Another Opening, Another Show...

Behind this door lies theater.

Monday, May 14: This is my third opening in Dublin and they don’t get any less fraught, less exciting.

But what do you do on Opening Day, when everything’s just marking time until curtain, and the playwright’s become a useless appendage, like a vestigial tail that drops off as the organism evolves. I don’t feel redundant (that’s a line from the play). Also, everyone starts talking in lines from the play.

I remember the day, the moment, “Outlook” was born. I was on my way to work, fussing at myself because there was a deadline for the EATfest looming, and I didn’t have anything new. I’d already worked my way through my “trunk” plays that might be suitable for a one-act festival; while I generally think highly of the plays I send out, sometimes the artistic directors don’t. So I had nothin’. And I thought: It’s not like there’s a magic wand. Then: wouldn’t it be great to have a real magic wand? I almost stumbled on the steps up from the PATH train as the idea hit me. I clutched the rail and went on.

I was on my way to a training session for Outlook, the email program that our company was transitioning to; and one of my colleagues had to shuffle us in and out by the hour, in groups of 30, and teach us the rudiments of our new software.

I didn’t pay that much attention to the lesson, because I had started writing the play called “Outlook” in my head. I realized I knew there was a woman named Susan who spent her days teaching people in a corporation how to use software; and there was someone from UPS who came in…with a magic wand. I tried to keep the details in my head.

And I kept repeating the details over and over, and adding to them, and embellishing them, and finding out more about the characters; that night I went home and started to write. I can’t remember how look it took, but soon enough I had a one-act play.

I gave it to Paul Adams, EAT’s artistic director and he said…not for us. And I showed it to Tina Howe, my friend and teacher, and she said: that character of Brown is wonderful, but we don’t know anything about the others. (There were 4 characters by then).

Somewhere in there, it became clear that the play was meant to be longer than one act, and I started making mental marks on the script: here would be a place to let out a seam, here would be a place for an addition. What would make the ending work? Which person would Susan end up with at the finish? I thought I knew, but then the character I was writing took over, and in no uncertain terms made it clear she was unsatisfied with the ending. And when they start talking, I listen. At that point, it feels more like taking dictation.

Susan acquired a daughter, and I had a cast of 4, all women, and I even had in mind which actors I was writing the two leads for. I started to bring it into Playwrights Circle at EAT, and as often happens with my plays, the main critique was: nothing HAPPENS. And I said: a woman falls in love, loses her girlfriend, her job and her home, and acquires a wand with magical powers and NOTHING HAPPENS? Sometimes, this is what it feels like to be a woman playwright.

And, I think what drives me, if not a lot of other playwrights, is that I know, in my heart, if I can just make the audience see what I see, they’ll get what I’m trying to say. So you can tell me “nothing happens” and I can try to make it clear that EVERYTHING happens. Somewhere in there, we went to Dublin again (with my play, "The Adventures of..."). And before we left, I asked Mark Finley, in his capacity as TOSOS Artistic Director, to schedule “Outlook” for a reading sometime in May after we got back. That would give me plenty of time (I thought).

I wasn’t finished a draft. Oh no, not me. But a deadline…now there’s something to get you writing.

When I got back from Dublin I thought: oh shit. I have a reading of this thing in a couple of weeks, I’d better finish it. (I don’t think I’m revealing a big playwright secret here. Many of us are like this).

Outlook: The Original Cast (TOSOS, May 2009).

And in the meantime, the actors I had in mind weren’t available. They’d either moved on (physically, to another state), or weren’t available on the day. In a brief discussion with Mark, I suggested Meghan Cary, who’d already worked with us on a couple of full-length readings and a short play reading, and been in a short play of mine. She was a bit young for the part of Susan, but 1) you can do that in a reading; and 2) she said “yes.” For Patience, Susan’s girlfriend, we went to our EAT larder (the deep and talented acting company), and Mark and I looked at each other and said…what about Danielle Quisenberry? And to look at her fiery beauty you wouldn’t think of her as playing an uptight WASP, but it was, in fact, what was underneath the character’s surface that suited her for the role so well. We had Irene Longshore for the ingénue, because she’s the one you call up when you need a good actress who can play young (who is young) and you can HEAR her. (And she’d also been in one of my short plays where she made her singing debut playing a tween star).

But for Brown, the mysterious catalyst…fortunately, I’d made the acquaintance of Lisa Kron, the wonderful American playwright (and founding member of the Five Lesbian Brothers) a couple years previously at a New York Innnovative Theater Awards party (I think Lisa was the host that year). And I was telling Lisa about “Outlook” and worrying that I could not find the right actor to play Brown, and she looked over and called “Donnetta…there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Donnetta walks the stage preshow.

And Donnetta Lavinia Grays turned out to be the whole package: actor, playwright, fellow South Carolinian. We’d even done a reading of her play “The B Factor,” at TOSOS, and Doric had made her a member by the time she came onboard with “Outlook.”

 So the names were in the blanks, and we rehearsed once, as is our TOSOS custom, and Mark looked at Danielle and said: “let’s hear the monologue.” THAT monologue… a long and complex bit that goes from superego to ego to id in the space of one page. It came to me in a dream (after seeing Staci Swedeen’s show, “Pardon Me For Living,”) and I had to jump out of bed and run into the next room and turn on the computer and write it down. I never do that.

And Dani nailed it in rehearsal and in the reading and we watched as she hit that sucker out of the part and gave notice that NO ONE else was playing Patience. And Mark and I were fine with that.

Everyone else brought it as well, and Doric loved it, and I knew I had a lot of work to do, but it seemed like I finally had a good piece of marble to carve, so to speak, and to follow Michaelangelo’s advice, I would try to cut away anything that didn’t look like a statue.

And then, you know, time goes by. And I kept working on Outlook and taking it deeper, and peeling away the layers. Not every night, or even every week. I’m pragmatic enough that I pull it out when there’s a chance that someone might see it, or hear it.

I’m also someone who has to “sell” my plays a lot (except to audiences). Audiences generally like my plays.

So we read “Outlook” again at EAT at last year’s “First Taste” series, which coincided with the EATfest (in which I had another short play in which people complained “nothing happens” except EVERYTHING happens). The idea of that program was that you’d hear the play, and go away for a month or so and come back with the feedback incorporated and the next draft. I could get on board with that, so we read Outlook in May, then in June, last year. The second reading was over at the Dramatists Guild, and as we walked over to our headquarters (Zuni), I listened to Paul’s suggestions that the epilogue could go, and that Brown needed more moments which established her own wants and needs, and made her less mysterious but more human. And I started thinking how to do that.

Then late last year, I asked Paul: Can we go to Dublin again? And we hadn’t the previous two years what with the economy and all, and battling life for art and vice versa. And I told him if we brought the puppy home, I would walk it and feed it, and brush it. So he said yes.

And I applied for Dublin again, and no one heard from the festival for awhile, because (we were told later), the Irish government wanted to charge a hefty tax on the visiting companies, and Brian Merriman (the artistic director) knew if that happened, he wouldn’t have ANY international visitors. Great idea! When your economy’s in the toilet, charge the ARTISTS. That’ll make up your deficit.

But Brian fought the law…and HE won. So we got the invite and began a three month Chinese fire drill that brought us here today. Or whatever day it is.

Opening Night presents!

And on opening night I didn’t think of all of that as I woke at Jurys Christchurch, and walked down the street to check in at Trinity Capital, and I know it was only Monday and today’s Wednesday, but I can’t really remember how I spent the rest of my morning. I ended up at the apartment where the cast was staying, and I did some shopping for Opening Night presents, because it’s NOT an opening night unless there are presents. Chocolate, t-shirts, chocolate, coffee…little souvenirs (to remember). The only wrapping paper I could find was wedding paper, so I bought that.

And walked to the theater in my red velvet dress and flats, hair (at least starting out) in a shiny, flat style, and makeup on my cheeks and lips for the first time in many moons.

I sat at the back of the theater and wrapped the presents, and watched them set up the lights, and the early arrivals, and gave the presents, and got one of my own (a literary pub crawl! Two of my favorite things!) and wondered…canwe pull it off?

The folks from the US Embassy arrived, and a decent crowd of both men and women. Would they get it? Would they laugh?

Mark and Jen in the back row before the house opens.

Spoiler alert: they got it and they laughed, and they listened when they needed to, and knew what was going on, and nodded “yes” when they liked something and shook their heads when they didn’t. Great applause at the end, and I decided I liked the shorter version of the play (we’d cut it down by a good 20 minutes or more in rehearsal) better.

Beautiful actors, great director, backbone of a Stage Manager.

Then off to find food, and to the First Night party at the Arlington Hotel. And dear Brian was there and we hugged for a long time, and I worked the room because that’s the kind of producer/playwright I am, and inside I was humming and buzzing and my heart was overflowing because we know what we are doing, and they knew what we were saying, and it definitely is a play where something happens and everything happens and we are here in Dublin doing it.

The cast of "Outlook," Dublin, May 2012.