a good sign that the piece works. The question about whether the last scene is necessary is one that I’ve been asking myself from the beginning, and the only rewrites at this point are some line tweaks, because it was clear that audiences got some of the jokes one line earlier than I thought they would.

I would imagine that the difference in process between the US and UK has a lot to do with the general American attitude toward theatre, as well as the unfortunate Hollywood effect — everything must be commercial and served up on a silver platter. (It doesn’t, but going through this processes fools the money people into thinking it is.) However, I’ve been through this enough to know which comments to ignore. I’m sure you know that quite often in the process, the writer gets to a point where they can’t “hear” their own work clearly, because they’re so deeply involved with it, and external eyes and ears are necessary — not to give ironclad notes on how to rewrite, but to indicate whether the work is connecting with the audience. That’s exactly how the previous “Kind of, but not quite” draft of Heretics evolved to what you heard last weekend.

Che’Rae and the Los Angeles Writer’s Center have been invaluable for me in that regard for a number of works already. More information about us is at the website.

Thanks! Actually I was not saying that the feedback process was useless. More that it can sometimes be in danger of being over-used. (I speak as someone who has audience benefitted from feedback at readings of my own work with the playwright Oliver Mayer: see here and here, and a post on this to come soon).

The point is that sometimes to take an audience to a new place you have to challenge them to get out of their comfort zones. Too much feedback that gets the writer seeking to put the readers in their comfort zone can take the edge off something. A writer therefore -indeed- has to pick and choose carefully. Good writers with a clear vision can do this well, I imagine…. but sometimes clarity can get muddied, even in the minds of the most skilled. So one must be careful.

So I am not saying it should be abandoned!! Just used sparingly.

Thanks… come back from time to time. I’ll be talking about theatre here quite a bit more.

Best,

-cvj