Friday, June 18, 2004

 

Big News in the Small Pond

So, as I was saying, I'm going to grad school.

I've known for a couple of months now, but I didn't want to mention it until all the pieces were in place, all the acceptances and rejections in. Final rejection came in yesterday (&@#%# Juilliard...)

But it's not all darkness and failure and doom, because I was accepted to prestigious New York University. It is so prestigious! Its prices are, anyway!

I kid NYU, because I love, because I have to, because I'm spending the next two years in its hallowed halls. At least, I think it has hallowed halls. Don't most universities have hallowed halls? My undergrad school, Boston University, didn't. The School for the Arts housed in a former car dealership. But I'm sure NYU will be different, with acres of open, rhododendron-lined quads, lawns abundant with Frisbee-throwing coeds, leisurely strolls in the arboretum...I hear that 5th Street is quite verdant.

Seriously, NYU is a great school, one of the best, with a lot of opportunities to offer. For one thing, it recognizes that a playwright has snowball-hell odds of making a living at playwriting, so it offers courses in screenwriting and television writing. Be sure to look for my spec for the new Law and Order:...whatever the new one's called, Sexy Victims Unit, Crime & Punishment, Dungeons & Dragons.

I've heard a few horror stories about the competitive nature of this program. The usual catty backstabbing, trash-talking politics. More than a few tales of stolen ideas. Now, I can chalk up some of these accusations to the usual sour grapes. Writers tend to believe that their creative genius rests on an unreachable plateau, where their ideas are unique species of ferns. Every writer I know insists that they had the idea for The Truman Show ten years before they made it. They probably did. But just because my great-great grandfather once wrote in his diary that a horseless carriage would be a jolly pip doesn't mean that we should call our cars Ballentinemobiles.

On the other hand, in the hothouse environment of grad school, with a bunch of people desperate to make the most of the situation because God knows they don't want to have to go back and get the MBA, thus proving mom and dad right all along...under such circumstances, there could well be some cribbing. Writers talk a lot about other people's ethical failures, but they're a sleazy lot in their own right.

It's not going to be a big love-in at Tisch, much as I would like it to be. I have to accept that. I hope I'll be in a good group. Dream of Eden and pack a gun.

One big consequence of grad school is that I won't have time for any more extracurriculars. Grad school, writing, work, family, that's where the hours will go. Unfortunately, Venal Scene may be a casualty of this reorganization. I don't want it to. Of all my unnecessary activities, it's the least unnecessary. I've met some great people, and gotten a few nibbles out of it. We'll see. It'll be around through Labor Day, at any rate. And maybe I can turn this into a dishy gossip rag about Tisch! ("OMG you won't believe what Gary Garrison was wearing last nite!") That'll be amusing for ten seconds.

posted by Dan 1:26 PM
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Thursday, June 17, 2004

 

Return of the Thing

Through Mac, I came across another theatre-weenie alumnus of my alma mater, Boston University: James Comtois. A playwright, no less. And, as one of his entries notes, a participant in The Play Ground, the yearly presentation of new plays by student playwrights. The school calls it a "festival." James eschews that term in favor of a "thing." Must you call it a "thing," James? Couldn't it at least be a fiesta, or brouhaha, at least? I have a personal investment, you see.

Once upon a time, there was no forum for new plays at Boston University. A bunch of students with the interest decided to change that, and I was fortunate enough to be among them. We dubbed our presentation "I.T.S.B.U.S.T.A.F.O.P.," an acronym so ridiculous that I won't elaborate. It was a weekend of performance art, short plays and reading. Talented artists like Kristen Kosmos, Judy Elkan and Rhett Martinezz all presented one-person shows. We also had a reading of my new work, Far West States. The play was an intriguing attempt to create the most concentrated fifteen minutes of bad theatre ever. I wish I could say the experiment was deliberate. But the experience taught me several important points that served me later.

The next year was my senior, and I was one of the honchos on a new committee to continue the fun. Eddie, the guy who doled out rooms and equipment for rehearsal, refused to release either to us until we changed our name, so one lunch we brainstormed "The Play Ground," and its been that ever since.

We expanded the event to three weeks, and set up a format that The Play Ground keeps to this day (with one major horrible exception, that I'll get to soon):

1. Anybody could apply, not just playwriting students;


2. Everybody who applied would get in;


3. All you had to do to apply was provide a script, no stoner "concepts" scribbled on cocktail napkins (this was a controversial provision); and


4. No faculty would be involved.

This last provision was crucial, we thought, given the nature of the conservatory program.

For those who don't know what a conservatory program is: kids study a particular discipline, usually artistic, to a near-complete exclusion of all else. Because of this focus, the program becomes everything to the student, the whole universe. And the gods of that universe, the faculty, passes down judgment on the work regularly. It creates a lot of pressure for the students, class-to-class and play-to-play, and not all of the pressure is useful. The most extreme judgment in a conservatory is a "cut," where, at some point in the program, anywhere from ¼ to ½ of the class is told to leave.

We decided that we wanted our work to be free of such pressure. We wanted a chance to blow off steam. Naturally there would be judgment from our peers, but we felt that, since faculty members could do more damage with their opinions, they were best left out. In fact, one faculty member nearly demanded that we keep them out, as he felt it was more important for us to succeed or fail based on our own criteria.

I want to emphasize the importance of failure, because it's crucial to education. Failure is a great teacher. Nothing beats the sting of a bored/annoyed audience for driving home a point. What's great about school is that it provides you a place to fail, without the damage it might do to you professionally. And an audience, even one made up of your friends, will let you know if you've failed. Even if they come up afterward with "GOOD SHOW" smeared on their lips, you'll know they're being polite. Then you can try to figure out why. An experienced faculty can help aid you in that, but the initial lesson is better learned through experience.

There were some terribly plays that year, the kind you'd expect from green undergrads. But it was okay. Everybody was supportive. Nearly everybody was involved. And the faculty kept their opinions to themselves, unless somebody asked for them. At the end of the three weeks, a change had come over the school. Before, everybody was showing the signs of exhaustion that appear as February wetly plods into March. Afterward, the students had an extra spring in their step. The inmates had brief control of the asylum, and they were happier for it. We had made theatre purely for its own sake, for the benefit of our own retarded muses. There was a mood of celebration. Of, dare I say, festival.

But this isn't actually about driving home that quibble. It saddens me to see James report the following about the current state of The Play Ground:

My junior year, the Play Ground had set things up a little differently. This time around, professors from the School For the Arts would read the submitted scripts and give written evaluations. Their evaluations still had no bearing on whether or not you got in; again, if you sent in the materials on time, you were in.

I'm glad to hear that the evaluations weren't a hurdle for entry, but for crying out loud, they're still going to have a chilling effect. What purpose can such evaluations serve? Improvement of the scripts? Fine, if the playwright seeks such help. But maybe they don't want it. Maybe having a poor evaluation will kill the refreshing burst that unbridled creativity can give. Maybe a festival created by the students for the benefit of the students should be evaluated by the students. Maybe a faculty interested in issuing evaluations, under these circumstances, is doing so for reasons other than providing an education. And maybe, as in James' case, those precious evaluations will turn out to be totally cracked.

Sometimes the best way to teach is to say nothing, to let the student fall flat and help them up afterward. Faculties don't have to jury every single hiccup out of their charges. The families are paying 100k a year. The kids have years of loan payments ahead of them. Give them a little friggin breathing space.

On the other hand, I'm happy to see that a program I helped start twelve years ago is still alive and kicking. Shows disappear as soon as the lights go out. Scripts lie fallow on hard drives and in file cabinets. Seeing the "thing" is still there gives me some pride.

But they couldn't just let the students run it, could they? Faculties, like governments, have trouble resisting the urge to Know Better.

In the grand scheme, a minor issue. One dear to my heart though, and causing me particular anxiety the past few weeks, because I'm going back to school. More later.

posted by Dan 11:09 AM
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Week of Mystery

Yes, no posts for a week. A combination of playwriting work and a crippling depression. Usually the latter puts the kibosh on the former, but there you are.

Only highlight was watching the Lakers get the snot kicked out of them. Never thought I'd root for the Pistons, but there you are.

posted by Dan 10:58 AM
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