In For a Penny: Of Olympic Proportions – My Twitter-fied Script

“Right side and with intensity, okay?”
“Is that everything? It seemed like he said quite a bit more than that.”
– Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation

There’s no way I’ll be able to top yesterday’s anecdote about Meryl Streep dreams, but I empathize with the plight of my fellow ‘Pub columnist. As you read these words, I’m mere hours away from the first rehearsal for my Poseidon-based script, The Adventures of Neptune: In Color! It’s one of the few things I’ve written for which I’ve felt genuine optimism once it was done. And I think that’s earned, considering I spent several marathon sessions over the past five days trying to edit the damn thing.

My play was selected to be a one-act, which I’ve written for the festival before and had every confidence I could do so again. Then I started researching. A lot. I never stopped researching, but once I began putting words into these characters’ mouths, I couldn’t make them shut up. To further complicate matters, the post-audition casting process resulted in me getting a truly kick-ass roster of Bay Area actors. So naturally I wanted to write material specifically for each of them.

The result could easily be the length of Once Upon a Time in America, but all I need is a “GoodFeathers” sketch. Realizing that my way-too-long story would require a bit of pruning, I found inspiration in a rather unlikely source: Twitter.

I remember years back when the late Roger Ebert joined Twitter. In fact, I remember years before when he specifically said he would NEVER join Twitter. He already had his regular long-form blog and implied that Twitter’s truncated form made real discourse all but impossible. He wasn’t entirely wrong: at its worst, Twitter is the medium for the sort of oversimplified opinions and patronizing platitudes formerly reserved for bumper stickers, fortune cookies, and novelty t-shirts.

When he finally joined in 2009, he would say months later, “Twitter for me performs the function of a running conversation. For someone who cannot speak, it allows a way to unload my zingers and one-liners.” That stuck with me. I forget what year I joined Twitter, but there was a period of months – maybe even a full year – where I just forgot about it and didn’t use it. (It’s this non-desire to “keep up with the Joneses” that has kept me from joining Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, etc.) But since I was a teenager, I’ve always held an appreciation for the democratic way the internet gives everyone a voice, even those with which I do not agree. If I was going to be on Twitter, I’d try to follow Ebert’s example and try to put some thought into what I typed. Short thoughts, but thoughts nonetheless.

This has proven an invaluable practice when editing scripts. Not every line needs to be “The Aristocrats,” some can just be dirty limericks on bathroom walls. Still, my biggest fear is that when the edited version is read aloud it makes no sense, but I can always say I planned it like that.

It takes me longer than others to finish a script because I usually write on a typewriter. I bought on a whim in college in 2000 and have gotten great mileage out of it since. Obviously it has a few disadvantages – no SpellCheck, errors have to be corrected manually, people in other rooms complain of the noise – but I feel those pale in comparison to the advantages I’ve gained from it – I’ve become a better speller, I predict and stop grammatical errors, and when I don’t hear the noise, then I know I’m not writing when I should be. I also can’t just take out a single line or page at my whim, because typed pages don’t self-edit. If I want to change something, you’ll likely have to change the entire script.

I’m reminded of a quote by John Milius, a writer I’ve always admired. In a 2003 interview, when asked about writing new drafts, he said that he “look[s] at a script like a gunstock [..] it has to be shaped right, and the finish has to be right, and you have to bring out all the qualities that are in the wood.” I agree with that. When I rewrite, I don’t think of it as replacing one LEGO piece with another, I think of it as playing Jenga or moving one ace without bringing down the entire house of cards.

I won’t know until this evening whether or not I’ve succeeded, and I’ll still have one more rehearsal and an actual reading left. For now, I’ll just finish hole-punching these 280 FedEx-copied pages whilst all you good people do the right thing and blow up the hashtag #SFOlympians6.

Charles Lewis III deprived himself of food and sleep to edit his script, so you should all come see it on Saturday – Nov. 7. To pre-order tickets and find out more info, please visit www.SFOlympians.com

Theater Around the Bay: Pub Love! Five Things We’re Celebrating

Marissa Skudlarek brings us a special report on what we’re just loving about Theater Pub these days!

June is traditionally a month for celebrations (dads, graduations, weddings…) and here at Theater Pub, we have a lot to celebrate too! Five things we’re happy about this week:

1. A Wake by Rory Strahan-Mauk, opening a week from tonight, is our first site-specific commission in our new performance space, the PianoFight Cabaret. See the show on June 22, 23, 29, and 30 at 8 PM.

2. Last Friday, we hit 1,500 followers on Twitter (join us @SFTheaterPub) and today, we hit 1,250 “Likes” on Facebook! Thanks to everyone in our social media community – we couldn’t do it without you!

3. Speaking of nice round numbers, this past Saturday, we hosted our 25th edition of Saturday Write Fever in the EXIT Theatre café! We’re thrilled that this has become such a popular and long-running event that encourages people to explore their creativity.

4. Today, American Theatre Magazine’s Facebook page linked to blogger Marissa Skudlarek’s most recent column, “She Submits to Conquer.” With this, we’re grateful to be part of the national conversation about how to improve gender parity in theater.

5. Our staff is the largest it’s ever been — in the inimitable words of Megan Cohen, “there’s enough of us now to cosplay Too Many Cooks.” We’re already making plans for our first all-hands meeting (combining production staff & blog writers) in July, so we can continue bringing you great theater and great writing from the City by the Bay!

Can it get even better? We shall see! Meanwhile, thanks to everyone who continues to make Theater Pub a success!

Hi-Ho, the Glamorous Life: An Analysis of My Relationship to Comedy (With Jokes)

Brace yourselves for Marissa Skudlarek, comic genius.

September is Comedy Month on the Theater Pub blog, so it seems like a good time for me to parse my rather vexed relationship with the idea of comedy.

Simply put, I think I have a good sense of humor, but I don’t get excited about COMEDY! the way so many other people of my generation do. I remember reading a survey (which I am now unable to find on Google) that said that young people increasingly see comedy as central to their identity. Comedy festivals proliferate, and every Millennial seems to be working on a humorous web series. Stand-up comedians, who once upon a time were themselves subjects of mockery, are the new rock stars.

These days, being interested in or good at comedy means that you’re one of the cool kids. And I am inherently skeptical of cool kids.

It wasn’t always this way: for eons, tragedy was the most prestigious genre, and comedy was considered frivolous. But now that the tables have turned, comedians are reveling in their newfound power. And sometimes, I feel, they overreach – they make claims for comedy that it doesn’t deserve.

Comedians like to consider themselves truth-tellers, and at their best, comedy and satire can effectively cut through society’s bullshit to reveal radical, disturbing truths. But this doesn’t mean that all comedy performs such a noble public service. Some comedy reinforces stereotypes instead of smashing them. (In the case of “ironic racism” or “ironic sexism,” comedy tries to have it both ways, which is worst of all.) Sometimes people refuse to laugh at your offensive, taboo jokes because they’re uptight prudes who can’t handle the truth bombs that you’re exploding in their faces, man. But sometimes people refuse to laugh at your offensive jokes because you just aren’t funny. Not every fart joke is a truth bomb.

Because of this strong association between comedy and truth, people often fail to acknowledge that comedy can be just as artificial as drama. It sounds respectable to say, “I loved that play! It made me laugh,” but it sounds suspicious to say, “I loved that play! It made me cry.” Maybe the play didn’t make you cry for the right reasons. Maybe it was cheaply manipulative and sentimental; maybe it played on your emotions. But laughter is always considered above reproach – even though the art of provoking laughter is itself an art of manipulation.

I do appreciate how, in the 21st-century comedy renaissance, women get to join in on the fun. People once honestly believed that women aren’t funny, and maybe it’s true that traditional, stereotyped femininity doesn’t offer much opportunity for humor. Comedy is transgressive, loud, messy, and active; it assaults dignity and convention. And women finally feel free enough to take part in this.

But if I’m a feminist who feels ambivalent about comedy, what does that make me? Does it mean I’m secretly afraid of strong, funny, loud, messy women; does it mean that, deep down, I am a reactionary troglodyte? The Twitter avatar of popular comedy writer Megan Amram (who went to high school with me, incidentally) shows her making a grotesque face: caked-on eyeshadow, dead eyes, double chin. And we are supposed to interpret this as a bold feminist statement. Unlike other women, blushing flowers who bat their eyelashes and pray for male approval, Megan’s not afraid to look ugly for the sake of a joke. I admire her gumption while also knowing that I lack it: when I choose a Facebook or Twitter profile pic, I select an image that shows me at my best (or at least, not at my worst). Megan’s Twitter avatar is supposed to make me laugh, but instead it makes me feel ashamed. I feel that I am a bad person for wanting strangers to think I’m pretty, and that my desire to cater to the male gaze is, for all I know, single-handedly upholding rape culture in the United States.

So you see what I mean when I say I have a vexed relationship to comedy. (To feminism, too.) Furthermore, I think my problem might be that I draw a mental distinction between comedy and humor. I love humor – and I can’t stand humorless people. I often say that I could never write a play that’s devoid of laughter, because I don’t think the world works like that! Our foibles, the absurd things we do to get what we want… these are the basis of drama, and they’re also inherently funny. And even in life’s saddest or darkest moments, people will find things to laugh about (perhaps in a bitter gallows-humor way, but that’s still humor).

But at the same time, I am not sure that I could ever write a 100% comedic play. For me, writing humor means creating a world where funny things can happen. (It could, in fact, be identical to our own world.) Whereas writing comedy implies the creation of a world where only funny things happen – where anything that doesn’t provoke laughter is simply ignored. And I consider that a dangerously false outlook – just as wrong-headed as total humorlessness is.

I think that life teeters wildly between great joy and great sorrow – so isn’t it odd that there are thousands of aspiring comedians, but no aspiring tragedians? We would find it absurd (or horrifying) if someone said that they spend all day thinking of ways to provoke people to tears and catharsis, but we think it’s perfectly natural to spend all day thinking of ways to make people convulse with laughter. And that’s really kind of funny, when you think about it, isn’t it? It could even be the beginnings of a comedy sketch.

Marissa Skudlarek is a San Francisco-based playwright, producer, and arts writer. Her Twitter avatar (@MarissaSkud) is a photo of the back of her head.

Claire Rice’s Enemy’s List: The Adding Machine

Last week Claire talked about all the shows happening on a particular day in September. This week she’s going to make wild assumptions based on guesses, wishful thinking, and poor research.

When we say there are over fifty shows playing on a given night (my rough count is 54), what does that mean people wise?

This shouldn’t be too complicated…right?

I estimate that on the night of September 19th there are over 450 actors performing in the Bay Area. For the sake of argument, let’s say there are as many shows in rehearsal as there are in performance. Continuing that argument, let’s say there are at least as many actors in rehearsal as there are performing. Yes, I understand that many actors might be in rehearsal and in performance at the same time. I also get that shows like Beach Blanket Babylon and Foodies! The Musical aren’t going anywhere anytime soon and those performers aren’t necessarily going anywhere either. So, we can put an estimate on over 1000 actors working (or enjoying a well earned night off) on the night of September 19th.

The estimates above are based on published cast lists and play descriptions. It’s a rough estimation, but the number is close. A harder estimation to make is the numbers of directors, writers, artisans, designers, crew members, house staff, and administrators are also being employed on a single evening. Some of the directors, and many of the designers, double up on shows. Some theatre companies need a very large crew of ushers to handle the large numbers of audience. Some theatre companies are able to work with a single stage manager who also acts as box office manager because there is no one else to do it. We’ll imagine, for this exercise, that it averages out to five on site crew members for each performance that evening. That’s 270 people working shows that night. Yes. I agree. I also think that number is too small. But let’s keep going. If we say that there are as many shows in rehearsal as performing then we’ll also say that there are an average of three crew working each of those rehearsals (I’m counting the directors in this number). So that’s 162. So, that’s 432 total.

1432 actors, directors, artisans, crew, administrators and assorted ner-do-wells working on the evening of the 19th.

But Claire, you say, you just made up all those numbers. Correct, smarty-pants-math-person. But, let’s keep playing pretend for now because I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts my number is off because it is too low.

Let me say that again. 1432 is a low end, non-scientific estimate of how many theatre artists are actively engaged in their art on the night of September 19th.

1,432 artists.

If Bay Area Theatre were a single employer, then they would be almost on par with Twitter, who employes 1,500 people in San Francisco. Twitter is, by the way, the third largest tech employer in San Francisco.

So that’s something to make you feel good. Sure, it’s a little superficial , but even so it’s the kind tag line that could get you through the day if you need to feel good about your life choices.

Next time we’ll go back to that 432 number and see how many of those roles are actually available to Bay Area actors, take wild guesses on who in that number is getting paid, and check out hot button topics like gender and ethnic parity.

Working Title: Oscar Haters: Let It Go… or… What Oscar Could Learn from Good Theatre

Will Leschber covers the Oscars.

The year so far has proved to be quite full. I hear the echo of many friends reflecting that the last two months were supposed to be the slower, quieter time of the year. A respite from the hectic end of the year. Instead this pair of dwindling winter months have shown to be more full of work, more full of creative endeavors, more full of social obligation, just more full. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it can overwhelm. Personally, I’ve experienced a stupidly abundant work schedule, a piercing desire to spend quality time with my fiancée, an unsatisfied need to connect with friends who also have no free time, and a responsibility to help plan a wedding (my wedding) which is approaching near summer’s dawn. Any one of these is enough to over run someone’s time. That’s the contemporary curse, I guess. Never time enough. What is needed is a little personal rejuvenation. We all have our own ways to replenish. What that looks like for me this time of year is the Academy Awards. It’s my annual oasis of enjoyment.

As I watched the 86th Oscar Ceremony, I thought that is may be the closest thing that general mass audiences get to attending a live theatrical event. The award show may resemble something closer to a variety show than a fully produced play, but all of the components that make good theatre are still crucial to the event. Good writing, emotional connection, production value, pacing, entertainment value, performance: these all contribute to a quality live performance (live theatre or live Oscar telecast, alike). Much of this falls to the hands of the host. This year Ellen DeGeneres was safe and vanilla and mostly unmemorable (besides the wonderful Twitter crashing celebrity selfie, of course).

I may be in the minority but I preferred last years Seth MacFarlane who brought energy and crass and triple threat talent. He may have been more controversial than Hollywood would like but man do I remember how impressed I was with his entertaining singing and dancing. Talk about quality theatrical performance! But that’s beside the point. DeGeneres may have been off her game but she was fine enough and more importantly there was so much more to enjoy. With the highest television ratings in 10 years (43 million viewers) was the telecast deserving of the hate it received afterwards?

It seems an annual activity to berate the Oscars and I think it lazy reporting and lazy viewership. Calling the show boring, long and self-involved is shooting at an easy target. The Academy Awards are always long. Get used to it. This jab has been used for decades. It’s cliche. Plus the broadcasts are in actuality getting shorter (at least since 2002).

If you find the show boring, maybe it’s because you lazily haven’t seen the majority of the films and have no stake in the categories. If you find the show self involved, maybe you weren’t aware that it’s an AWARD SHOW. That is the nature of award shows.

There are so many positive aspects to the Oscars and I derive so much personal joy from the discussions around and the show itself. I just hate to see all the hate. Amongst the highlights in this years Oscar ceremony, here’s a short list of things worth noting and remembering.

#5- No one’s acceptance speech was played off. I love love love that all the winners were given more time to speak. No one seemed to go long. At the pinnacle of someone’s career, is it really too much to ask to give them an extra 15 seconds to thank those who helped them arrive at a personal career high? Thank you who’s ever choice this was.

#4- The quality of the speeches overall was exceptional. When you find the bulk of your Oscar party getting dusty eyed at the speech of Best Animated Short film you know this is a good year for speeches. So many this year were emotionally engaging even if most of the viewing audiences were unfamiliar with the films.

#3- The mass appeal and the critical appeal were equally satisfied when best director and best picture split to Gravity and 12 Years a Slave. Usually Oscar awards one over the other. It was wonderful to see both recognized.

#2- Oscar got it right this year. Some have said the winners were to predictable and yet I was more satisfied by this years winners than many other collective Oscar years. Obviously this is subjective, and yes, I have minor personal gripes: the Inside Llweyn Davis shutout, Joaquin Phoenix, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tom Hanks, Robert Redford, I could go on). But, not only were the winners satisfying but the overall range of nominated film was exceptional. Even though it wasn’t going to win, I’m overjoyed my favorite film of the year, Her, was included in the Best Picture catergory. It was a good year for film.

…and the best moment to remember…

#1- Best Supporting Actress winner Lupita Nyong’o- Just Watch- http://entertainment.time.com/2014/03/02/oscars-2014-lupita-nyongo-speech-best-supporting-actress/

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Citiations:

Lupita Nyongo Speech Best Supporting Actress. 2014. video. entertainment.time.comWeb. 4 Mar 2014.

Oscar 2014. 2014. Photograph. http://www.theguardian.comWeb. 4 Mar 2014.

Oscar Selfie. 2014. Photograph. http://www.thedailybeast.comWeb. 4 Mar 2014.

Theater Around the Bay: 10 Ways For A Playwright To Self-Promote

We’re planning to do a lot of guest blogs in 2014, and Rachel Bublitz, a first time contributor, wants you to know that it’s okay to talk about yourself, in fact, she encourages it.

This kid would rather make his head explode than hear you talk about yourself. Nice knowing ya, kid.

When you think of self-promotion, you probably think it’s where you tell everyone who will listen how fabulous your life is and how they should all be envious of you, right? Wrong. I know self-promotion feels like showing off, or bragging, but it’s essential if you want people to know about what you’re doing. And if you’re not a playwright, don’t think you’re getting off so easy because this applies to you too, no matter what kind of art you’re doing, if you want the world to know, you’ve gotta tell ‘em. So hold on to your pants, I’m about to get all five-paragraph-essay and talk you through this article: I’m going to give you insider info about how important self-promotion is from someone who promotes writers for a living, then I’ll list ten things you should be doing and/or should know about self-promotion, and finally I plan on ending this post explaining why I think self promotion is so freakin’ important.

My good friend Kat Engh, a Communications Associate at Berrett-Koehler Publishers, said this when I asked her about self promotion:

“I think self-promotion gets a bad rap. You’re not selling broken vacuums door-to-door here, you’re selling an experience – one that I would hope you’d feel passionate about enough to be confident that someone else would enjoy that experience. It’s important to keep in mind that a publicist’s job is to help get you the opportunities to promote your work. When a radio producer asks a publicist for an interview, she doesn’t want to talk to your publicist on air, she wants to talk to you.

“Publicity is like dating; the people with the most confidence in their work tend to attract more media opportunities. I’ve worked with people with varying levels of experience with self-promotion, and it should come as no surprise that the ones who were more comfortable promoting themselves tend to yield the most results publicity-wise. Publicists recognize the importance of confidence, too, and many will opt not to take on a client if they have reason to believe that the artist won’t sell his or herself when new press opportunities are found.”

So not only is it good practice to promote your own work (so that your self-promotion skills improve as your audience grows), it also makes you more attractive for folks out there who might want to represent you.

Now it’s list time! Here are the ten things you should know and/or should be doing to promote your work:

Go See Other People’s Shows

This is huge. Like an actor? Director? A company? Supporting their work will only help convince them to support yours. When you see a show you enjoy, talk to the folks involved and tell them about yourself. Hand them a postcard of your show, or let them know about an upcoming reading you have. I know it sounds shady to go to another event to promote your own work, and I also know that talking to strangers can be hard (stranger-danger and all), but you’ve got to ignore the scary feelings and talk yourself up.

Know What You’re Selling

Know who would be interested in your plays. Last summer, when my first play was produced (which was a comedy about a sex-fantasy obsessed housewife), I knew it wouldn’t be for everyone. My mother-in-law, for example, not her cup of tea. So, while she knew that I had a show, I didn’t bombard her with information about a show that I knew she would be offended by. This also goes for theaters when you send out your work. Know what plays you write, and know where they would work and where they won’t work.

Have An Online “Landing Page”

There are tons of social media tools out there, and tons of blog options. This can be overwhelming, when you start rattling off the fifteen different places that people can find out more information about yourself. Instead of telling folks your email, twitter handle, facebook page link, website, or linkedin account pick on place that can lead people to find all that there is to know about you. I picked my website. If you go to www.rachelbubliz.com you can see my blog, get my contact info, and also “like” my facebook page, and follow my twitter account. Pick a spot, make it homebase.

Make The Internet Work For You

Once you’ve set up your landing page, use a website like IFTTT or If This Than That, to help spread your content around. IFITT allows you to build custom channels so that when you post a blog to your site, it’ll auto post to facebook, twitter, or other sites you use.

Dissect Projects To Create More Content

When you’re involved in a reading, or a show, and you get tired of writing, “My show is coming up, please, please come!” think of taking pieces of the show and highlighting them one at a time. Write a piece about your leading lady one day, interview your lighting designer the next. When you break a show into pieces not only does it give you something new to talk about, it also allows you to bring attention to the other people you’re working with, and shine some spot light on them for a change.

Share Your Process

It doesn’t sounds interesting from your point of view. But to someone else, who isn’t in your head, it can be intriguing. I know that when I started to post about what my artistic process was like, or what it felt like seeing this thing I’d originally only imagined in my head up on stage, people really responded. It’s a fresh perspective, and like taking the pieces of your team apart and highlighting them individually, it creates more content.

Take All The Pictures, All The Time

Then post them on facebook. Then tag them. So take lots of pictures, as long as you’re not pissing anyone off that is. Take pictures of rehearsals, and new costumes, and your director directing, and of everyone dressed up on opening night. And then when you post these and tag everyone involved, the people able to see these pictures and hear about your show grows.

Be Yourself!

It can be hard when you’re creating this internet image around yourself, and you can easily get caught up in making yourself seem better, or more likeable. But be yourself, and stay honest. Don’t gush about a show you saw that you truthfully didn’t like, and don’t try and build yourself as something that you’re not. It takes a long time to gain other people’s trust, and a lot less time to lose it.

Don’t Be A Cry Baby

Shit happens. People don’t get along, or you disagree with the direction something is going in, or you weren’t picked for the festival, or you get a bad review. You can (and should) talk about how much that sucks, I’d advise you to be tactful with names, but then move on. Don’t wallow in disappointment. Don’t start each new post complaining about something new. Take the bull by the horns and change what you don’t like. If that isn’t possible reflect on how you can make it better next time. But don’t cry about it for weeks on end, otherwise your audience will dwindle faster than you can say “unsubscribe.”

Be Patient

This stuff takes time. A loooooong time. So when the artistic director you’ve been wanting to come out and see your show misses the first one, or tenth one, don’t get angry or discouraged, just get back up and tell them about your next. When only had ten people in show up for one of your readings even though you’ve been plugging it for months, shake it off, and remember there can always be a next time. Keep chugging away and do what you do, tell folks about it. It’s been my experience that if you keep that up, one day they’ll listen.

I get why self-promotion is hard. I mean creating art for others to see is hard. You’re sharing an intimate part of yourself. A part that will be judged and reviewed without your feelings in mind. And now on top of that I expect you to put your ego even more on the line by having you tell everyone within a hundred mile radius about your project and why it should matter to them? You bet I do. Self-promotion is important because no one else can do it for you. The bottom line is that no one else cares as much as you do, and that will never change. You should be the most passionate person about what you’re creating, and you need to share that passion with the world that you hope to engage with. That passion is palatable, and contagious, and often inspiring. It puts caution to the wind and says, “Even though I am uncomfortable talking with strangers, and talking about myself, and talking about my dreams, my art is more important.” Because your art is more important. So tell everyone about what you’re doing, tell them non-stop. You’re not being a show-off, I promise.

You can trust this face- can’t you?

Rachel Bublitz is a local playwright, founder of the 31 Plays In 31 Days playwright challenge, Co-Artistic Director of All Terrain Theater, and mother of two. For more information please visit www.rachelbublitz.com.

Hi-Ho, The Glamorous Life: I Don’t Want to Wait

Marissa Skudlarek gives us her longest blog ever, because she’s got a lot to think about. 

As Allison Page noted here last week, self-producing is a hot topic among theater-makers right now. On Facebook, the group “The Official Playwrights of Facebook” frequently plays host to conversations about best practices for self-producing, and last week, HowlRound led a Twitter conversation on the topic.

In these discussions and conversations, there always seems to be someone (or multiple someones) offering advice along the lines of “Before you even think about self-producing a play, make sure you’ve done tons of drafts and multiple readings and workshops.”

Here’s why I think that that may be dangerous advice.

(Caveat emptor: I haven’t self-produced a play before, though I am planning to do so this year. Therefore, I may be writing this column from a place of naïve ignorance. If the play I self-produce this year goes disastrously, and I end 2014 moaning “Oh, if only I’d listened to the advice of my betters, if only I had revised and workshopped the play more before I produced it,” I will write a follow-up piece lamenting my folly. But these are my beliefs as they stand now.)

Now, I want to be clear that I don’t think playwrights should slap their raw, unedited first drafts onstage. My plays have definitely benefited from table reads, staged readings, and thoughtful revision. What I am taking aim at, though, is the idea that a playwright must spend years revising and workshopping a single script before it can even be considered stageworthy.

The standard counter-example to the idea of “every play needs tons and tons of revision” is Shakespeare. While we know very little about Shakespeare’s life or his writing process, consider this: he wrote about forty plays in twenty years, at a time when writing was much slower and more difficult than it is today. And he had a day job, too: he acted in and helped run a theater company. So it’s doubtful that he had the time to do multiple revisions and workshops of each of his plays!

But, you might say, Shakespeare was a genius and, anyway, he lived 400 years ago. Still, think of some examples closer to our own time. Well-known American playwrights such as Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson got their start by writing and producing lots of plays at the Caffe Cino: fast, cheap, and dirty. Not all of their early plays stand the test of time, but they got these writers noticed, taught them valuable lessons about the craft of playwriting, and are still being read and produced today.

Moreover, why are playwrights told to spend years workshopping and revising, when we do not expect the same of screenwriters? Woody Allen writes and directs a film a year, pretty much, and he claims that he doesn’t do multiple drafts of his screenplays—he just writes a script and then shoots it. And he has more Oscar wins and nominations for screenwriting than anyone else! Or, as you know, we are living in a Golden Age of television, and a typical TV episode is written, shot, and edited within a span of weeks or months. Some of the most brilliant dramatic writing of the 21st century has appeared on TV, and none of it comes from writers who spent years revising and workshopping a single script.

We playwrights may not earn as much money as Hollywood screenwriters, but historically, we’ve consoled ourselves by saying “Well, at least our plays do not get stuck in ‘development hell’ the way that screenplays do!” Yet now, people are advising us that for “the good of the play,” we need to get stuck in a development hell of our own making. We hear that our work is so precious, so special, so flawed, so fussy, so hard to get right, that it needs years of tender loving care before it’s ready to go out into the cruel world.

Actually, here’s a metaphor for you. You’ve probably heard people compare writing a play to having or raising a child. And, in the olden days of high infant mortality, parents would have lots of children and then try not to get too attached to them, for fear that the child would die. Discipline was severe, and parents expected their kids to grow up fast. Nowadays, people plan for their children carefully, have just one or two kids, lavish them with attention, and overthink every aspect of parenting. Likewise, in the olden days, playwrights expected to write plays at a steady pace, have them produced regularly, and then move on to their next play. But, nowadays, we are encouraged to write fewer plays, and become “helicopter parents” to the plays we have written.

I don’t want to return to an era of Dickensian cruelty and high infant mortality, nor do I want to live in a world where every play is produced right after the playwright completes the first draft. Still, there’s evidence that helicopter parenting is harmful to children, and I think it can be harmful to plays as well.

Consider this: if every new play needs to be workshopped for years before production, this will ensure that the theater always lags a few years behind the rest of culture. One of the theater’s advantages has always been its immediacy and flexibility. But as the rest of the culture speeds up (blogs, Twitter, the 24-hour news cycle), we’re encouraging playwriting to slow down and take its time. Also, if you do too many drafts, there’s a risk that you will grow bored with your own play and that it will lose its initial freshness and liveliness. You may even extinguish the creative spark that caused you to write it in the first place.

And if you want to do a dozen drafts and three workshops of your play in the hopes that you can iron out all of its flaws and make it critic-proof… sorry, honey, that’s not going to happen. No play is ever “critic-proof,” because no work of art can ever appeal to everyone’s tastes. Moreover, I remember reading a line in Chad Jones’ SF Chronicle review of American Dream, by Brad Erickson, that pulled me up short: “For a new play, American Dream is in remarkably good shape, though, as with any new work, there is still room for editing.” I never saw American Dream and therefore cannot say whether it had “room for editing” or not — what bothers me here is Jones’ cavalier implication that every new play needs editing and that it’s rare to find a new play that is in “good shape.” It suggested that critics approach new plays with the assumption that they are always flawed in some way. And if a critic goes into your play with that attitude, no amount of revision will help your cause.

A culture that encourages “five years of revisions” encourages writers to operate from a mentality of fear and scarcity, rather than a mentality of joy and abundance. It suggests that the financial, emotional, and reputational damage accrued from producing a less-than-perfect play will be far more consequential than any lessons you might learn from producing that play. (And everyone says that producing a play teaches you a lot and will make you a better writer the next time around.) It encourages black-and-white thinking: it suggests that unless your play is perfect, it is worthless.

Maybe some people do benefit from this advice. Maybe there are brash, over-confident people who bang out a play in two weeks, refuse to revise it, and insist on producing it “as is.” But I’m a fearful, neurotic person who has struggled with perfectionism for my whole life. So I can say with some authority that, for people like me, it is dangerous to tell us to wait and revise and make sure everything is perfect. Because we will wait, oh yes. We will wait forever.

Marissa Skudlarek is a San Francisco-based playwright and arts writer. She’s gearing up to self-produce a full-length play later this year. For more, visit marissabidilla.blogspot.com or @MarissaSkud on Twitter.