Northwest Playwrights Alliance in NYC - and you’re invited! WWU/Northwest Playwrights Alliance tour: Sat. March 20  @  3 pm Tickets: Donation at the door (or free if you’re willing to projectile laugh and/or cry)

Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex Dorothy Strelsin Theatre

just west of 8th Avenue

Join us for the first leg of the tour.  Next stops: England & Japan. Dr. Rich Brown directs an amazingly talented ensemble, featuring short plays by Eva Suter, Michael Wallace, Aaron Shay, Greg Hischak, Solomon Olmstead & Bryan Willis The plays: Tads, by Eva Suter.  An origin story that combines a brilliant use of dialogue and movement.

• Tads, dramatizes a conversation between the first amphibians to survive the treacherous journey out of the ocean to the beach.
• Johnny Elgam and the Newport Kid, by Aaron Shay.  A hilarious Old West Showdown between the meanest, trickiest, snarliest pokemon champs this side of Hawks Prairie.
• Scent of Man, by Solomon Olmstead.  The etiquette of growing a mustache – an idle conversation with life-changing consequences.
• The Square, by Michael Wallace – Schoolyard politics go a little too far in this playground competition…Funny, heartbreaking, and a little scary.
• Poor Shem, by Gregory Hischak – trouble in teh office when a co-worker has a fatal run-in with the Xerox machine.  Do we call a priest, a repairman…or just use the by-pass tray?
• The Lazy Beauty, by Bryan Willis — a classic fairy tale with an unexpected ending.  Be careful what you wish for….

CALL TO PLAYWRIGHTS FOR APPLICATIONS
Seattle Rep Summer Residency at Western Washington University
JUNE 20th-27th, 2010

Are you a playwright residing in the Pacific Northwest? Would you like to bring your work-in-progress to our inaugural Summer Residency at Western Washington University? For one week at WWU, Seattle Rep will host two full-length plays (two writers, two directors and ten actors) as well as a solo piece. Each play will be given several days of rehearsal time and a public presentation on Sunday, June 27th.

Seattle Rep and WWU provide transportation to and from Bellingham, room and board, and a modest stipend. Please send your proposal to :

Seattle Repertory Theatre
WWU Summer Residency
Attn: Braden Abraham
PO Box 90093
Seattle, WA 98109

Proposals should include:

* A brief description of your play
* Your goals for the residency
* Any schedule conflicts
* A copy of the script or writing sample
* Your contact information
*Please note we will be unable to return any proposal materials. *We will accept proposals until March 15th, 2010.

NPA ANTHOLOGY: NORTHNORTHWEST – CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The Northwest Playwrights Alliance is now accepting submissions for its 5th edition of “NorthNorthwest” an annual anthology of ten-minute plays. (NorthNorthwest is co-sponsored by NPA, Seattle Repertory Theatre and Western Washington University). This year’s theme: “The Way It Is.” No fee. Limit two scripts per playwright. Deadline for scripts: March 15, 2010. If selected, notification will be not later than June 15, 2010 NPA will not retain rights of any kind. Payment: international fame and complimentary copies. Please send your pdf. or Word e-submissmion to nnw.submissions@gmail.com. No snail mail submissions will be accepted. Questions? Please email nnw.submissions@gmail.com for further inquiries.

Thanks to Bryan Willis, playwright-in-residence at Northwest Playwrights Alliance, for organizing the get-together with Lee Blessing at the Seattle Rep, August 9, 2009. 30-40 or so of us showed up. Lee was personable and accessible and insightful and most important, he inspired me to sprint the final few yards to finish the latest draft of my current play in workshop.

We started with an exercise – we paired off, wrote progressive dialogue that advanced a storyline meant to make the character uncomfortable. The point: characters react to discomfort, not polite banter. That’s drama.

Some recollections (as I perceive them, not necessarily as Lee spoke) from scribbled notes:

Playwrights today are too polite/too timid – Be intense. This is not creative writing. 21st century playwrights are not 19th century novelists. Get to the point, write intensely, make plays transactional with characters who try to get something from each other.

Understand the audience – The audience arrives at 8:00 PM, leaves at 10:00 PM (or so). They bought expensive tickets, drove into town, they are captive, sit on uncomfortable seats, their standards are high and get higher as the play progresses, they want something clear, focused, intense, that culminates in a way that surprises them, is fulfilling. A play can be a landmark in their lives, moves to a climax, characters who make each other uncomfortable, makes the audience uncomfortable. Playwrights overestimate what an audience is willing to wade through. Audiences are more interested in solutions than problems. We have enough problems. In Richard III he thinks – if I just kill all these people I can be King of England. That’s his solution.

Suspense trumps mystery – Suspense is deeply valuable to dramatists, much more than mystery. Young playwrights often mistake mystery for suspense. No time involved in mystery, audience has no control over it. Mystery is evocative, great in novels. Mystery is intellectual and cerebral. Suspense is emotional. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – George and Martha are reviled in the beginning, in the end they prove to have the stronger relationship, they are survivors, we see ourselves in them, they surprise us. Our relationship, our marriage is put under the microscope.  In Streetcar Stanley at the opening seems to be okay – he’s employed, has friends, has good relationship with his wife – Blanche is the intruder, unsympathetic.

Go big  – What is the biggest statement I can make? What do I care about. Be ambitious. Don’t be afraid to take the last step. In Streetcar the rape did not need to occur – Stanley already prevailed over Blanche but he needs to destroy her. Go where you’re uncomfortable. Confront yourself.  Find an issue important to you and explore it in a way that the audience has not thought about before. Identify audience blind spots and attack – show them how much they’re missing.

Humiliation is good in drama – It is harder for audiences to watch humiliation than violence – it is a dramatically powerful, useful tool.

Plays work in people – We sometimes forget that.

Know the climax before you start to write – Audiences want a climax, the explosion. Amazing that playwrights sometimes don’t even realize that there is a climax.