Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2011 Process as product: the culture of development and the twenty-first century American dramatist John Patrick Bray Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, johnpatrickbray@yahoo.com Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bray, John Patrick, "Process as product: the culture of development and the twenty-first century American dramatist" (2011). LSU Doctoral Dissertations.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3612 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contactgradetd@lsu.
PROCESS AS PRODUCT: THE CULTURE OF DEVELOPMENT AND THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY AMERICAN DRAMATIST A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Theatre by John Patrick Bray AS, SUNY Dutchess Community College, 1998 BS, SUNY New Paltz, 2000 MFA, The Actors Studio Drama School at New School University, 2003 August 2011 © Copyright 2011 John Patrick Bray All Rights Reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to Dr. Wade for his guidance and enthusiasm with this project. I am also grateful to Dr. Femi Euba, Dr.
John Fletcher, Dr. Leigh Clemons, and Professor Kristin Sosnowsky for their insight and generosity. Furthermore, I appreciate all of the input from my interviewees (in no particular order): Jeffrey Sweet, Michael Wright, and Jane Anderson of the New York Writers‘ Bloc; Rob Handel, Madeleine George, Gary Winter, Julia Jarcho and Anne Washburn of 13P; Bob Jude Ferrante of Sanctuary: Playwrights‘ Theatre; Howard Meyer and Linda Giuliano of Axial Theatre; Michael Bigelow Dixon, former Literary Manager and Associate Artistic Director of the Actors Theatre of Louisville; Jeremy B. Cohen, the Producing Artistic Director of the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis; playwrights Dan O‘Brien, Jason Holtham and Matt Hoverman; Professor Janet Neipris, Chair of the Department of Dramatic Writing at Tisch School of the Arts; Roland Tec, the Director of Membership at the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.; playwright (and friend) Laurence Carr; self-producer Ric Orloff, and the playwrights who contribute to the online forum, playwrightsbinge.
I also owe thanks to David Coley, for sharing his research on community theatre; Vastine Stabler for joining me in New York City to attend LARK Playwrights Week, and to my office mates John Mabry, Chris Nelson, Neal Hebert, Jeremy Reynolds, Stefani Overman-Tsai and YaYa Smith, who always brought lively conversation to the seminar table, and who, more often than not, showed one-another interest and grace. I am also grateful to the students, faculty and staff at SUNY New Paltz, where I am presently an adjunct of theatre history; to my friend, Neal Bell, whose talent reminds me why I became a playwright in the first place; to Akia and the Rising Sun Performance Company, who are my downtown theatrical family; to Bob Hoyt, Jim Ryan and the top-notch faculty and staff at iii The New School for Drama; and to David Staller, for his warmth and for providing cookies at his workshops. I owe a special thanks to my mother and father (John and Carolyn Bray), my in-laws (Gordon and Kathleen Bienvenue), my brother (Gregory Bray), and Paul (Bubba) Kellerman, for allowing me the time to write in their homes, and at the very least, for making sure that I am well fed. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my wife, Danielle Bienvenue Bray, who is incredibly loving, supportive and patient (i., she proofread my documents from prospectus to finished draft, even though she is writing her own dissertation), and to our son Danny, who has helped me keep everything in perspective.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements. vii Chapter One: Do-it-yourself .1 Survey of Literature .8 Practices of Post-War American Drama.8 The Role of the Independent Playwright .13 Methods and Approaches .20 Issues and Qualifications .25 Variations of the Workshop and Residencies .31 Materials and Data .34 Significance of Study/Stakes .38 Chapter Two: The Workshop.39 A Brief Genealogy of the Workshop and the Playwright Function .43 New Dramatists and the Actors Studio .63 Conclusions for the O‘Neill .70 Chapter Three: Developmental Hell and the American Canon .73 Regional Theatre and Developmental Hell .74 The Role of the Audience .84 Conclusions on Developmental Hell .89 The Cherry Sisters Revisited .91 Re-Thinking the American Canon.104 Chapter Four: The New York Writers‘ Bloc: Challenging the Status Quo .106 An Introduction to Theatre .106 Jeffrey Sweet and the New York Writers‘ Bloc .111 Improvisation and Playwriting: A Step Away from the Status Quo .115 Theatricality and Community.121 Conclusion on the Success of the New York Writers‘ Bloc .126 Chapter Five: Build Your Own Fucking Theatre! .131 Economics and Aesthetics .131 Rocco Landesman and the NEA .133 v Playwright as Producer .141 Sanctuary: Playwrights Theatre .154 Conclusions for Art v.160 Chapter Six: Axial Theatre: Between Professional and Community.162 Community and Community-Oriented-Theatre .164 Small Professional Theatre Contract .172 The Play Reading Series .183 Conclusions on the Axial and the Community.187 Chapter Seven:Beyond a Horizon of Expectations/Quality Control? .189 The Playwright in Conversation .191 Artistic Fulfillment, or ―Whose Happiness Matters?‖ .194 Quality Control: The Bigger Picture .199 Conclusions for the Playwright Conversation and Quality Control .217 vi ABSTRACT Simply stated, my research and my experiences as a playwright have led me to believe that the present condition of the playwright is that of a relic: that is, because of the notion that all plays need a developmental workshop, playwrights have not only lost authority over their art, but have also been driven to write plays meant for staged-readings rather than production. I argue that playwrights who create self-producing companies not only reclaim confidence in their craft, but also learn how to engage with the larger community via the collaborative process theatre. In this dissertation, I employ a theoretical lens that relies on Ric Knowles‘s ―material semiotics,‖ while suggesting that the ―do-it-yourself‖ playwright is incorporating just a ―touch of anarchy‖ by reclaiming his or her authorial voice (that is, the playwright is not looking to destroy the American theatre production apparatus; rather, he or she is seeking out his or her own definition of success, which may include acceptance from the status quo).
I highlight the causes of the playwright‘s diminished role in American theatre via a genealogy of the workshop model, and then offer four case studies in which a playwright (or playwrights) have taken control of his (her, or their) art (the New York Writers‘ Bloc, 13P, Sanctuary: Playwrights Theatre, and Axial Theatre). I suggest that playwrights who build their own writer-driven workshops and their own production companies have given new life to the craft, by bringing theatricality to the fore. I also look at the economics behind new play development and production in America, and suggest that the ―do-it-yourself‖ model frees the writer/producer from the economic (and therefore, ideological) stresses of regional theatre, while fulfilling regional theatre‘s forgotten mission of incorporating the community into the world of theatre (i., development and production). I close with some considerations of the limitations of the ―do-it-yourself‖ model (such as the notion of vanity/web publications).
I then reassert the argument that a playwright not only vii has the responsibility to create work for the stage, but also must be a central figure in local community building. viii CHAPTER ONE DO-IT-YOURSELF In the ‘30s, Harold Clurman, that great inspirer and co-founder of the Group Theatre, was introduced to André Gide, novelist and Nobel laureate. ―The problem with the theatre,‖ Gide remarked, ―is to find good plays.‖ ―The problem with the theatre,‖ Clurman rejoined, ―is to create a Theatre.‖ – from Todd London‘s article, ―The Shape of Theatre to Come‖ in American Theatre Magazine, November 2002. In the summer of 2010, I finally gained a production of my play Liner Notes as part of an Off-Off Broadway festival.
I began writing the play in 2001, while an M.A student in playwriting at the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University. The play moved through three classes--one led by Jeffrey Sweet, one by Neal Bell, and one workshop class (the Playwrights/Directors Unit) led by Jack Gelber. Having crafted a draft that met my satisfaction, I began shopping the piece around theatre companies in New York. I should be clear that, like most playwrights, I see a script as a ―blue print‖ for production or a ―code-book‖ for human behavior.
Any script, I believe, can change (and change for the better) during a workshop and rehearsal process. A writer can learn a great deal in a workshop that is geared for production, in terms of what moments work, where a scene might be overwritten (that old adage of ―show don‘t tell‖ haunts me to this day), and where the actors, directors, and designers can create their own stories within the groundwork that the writer has laid. However, a script ultimately needs a production, and a workshop reading (sometimes referred to as a ―workshop production‖), despite the intentions of the companies that create developmental programs, is a disappointing surrogate. My script was a semi-finalist for the Abingdon Theatre‘s Christopher Brian Polk Award in 2004, and, after being workshopped and rewritten in three classes at the ASDS (as stated), it 1 received workshops with the Actors Studio, the New School for Drama‘s Alumni Play Project, Epic Rep.
Theatre at the Players Club, the 3 States Theatre Company, and underwent three open- to-the-public readings. The script was finally produced by the (re:)Directions Theatre Co. as part of the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity. It had taken nine years to land a production.
This example should sound familiar to playwrights. Dan O‘Brien, whose play The Cherry Sisters Revisited was recently produced with the Humana Festival, told me that his play had been through a number of workshops in five years, with Yaddo (a writer‘s retreat), Primary Stages, the Irish Repertory Company, The Actors Company Theatre, Stage 13, Perry-Mansfield at Steamboat Springs, and then with the Actors Theatre of Louisville, which had conducted a workshop of the play at Louisiana State University prior to moving to production (O‘Brien Email). The play had been through seven workshops in five years. O‘Brien and I are lucky: our works have actually been produced.
However, looking over the various biographies of contributors to The Dramatist: The Journal for the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., one sees that a playwright is likely to boast more readings, residencies and awards (the awards, by the way, are usually staged-readings) than full productions. Indeed, over the years a number of ―workshops‖ have appeared with the aim of helping or guiding a playwright, such as the O‘Neill Conference and The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis; even theatres that generally produce, such as New York‘s Playwrights Horizons on 42nd Street, have started offering readings rather than committing to productions of new works. Readings such as the ones at Playwrights Horizons, and in not-for-profit theatres across America, are well and good as a step in the process, but where is the production? As production opportunities have diminished, opportunities for development (with the possibility of staged-readings) have been on the rise. The suggestion is that a work is not ready 2 for one of the few coveted slots until it has been through a series of public staged-readings, or worse, that a work will simply never be ready to meet the demands of production.
The playwright has lost the trust (financial or otherwise) of the theatre world. What kind of function does the playwright serve if he or she ultimately needs so much help? Is the playwright still viable to the theatre? Or is the playwright a relic, an aspect and example of what Jonathan Alter identified as ―old culture,‖ as the new ―cultural elite has become less intellectually elite – and much more connected to commerce‖ (Qtd. Boney 11)?