playwrights in rehearsal

I’m fortunate to have one of my short plays (A World Without Allergies, A Talk by Dr. Michael Kramer) currently in rehearsals for MadLab Theatre’s 15th Annual Theatre Roulette and am about to begin rehearsals for the staged reading of my play Books & Bridges at CATCO. With all the recent discussions on Twitter about directors and their relationship with scripts and texts and interpretations, I haven’t done a lot of thinking about my role as playwright in the rehearsal room.

I love rehearsal rooms. Adore them. I love process. It excites me to see exploration and discovery from the side of the director to the work of the actors. I’m not just talking about rehearsals of my own plays, but rehearsals of any play. There’s electricity in the intimacy of the rehearsal room, and it’s a place that must be protected from judgement and negativity. There has to be openness for vulnerability. Openness leads to vulnerability. Vulnerability leads to discovery. Discovery leads to Theatrical Magic! Whereas, as you well know, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the Dark Side. 

What was I talking about? Ah yes. The role of the playwright in rehearsals. What should the role of the playwright be? Should the playwright be at the rehearsals? Should the playwright be silent during rehearsals? Should the playwright speak to the actors? If the playwright is allowed to speak to the actors, when should the playwright speak to the actors? There is not a single answer to what the playwright’s role should be; each production, each collaborative group must make that decision together before rehearsals start. In my day job we call that “setting expectations.” These expectations must all be laid bare and agreed upon by everyone and then must be followed. This should be a no-brainer, but I’m sure we don’t do it enough as collaborators. This is where you end up with fights and sour feelings and toxic environments. I hate that kind of rehearsal room. I don’t like a playwright/director relationship where one person is playing “good cop” and the other is “bad cop.” I’m a pretty easy-going guy. It takes a lot, seriously, A LOT to make me difficult to deal with. I mean, here is what my personal “good cop” and “bad cop” look like:

© 2014 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

With two shows in rehearsals, I’ll tell you what my relationship in the rehearsal rooms are, both are different. For MadLab, the director, Andy Batt invited me to attend any rehearsals I wanted to. I went to the second rehearsal and met Andy for the first time in person and also Jason Sudy who will be playing Dr. Kramer in all his quirky glory. The play is very short; I’ve never timed it, but it’s not going to hit 10 minutes long. So, I got to see Jason perform the play in its entirety about 4 times, each time Andy asked me for my thoughts, but only after he gave some notes to Jason first. I did have some ideas, but none of them were preconceived about the play or performance; they were based on discoveries that Jason and Andy were finding on their own. So, here’s what I’m thinking for that process (since Andy and I didn’t really talk about it beyond I’m welcome at any rehearsals I want to attend), I’m going to do something I’ve never done: I’m going to let it ride. I’m going to trust Andy and Jason and not go to another rehearsal until one of the tech rehearsals. The purpose of that production is not to develop the play. It’s to showcase the play along with other short plays by Ohio playwrights. And that’s cool. That’s very, very cool. 

The staged reading at CATCO, directed by Joe Bishara is another beast altogether. That staged reading is specifically for the development of the play. I had a great meeting with Joe and our co-director, Sami Cline, yesterday. Side note: The Grandview Grind makes their coffee very strong. It’s good. But very strong. End of side note. One of the things we specifically talked about was what I wanted my role to be in rehearsals. I said that I don’t want to be a “crutch” for the actors. I don’t want them to defer to me in making decisions about character choices. It’s easy to assume that we playwrights “have all the answers,” I know that I don’t. Hell, when I read one of my plays, I often say, “Who wrote that? Did I write that?” Joe as the director of the reading will have final say on blocking and interpretations being made. There has to be trust. I trust that Joe has the play’s best interests at heart. I trust that Joe wants the reading to be kick ass as much as I do. So, here’s what we decided: I’m going to attend all the rehearsals (I’m greedy), but am going to be a silent partner (my choice). I won’t talk to the actors directly; I’ll go through Joe, that way we are of one mind and the actors aren’t hearing one thing from Joe and something different from me. However, we're having a rehearsal, very informal, with the actors just reading the play. There won't be "table work," it will be my first time hearing the play out loud in its entirety. The actors can ask me questions that come up after the reading, but I’m probably not going to answer them. I’m going to write them down and see if ideas float to the surface and if I need to make changes to the script before we begin rehearsals in earnest.

These are the two roles I’m playing over the next couple of months, and I’m damn excited for both experiences. How about you, my fellow theatre-makers? What has been the role of the playwright in your rehearsal experiences? Similar? Different?

Be excellent to each other.