Whenever I hear playwrights tell me they worked (for example) all weekend long and wrote the first draft of a new play, I get mad. I know I should be more patient, but in this regard (as in, sadly, too many others) patience doesn’t come easily to me. All weekend long? I can barely turn an incoherent idea for a play into a modestly coherent first few lines in a weekend. A first draft usually takes me at least six months. And that’s just a first draft: nothing I’d consider ready for production.
In a similar vein, I’ve also heard playwrights claim to be able to finish two, three, or even four plays in a single year—not on one miraculous occasion, mind you, but year after year after year. I find this unfathomable. When I hear artistic directors and literary managers complain that the plays they read aren’t really finished, I think: some playwrights may not be exerting enough pressure on their work.
Now… I may be a bit slower than most playwrights, but I want to offer one counter-example to the culture of quick creation I’ve been seeing: the six-and-a-half-year path my play THE BUTCHER has taken… so far. I say “so far” because the play has not yet been produced… and I expect to keep developing it a while longer before it is.
The life of THE BUTCHER began with a grant application filed in January of 2007. (Which means, now that I think about it, that I must have started considering the play in 2006… so let’s make this a seven-year path.) My collaborator and I, Merry Alderman, labored over that application, meeting to review and redraft it several times as the idea for what we then called The Butcher Project began to take shape.
THE BUTCHER’s good fortune began when Merry and I learned that Cultural DC approved our somewhat unique request to participate in its Mead Theatre Lab program. Our proposed project—which they later kindly extended, at our request, into a second year—gave us (among other great things) space in which to do some serious long-form devising work. Merry and I worked with six actors and a dramaturg every Monday night for about 18 months, starting in the fall of 2007, improvising and reading rough drafts of scenes and working beats over and over and over again. In the spring of 2009, when we were “done” with our first draft, we did two public readings to conclude our the project… but not, of course, the development of the play.
In fact, the script we had at the end of our devising process promptly went into a folder on my hard drive and, well, rested for a while. I think I knew, subconsciously, that I needed time away from the story… which I also knew, subconsciously, still wasn’t there yet.
About a year later, I started noodling around with it again… and then in early 2011, I began a new draft in earnest, having finally separated myself thoroughly enough from the voices in the devising room, helpful though they had been. These were major re-writes: I restructured the entire play, cut a character, and added a raft of new material. But still, I knew: the play wasn’t there. Yet. Another rest.
In late 2011, knowing I needed help to take THE BUTCHER farther, I submitted the script to the Great Plains Theatre Conference. When I found out I was accepted, I did yet another draft in advance of my trip to Omaha in the summer of 2012… and while I was there I did further revisions, working over the course of a few hours of rehearsal with a new crop of actors. After a public reading at the end of the conference, I was energized: the reaction of the audience made it clear I was finally getting somewhere. Getting, however, not gotten. I still had work to do.
And work I did. I came out of that conference and did a new draft with some significant revisions before submitting the play to yet another development program: The Theatre Project in NY. When the play was accepted, as with Great Plans, I started to poke at it a bit… and then after an initial reading in February of 2013—as well as a reading at Theater J in DC shortly thereafter—I made yet more significant changes. In April of 2013, The Theatre Project did a three-day workshop production of the new script… and, yes, I learned yet more about what I’d written.
Enough to create yet ANOTHER draft and submit it to the Gulfshore Playhouse New Works Festival, where I’m taking the play for a week-long workshop and reading this coming August. Yes, I plan to make revisions again before that workshop; I’ve had a great conversation with my director that I think might really help me address one intractable problem I’ve been dealing with, and I’ve also been doing additional research to address yet another question. My hope—sincerely—is that by the time I finish that workshop, THE BUTCHER will at long last be ready for a production… during which process, I can assure you, I’ll expect to make further revisions, because that’s how I generally roll.
In sum, five institutions have (so far) supported the development of THE BUTCHER:
- Cultural DC
- Great Plains Theatre Conference
- The Theatre Project
- Theater J
- Gulfshore Playhouse
And the history of that development, roughly speaking, looks like this:
- 2006-2007: research and grant application prep
- 2007-2009: devising, drafting, revision, readings
- 2010-2011: revisions
- 2012: workshop, reading, revisions
- 2013: readings, revisions, workshop production, revisions, workshop, reading, revisions
And when that’s all said and done, not before, I’ll start sharing it in earnest with a few people who might like to produce it.
Do I think this is an ideal path to production? Honestly, I don’t know for sure, but I think (given the current state of our theatrical ecosystem) that it might be. I mean… if I hadn’t had to cobble together resources from so many different partners (all of whom, I should note, have my gratitude), I might have had more time to write. But playwrights always have to do that, at least until there’s some sort of revolution, so… I did.
Still: I share this one play’s path not to put it out as a model to be followed. I know some (successful) art does take shape more swiftly than THE BUTCHER has. I share it instead to help playwrights understand how much labor one can sometimes expend on the making of art. A new play doesn’t have to come either easily or quickly… though I fear it may seem that way in the hurry-up-get-it-done world in which we all currently live.
And perhaps some plays should take more time to develop. Perhaps if more of our plays were significant, years-long undertakings, they would seem more magnificent and meaningful to the people who review and consider them. Perhaps if our plays arrived in theaters’ in-boxes with epic origin stories behind them, they’d be taken more seriously.
And perhaps we would, too.
I support every aspect of this article and of your process. Your play deserves all the attention it’s getting, from the field, and from you as a playwright. Huge questions exist for all writers as to WHAT PLAY DO THEY WISH TO DRAMATIZE — and those questions exist for a theater as well — especially with a play as probing and provocative as yours. As theme and focus (artistically) meets up with mission and vision and interest for a theater, both playwright and theater try to think of what’s best for the work — what’s the best course of development; arc of story and character; and best decision for the theater. I continue to be beguiled by this play and enchanted by its potential. I know it’s moving closer toward full realization. When it truly finds itself, it will have found a home as well. I hope there’s a hope for it here in DC. In other words, Gwyd, keep us all apprised and abreast. It’s a VERY important play. So (let’s all) get it right! Write on!
Thanks you, Ari! And thank you for the role you and Theater J have played in helping to carry this one story forward.
What I might have added in my post is that the HARDEST step in the process I outlined for which to find support is the very first one. I consider myself very lucky to have had Cultural DC’s help so early in the process, because that kind of assistance is genuinely rare. One shining exception to this rule, of late, has been Theater J’s Locally Grown program, which picks a story up at the very beginning of its existence… for which service I know many playwrights, like me, are grateful.
You know sometimes I write a play really fast and it isn’t any good and so I throw it out. And sometimes that play I wrote helps me work out the next play. And sometimes a play will germinate for many years in my head and then I’ll suddenly figure it out and write it pretty quick. I hear you about the process of development and working and reworking but some of my most successful things have been written really quick and other successful ones have taken lots of time. It’s all about figuring out how to write that one really good play. Sometimes I have to write 3 plays to get one good one. And sometimes I can turn one good one into a better one with work and sometimes I just have to throw it out. But that’s just my process, as I’m figuring out. Good to hear yours.
Yes. I hope I was clear in saying that I don’t think this is the ONLY model one can follow. Others, like yours, make sense, too. I just fear that the model I’ve followed with this play is… well, not well understood or well known.
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I’ve drafted a couple versions of this response, and it kept spiraling into dissertations on my theory of the economy of theatremarking, so this comment is truncated from my full thoughts. (Believe it or not.) I’ll expand as necessary based on your response to my response.
I take issue, mainly, with what you say in the last three paragraphs of the post.
In reference to what you said to Adam above: It does sound to me like you (and Ari) ARE saying that this is, while not the *only* way, certainly the *best* (or a better) way. In the last three paragraphs, you pretty directly suggest that too many of the plays written these days are rushed, and that we playwrights, and our works, are not being taken seriously because they don’t have this years-long process behind them.
(This may be just my reading of your use of the word ‘perhaps,’ which I do not take as you actually having uncertainty over whether the things you are saying are the case, but rather you being gentle about asserting and modestly proposing that they are the case. This reading is probably influenced by me knowing that you’ve been incredulous, at times in the past, that some playwrights like myself write as quickly as we sometimes do, and that the resulting work could be in any way good or useful. If this reading is incorrect, I apologize, but I’ll debate with it all the same in the interest of discussion.)
First of all, as Adam suggests, we are all quite different, and each play is itself different. Inspiration can strike quickly AND improvements after the first draft can be made quickly. The final (or current-at-the-time-you-see-it) state of the work onstage, or on the page, is all that matters for that audience or reader; there’s no more inherent value in a longer-brewing work. A play needs to be worked on until it’s done and ready, regardless of whether that takes six months or six years, one reading or twenty readings.
Second of all, theatre is still a game of who-you-know, and I think what you and Ari are suggesting applies (and sounds) very differently to a playwright who is In The Know than to one who is not. There’s a big difference between saying In The Know playwrights who are getting readily produced should probably spend more time developing their work, considering how quickly they are able to rush into production – and saying that less Known playwrights, submitting their work for consideration, should apply more time and effort before they submit, particularly because the resources for development are scarce (as you note, describing yourself as lucky to have had them) and often *what they are submitting for*.
Third of all, you did not work on The Butcher for seven years. You worked on The Butcher *over the course of* seven years. Your brain worked subconsciously during that time, certainly, but you also worked on Reals, and The Great Dismal, and raising a family, and more. Your use of “more time” and “years-long” in those last two paragraphs clearly suggests that you believe the amount of time elapsed is itself important. Yet, if you compressed the work (direct or subconscious) you’ve put into The Butcher into one span – if it was the only thing you worked on and all the development opportunities came instantly as soon as they were needed – I’d bet that the amount of time elapsed would be significantly less. It’s the *effort* (again, subconscious or direct) that matters, not how long it takes.
Fourth of all, almost every playwright I know – myself included – works long and thinks longer about the stuff they write. I’ve done numerous experiments with quick writing, but the three full-length pieces I’m working on now have been three, four and nine years in my head and, respectively, three, three and four years on the page – and only the first one is even in complete ‘first draft’ status yet. I think it’s a gross misrepresentation and misunderstanding to even think that a majority of playwrights are rushing their work, at all.
Fifth of all, and most importantly, I think what this really is about is:
Resources. And here’s where I’ll be very, very truncated. Suffice to say that I think what’s really at issue here is matching the level of resources put into a play to the level of resources the theatre wants to put in.
In light of that, my main disagreement with your final paragraphs is that you seem to be making a universal suggestion for what I believe should be a pretty narrow suggestion: namely, that, if a non-Known playwright wants a particular play to be more attractive to a *large institution,* then a lengthy development history will be helpful in that regard – just like verifiable experience on a resume will be helpful for getting a higher-paid job. The development history acts as external proof that the play has been worked on and has had the benefit of collaborators, which is helpful for the theatre, because, for instance, if I submitted my nine-year-in-the-making play somewhere, they would have to take my word for it that I’ve spent massive amounts of thought on the work and that people have helped me with it.
Lastly, and most personally (and somewhat paradoxically), I believe that theatre is often treated as *too* precious. The art is, by its nature, disposable. Unlike, say, film, it’s immediate, here, now – no matter how many resources are put into it. Theatre on a pedestal can easily become deadly, while theatre made in a hothouse environment can often be vital (or, yes, often terrible). The resources we devote to plays – to putting them on, to housing them, to administering them – is sometimes out of all proportion to the meaningfulness or even the quality of the work itself, no matter how developed it already is.
Phew. I think some of that is tangential to what you were saying, or not directly a response to what your post is communicating, but there it is all the same. I do believe this is an important debate.
I’m going to respond to as much of this as I can, in perhaps a random order.
First: my “perhaps.” It’s very intentionally (as with other similar mollifying language in those last paragraphs) an attempt at modesty. I try as much as possible to remind myself that my opinions are only my opinions, and that matters like these are certainly worthy of debate. So yes, there’s genuine uncertainty in my use of the word, though not a heavy dose of it.
Second: I think you may be missing (because I may not have expressed it clearly) my main reason for writing this post, which is a response to too much under-baked work flooding the marketplace, which does a disservice to the playwrights who
create and share it AND to the rest of us as well, by increasing the static in which our signals need to be heard. You disagree that this is a problem, and you in fact go on to illustrate that you yourself work long years on your plays. (Which made me wonder why you even bothered to write this comment…) But I’ve heard from far too many people reading submitted work who say it is, in fact, a problem.
Third: I totally disagree. I worked on THE BUTCHER for seven years. The interstices in which I worked on other things (theatrical and nontheatrical) are the necessary diversions and silences that complete the whole. The field has to lay fallow for a while, or you need to rotate crops, or it won’t keep producing. Standard agriculture.
Fourth: I’m really NOT making a universal suggestion. I’ve devised enough work now to understand different processes and time scales. And I, too, have written quickly: the first draft of LET X took me six weeks. I am, as I tried hard to say, holding out a different model so that those who don’t work this way know that a more laborious path exists, and that there’s value to it.
Finally: I don’t get the “in the know” distinction you’re making. I will say that I’ve worked this way since LONG before I was “in the know,” cobbling together whatever self-created and –cultivated resources I could find to make things work.
Yeah, I think I was reading you too harshly. I think there’s something in this debate that bothers me, and I can’t figure out what precisely it is… I think that’s why I went on so long-windedly.
I think I’m partly influenced by having been a reader of many plays, and I’ve noticed no correlation between length of development and quality… I’ve read many plays with development histories as long as The Butcher’s that are terrible. Maybe what I believe is that a good writer is a good writer, and a good writer knows what their play needs – meaning some will get lots of development, and some will not. I don’t believe that a good writer will always need or seek lots of development.
I bothered to write the comment despite mentioning my own lengthy process because I feel, perhaps, that I would not be judged as having had that development due to the lack of listable collaborations and readings? Like, even if I wrote down how many years have gone into it? Or perhaps I resent the notion that I’d have to talk up the number of years I’d put in to get taken seriously, because it means that if my next play is a quick inspiration, or a fellow playwright is a quick writer, then they will get ignored.
Maybe my point is that I think a lot of the plays that the readers are judging to be undercooked are, possibly, quite cooked, and it’s just that they’re bad? That perhaps the lengthy development process behind some bad plays is invisible to them. Perhaps what I’m worried about is a play being judged by its pedigree of development rather than by its quality.
I think perhaps it’s a shortcut that overwhelmed play readers would love to have, and that I don’t think it’s a good one.
By “in the know” I meant playwrights who have achieved enough of a reputation that major theatres will help them with or produce anything they write. I think I’d have to consider it more deeply to make sense of the distinction I am trying to make, and why I think it matters.
I definitely understand better now where you’re coming from.
And I agree: there really is, or ought to be, a distinction between “thoroughly cooked” and “tasty.” (To push the meal metaphor beyond, perhaps, its limits.) You can labor over, say, mac-and-cheese with gummy worms, rhubarb, and squab and it would still be revolting.
I also agree that pedigree is a potentially very misleading indicator of the success of a piece of work. Bad product emerges even from the best factories.
Thanks for clarifying…
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