David Eshelman – Lit Bits

Musical Theatre Writing in the Classroom

Playwriting teachers occasionally encounter students interested in musical theatre writing. Unfortunately, they may feel that they do not have the skills or time and may, unwittingly, discourage potential authors. To combat this tendency, I have lately made a concerted effort to nurture students interested in writing musicals. After all, one could argue that musical theatre is where theatre is healthiest. Musicals represent a theatrical genre that does not need to justify its existence: Broadway continues, thanks to the musical, and musical plays sell seats in high school and community theatres across the nation. We should, therefore, not discourage those who want to write in this form.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to musical theatre writing is that scripts require many separate skills that hardly ever reside in the same person. They are usually written in teams—book writer (script writer), lyricist, and composer. Whereas most playwrights would be perfectly happy writing the script—and, possibly, the lyrics—it is unusual that they would have the musical expertise to write all those darned notes. Musical theatre writing then would best be taught as an interdisciplinary endeavor—music and creative writing—possibly with students taking different roles within the class. While I believe that such team-taught courses exist in larger universities, I doubt that the average college would have the resources. What to do then at a smaller school when faced with a musically-inclined student?

From a practical point of view, I do a few things. First, I lay out the realities: I am not qualified to teach music theory, but can help with words. I make sure that the student knows that musicals are extremely time-consuming and usually written in teams. Second, I urge students to become acquainted with musical theatre literature—especially the integrated book musical, as exemplified by Rodgers and Hammerstein, one of the U.S.A.’s most significant contributions to drama. I also make a few general statements regarding musical numbers. I discuss basic formatting: song lyrics are written as verse, with line breaks, and in all caps. I describe how songs are used in the integrated book musical: the action of the play does not stop for the song; rather, the song comes at the height of drama. An old adage states that what cannot be said in words must be said in song; and what cannot be said in song must be said in dance. Songs, then, are for intense moments—climaxes and decisions. Last, I suggest that the student have a melody in mind while writing lyrics: the melody does not have to be good, but it will allow the student a stronger sense of structure as the lines are written.

Usually, with just these bits of advice, students can make forays into musical theatre writing. Later, more advanced students continue in independent studies with me or with faculty from the Music Department. Most important, though, is acknowledging that budding musical writers should be encouraged, not discouraged.

Playwriting Teachers Must Be Advocates for Playwriting

In a blog post titled, “We Need More Crappy Plays,” theatre scholar Scott Walters makes a claim that should be obvious: healthy theatre requires a healthy dose of new plays. Walters lauds the Goodman Theatre in Chicago for declaring that it will produce four world premieres as part of its 2015-16 season. As he wistfully states: “Imagine if every regional theatre in the country devoted half of its mainstage productions to new works . . . . What would be the result? An American Renaissance in the theatre as our stages became [sic] once again to be relevant and vibrant.” Unfortunately, the field of theatre—especially professional theatre, which often makes conservative choices in the name of increased ticket sales—is not always eager to support new work.

As teachers of playwriting, we must realize that we and our students are part of a community of artists. Whereas writers in other forms—poetry, for example—can imagine that they operate exclusively in a world of writers, playwrights have no such luxury. Their work depends on a vast network of artists – actors, designers, stage hands, etc. – who are not primarily literary. Whereas the decision makers for the printed genres (for example, editors of creative writing journals) can be presumed to have a literary background, decision makers for theatre (for example, artistic directors of professional theatres) may have found their way to the profession through any number of fields unrelated to writing. For this reason, they do not always see playwriting as important. It is up to us, then, to insist that it is.

Scott Walters points out that popular music does not rely on covers of past hits, nor does the motion picture industry confine itself to remakes. In fact, I would go so far as to say that our most vibrant contemporary art forms—popular music, stand-up comedy, video, and, to a lesser degree, movies—are predicated on originality. Of the arts, only classical music shares theatre’s obsession with re-creating works of the past. In contrast, visual artists must create afresh, and poetry and fiction become mere book-making without original contributions from today’s writers. Puzzlingly, theatre is an unwitting oddball in its preference for works of the past.

What we have today is a karaoke theatre, where contemporary artists recreate yesterday’s hits. While karaoke is entertaining, no one thinks of it as high art because it lacks the ability to further the field. No one looks to karaoke singers to define what art and culture will become. Regrettably, theatre today is largely karaoke theatre and satisfied to remain that way. It excludes the contributions of today’s writers; paradoxically, amending this exclusion could be the solution to many of contemporary theatre’s problems.

Playwriting teachers must be aware of the issues facing the theatre community and must be prepared to make cases like I have made. If teachers do not advocate for playwriting, there will be no need for the playwrights that we train.

Audio Theatre: A New Writing Platform

It had long been my contention that playwriting is more practical than screenwriting because it leads more directly to a finished product. In other words, whereas an ambitious playwright could organize his or her friends and stage a piece on a weekend, the screenwriter was dependent on the whims of Hollywood producers to obtain the resources to get their films made. This assessment of practicality, though, seems to apply less and less to today’s world in which there are so many opportunities through the internet. If a screenwriter uses the production and distribution means available through the web—for example, if a writer creates scripts for short Youtube films—then screenwriting can be every bit as practical as playwriting.

Besides screenwriting, the internet has enhanced the practicality of another field—radio drama. The format, which dwindled in the U.S. with the rise of television, is now reemerging under the aegis of podcasting and audiobooks. Teachers of dramatic writing are wise to embrace audio theatre for the following reasons:

It stands to become more and more important in our Internet Age.
It provides easy production opportunities for emerging writers—requiring no sets, costumes, or even line memorization, as required by film and the stage.
Digital recordings, the product of audio theatre endeavors, are easy to disseminate to a wide audience.

My university, Arkansas Tech, has been leading the way in audio theatre ventures for seven years now. Through an organization called the Arkansas Radio Theatre, we have created more than forty broadcasts which play on the local radio station, are made available to the visually impaired throughout the state, and are available on-line (click Public, then Radio Theatre). The Arkansas Radio Theatre is dedicated to new plays and adaptations of classic literature. An audio theatre company like the Arkansas Radio Theatre is easy to establish because free recording software is easily available. An interested instructor simply needs some microphones in order to record voices. Apart from that, an audio theatre company simply requires a means for broadcast—or some server space, which is readily available at most universities.

However, just because a production opportunity exists, that does not mean that student writers are prepared to take advantage of it. Because audio theatre is a unique form, writers must be trained with relevant coursework. In order to build the Radio Theatre into the curricular structures of my university, I am teaching (in Fall 2014) an upper-division topics course focusing on Radio Theatre Writing. Some of the assignments explore audio theatre as a genre: for example, listening to broadcasts from the Golden Age of Radio and comparing them to the audio drama available today. Students will eventually work toward hour-long original scripts. Hopefully, the insights learned in teaching this class will help others who attempt to engage in audio theatre projects. I will report on the progress of the course in later posts.

Dramatic Punctuation: Some Ideas for Beginning Playwrights

Dramatic writers aim to capture the way that people speak: Therefore, grammatical correctness is not necessarily important in the text of a play or script. What is unacceptable in academic prose is often quite desirable in drama. Unfortunately, students sometimes take drama’s emphasis on performance and the spoken word as a license for sloppy writing. Dramatic writing, though often non-grammatical, must never be haphazard.

Frequently, I encounter in beginning playwrights a lack of attention to punctuation. Perhaps they believe that, because punctuation is for the eye, it is unnecessary to writing that addresses itself to the ear. However, such a belief ignores punctuation’s significance as a means of suggesting vocal techniques of expression—specifically, the pause—which are readily understood to the listener but hard to convey to the reader. Because punctuation captures the rhythms of spoken speech, it’s essential that playwrights employ punctuation to its fullest potential.

While everyone is familiar with basic punctuation marks—such as the period, comma, exclamation point, etc.—there are others that beginning playwrights tend to neglect. Here are some of my favorites. (Similar lists can be found in textbooks such as Buzz McLaughlin’s The Playwright’s Process.) Continue reading “Dramatic Punctuation: Some Ideas for Beginning Playwrights”

Local Theatre

Although many do not recognize it, local theatre is the cornerstone of the dramatic arts. (By local theatre, I mean what people watch in their own towns.) While metropolitan centers like New York City exert influence, what really counts is the theatre that people see. A theatrical production is often unavailable either in print, film, or other media: it is experienced only by those who gather to see it; and, since most individuals stay close to home, close to home matters. While famous plays have impact, the effect is diffuse when compared to print-centered writing or to film. The effect of non-local theatre works only along the lines of a “trickle-down” influence, rather than the direct impact of other forms: people read a story, but read about a theatrical production.

Given the importance of local theatre, one would think that such performance would be thriving — unfortunately, it is not. This is especially true for local playwriting. Because local theatres have no obligation to present new, local work, they typically turn to renditions of familiar plays that audiences have seen before. While productions of such plays may be comfortable for audiences and for the theatre makers involved, they create minimal opportunities for local dramatists. Though most regions of the country — even far-out, rural places — have some local theatre, they do not often have local dramatic writing. Such a situation hurts local writers and theatre as a whole by inhibiting regional diversity in a form that, of necessity, must be regional. Continue reading “Local Theatre”

Teaching with Aristotle’s Poetics

The past few semesters, I have used Aristotle more and more in the playwriting classroom. His writing, I believe, has a place even with beginners. After all, it is difficult to talk about theatre in the Western world without mentioning this great thinker. Western drama shows a great reliance—some might say, too great—on this ancient Greek.

The Poetics, thankfully, is a short book. But it’s also very obtuse. I ask the students to approach it “scripturally.” By comparing the Poetics to holy writ, I suggest that it deserves constant study and re-reading. Also, much can be skimmed—for example, discussions of specific Greek word choice or authors no longer extant. These sections can be treated like the genealogies and census reports in the Hebrew scriptures—skimmed over without worry. This comparison works extremely well in Bible Belt Arkansas, where I teach, though it would likely work elsewhere.

The Poetics is filled with valuable lessons. I usually focus on one Aristotelian insight in particular: his six dramatic elements, I find, are especially useful for teaching different dramatic approaches. Aristotle divided drama into six components, often translated as Plot, Character, Thought, Diction, Song, and Spectacle. While Aristotle prioritizes Plot above all else, he sees these elements as necessary cogs in the mechanics of scriptwriting. I use the elements, not to suggest commonalities among plays, but rather to show how different authors use different approaches. Continue reading “Teaching with Aristotle’s Poetics”

Material Realities

Unlike print-based genres—poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction—the dramatic genres, such as playwriting, are allied to certain material realities. By this I mean that what is mentioned in a script is not just for a reader’s mind, but is meant to be concretized before an audience’s eyes. I find myself frequently noting on drafts of student scripts that particular stage directions sound “expensive,” and I don’t mean this as a positive comment. I use this word to discourage writers from including elements that would make staging difficult—for example, impossible special effects and overly frequent scene changes. In a similar vein, I ask student authors to remember that acting is paid labor. Frequently, beginning playwrights will include a character—often a waiter—who does very little. In the professional theatre, the actor playing this character would have to be compensated for his or her work. Therefore, inclusion in the script means an added expense, and if it’s not a meaningful expense, there’s no reason for it. Continue reading “Material Realities”

Group Plot Exercises

Because student writers are often suspicious of plot structure, believing it to be too mathematical or too cliché, it’s helpful to teach plotting as mechanics rather than invention, as usage rather than creation. Students should learn to exercise their “plotting muscles,” and with practice they can become confident in their abilities to build solid plot structure.

In class, I use a sequence of out-loud group storytelling exercises. By emphasizing quickness and collaboration, these exercises urge students to see plot as a skill to be practiced, rather than as a unique art object to be labored over. By working quickly, students learn that plot can be generated without unnecessary headaches. And by attending carefully to what comes before and trying to adapt to the developing plot, students work toward what Aristotle would call a “unity of action.”

Here’s how the exercises work:

STEP ONE. The class tells a story one word at a time, going around the room two or three times. This step serves largely as a warm-up, but it also demonstrates that plot balances individuality and utility — sometimes a student is lucky enough to get a noun or verb; other times, an article or preposition is required. This step can be repeated until students are comfortable. Continue reading “Group Plot Exercises”

Beyond Realism

Teachers of beginning playwriting are wise to lay out certain rules that can boost the success of student writers. Buzz McLaughlin’s The Playwright’s Process—a textbook I use—puts forward “A Few Initial Guidelines” (17-19). Many of these guidelines are useful; however, I believe McLaughlin goes too far when he asserts that beginning playwrights should write in a realistic style (18).

While realistic drama has its place in the classroom, I question the notion that realism must come first. Such a premise denies the primary reason dramatists write: not to recreate life—which can be watched as it unfolds in any laundromat or public place—but rather to tell a story aloud.

Playwriting is best understood as a logical step in oral storytelling: first, describe an incident; then, add dialogue to that description; next, recite the dialogue with appropriate attitude (acting); and, finally—when the story overwhelms the capacity of the solo teller—ask friends to join in and take on roles (drama). Nothing in this process suggests the necessity of any imitation of life with its nitty-gritty details. Furthermore, theatre history tells us that drama did not begin with what we would call realism; so why begin with it in the classroom? Certainly, many of drama’s most lasting successes—the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare, for instance—are not realistic and are nothing like words overheard in a café. Continue reading “Beyond Realism”

Teaching Playwriting: “Theatricality”

Dramatic texts are one part writing, one part performed experience. In other words, a script must be judged not just by the quality of the writing, but by how well it works on stage. This concept is difficult for beginning playwrights to grasp. Textbooks try various ways to explain. For example, some call the script a “blueprint” for performance—a means to an end, rather than an end itself. Additionally, some instructors discuss the magic of “theatricality”—that je ne sais quoi that separates dramatic writing from the other genres.

Because “theatricality” is inconceivable apart from action—apart from the act of doing that constitutes performance—the teaching of playwriting requires performance as part of classroom activities. The concept of performance as pre-eminent should undergird all course structures. For example, when possible, written assignments should be shared aloud in class: hearing texts with an audience is preferable to at-home silent reading because the former better approximates how scripts are meant to be experienced.

Dramatic writers must learn to see themselves as performers. They do not need to be good performers, but they need to be willing. They need to be able to play roles well enough that they can hear in their minds the characters’ voices as they commit words to paper. It is not the same skill as that of the actor, who hears primarily one voice at a time, but is more like that of the stage director who understands the interplay of multiple voices. Most playwrights, I believe, mutter to themselves. And, while a little murmuring is probably common to all creative writers, I would guess that playwrights spend an inordinate amount of time muttering speeches and singing songs to themselves. This skill—necessary as a “trying out” of characters—can be nurtured in students by having them perform. Continue reading “Teaching Playwriting: “Theatricality””