Learning From Our Plays As Playwrights

I have recently had the wonderful experience of reawakening a type of my playwriting that I haven’t experienced in many, many years. If you can imagine Mickey Mouse or Kermit the Frog wildly typing on a typewriter (you’ve seen those memes) without the capability to stop. That’s been me.

(GIF: Kermit the Frog wildly typing on a a black typewriter. In the background are shelves that contain awards, papers and a white statue, possibly of Shakespeare)

Where It Began

Long before this play began, my process had gone to an uncomfortable lull during the pandemic. I was still writing but I was having to work SO hard to get the creativity out. My mentor told me to be patient and that everyone was going through the same thing.

I’m NEVER patient with my writing. I want my organic creativity to show up on demand. Always. When I say so. (You may now imagine a toddler with her arms crossed looking angry)

I had been working on a couple plays for the past several years, shining them, building them out, polishing them, holding readings and sending them out to theaters. I was doing all the right things that I could to move myself forward even when the spark that I was so used to wasn’t happening inside me.

Life Happened

There was a lot of life. I’m a parent, a wife, a friend, a daughter. Life was life-ing pretty hard the past year. It made it harder to start new things when life was so distracting. Despite that, I moved forward with my work responsibilities. I had a staged reading of a play of mine in New York and I am now going to have a virtual reading of another one in August (stay tuned for “Pilar’s Brother” ).

Bagels Happened

Inspiration can truly come from anywhere. One day, in March, about a month after the worst of life life-ing, I read some silly post where Brooklynites were taking up the age-old debate of which store had the better Brooklyn bagels.

And that was it.

(Image: Lots of different kinds of bagels on a gray slate background. At the bottom of the picture is a plain bagel with chives cream cheese and a knife with cream cheese on it next to it)

I opened a clean document and was suddenly writing a brand new play which featured some jokes about Brooklyn bagels but was not about Brooklyn bagels. I made the conscious decision to take my hands off the wheel and let my characters do the work. My play had a space and a door through which characters kept showing up. I didn’t have to try. My Mickey Mouse/Kermit wild typing was occurring. I would stop at the end of the day and stare in wonder at what happened. It was like Zeus giving birth to his children out of his head, whole, except mine were definitely not in a plot of anything useful and they were far too expository in their arrival. But I didn’t lay that judgment for a while.

Within a week, I had forty five pages of characters just talking to me. Now, when I say this, I don’t mean that they arrived on the page and did monologues. I had been doing that a lot during the pandemic. When one has an ear for dialogue and you’re suddenly not able to overhear conversation, monologues become more of a thing. No, these characters were coming in, having scenes, conflicts, detailed pasts and crushing emotions.

By the end of April, I had far too many characters and I decided that I needed to put my hands back on the wheel and try to guide the vehicle. For two weeks, it became a lot less fun as I tried to shape the script. Characters fell to the editing floor, scenes fell away, more scenes got written. It was a struggle. I grumbled about it. I thought I wouldn’t even have pages to bring to my playwriting group. But then I changed my mind.

I took ten pages to my playwriting group. They received positive feedback and I could suddenly see what needed doing. The next two days, I returned to the brain on fire mode. Mickey Mouse/Kermit took over again, placing scenes strategically, solving issues I had been struggling with. I was exhausted but I was fired up. I took two days off for other life stuff and returned again for another day of fiery writing.

The Secret They Won’t Tell

I’m near the end of the first draft now. And I just discovered that one of my characters has a secret still that hasn’t come out. The problem is I don’t know which character and I don’t know what the secret is. I know that it is one of four characters. I feel like I’m playing Clue. I tried to write it yesterday. I had a couple of options. Both failed. My focus was on a specific character being the one with the secret so maybe it’s not that character. I’m trying to let some time pass so they can decide how they want tell me.

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash (Image: On the background of a map are many items a detective would need: boots, socks, several cameras and rolls of film, pictures, a magnifying glass, a cup of coffee, a notebook and pen, a pipe and additional random items)

In the meantime, I’m reading over the previous pages, trying to see if there are some clues or if it will trigger some more writing of any kind. I have figured out that there’s a potential fifth character who is off-stage who might have this secret and who is very powerful already. I still don’t know what the secret is.

I have never thought it was strange that I have to wait for my characters to tell me their thoughts. I simply see myself as the instrument. Occasionally, I have to assist them in birthing their story (is it this one? No? Is it this one? No? Would you give me a hint? No?) but we usually get there. There has be a reason that they are keeping it hidden.

Structurally, it’s about the right time for one last secret to arrive so, at least, I can appreciate that.