Ever written a Play?

[DannoE]

Anybody ever written a play?

I want to write one and so started playing with the format. If anybody has any experience here, your thoughts and whatnot are more than welcome.


Thanks.

[Scribe]

First of all I think a play about the Iraq war is a great idea that should be able to sell to theater directors and gather an audience. I know some about Bronx Angel and I think it could translate well to the stage.

The problem that I see is that it reads more like a screenplay then it does a stage play. Based on what you've posted here I have a few suggestions.

Any play needs to minimize set pieces and the number of sets themselves. I don't think there is enough going on in the briefing scene to justify making a scale model of a battle that they never got to. Also, a burned out car takes up a lot of space and since you're writing this for college you need to consider the realities of the college space.

Also bear in mind that it takes a while to completely switch sets from something like a desert to something as involved as an apartment. You can use this time give more of an unlighted monologue to Angel. The one line really doesn't work for me; did the mortars not make the ground shake? I would think they would. You can have him go into a longer monologue with more details.

The hardest thing about playwriting is giving up the narrative and dealing with the confines of what you can actually make appear on stage. In other words you don't describe what it looks like in reality, "A desert with a number of burned out cars." You describe literally what you need on set.

I follow two rules with every play that I write: Use as few sets as possible and use as few actors as possible. Both of these add to the cost of the production and make your script less likely to be produced. Set changes also take time and frustrate your audience.

Because the play going audience tends to be more sophisticated playwriting is its own audience. You don't need to have a big opening in a drama like Hollywood does with movies. Also play audiences are more willing to delay their gratification. It is alright for plays to be two hours plus intermission. Too much physical action is difficult to pull off and can confuse the audience. It is completely acceptable to do action by sound only.

Overall I think you have created a great concept and I think it could be a phenomenal stage show. If you want anything from me, just let me know

[DannoE]

Thank you so much Scribe.

I struggled with it because I wanted first and foremost to write a play that is meant to be read. The full version of this story will never be produced as a comic, but I CAN re-write it as a play that folks might be more willing to read than a comic script. So I decided to describe stuff "Bernard Shaw Style" and hope for the best. I THINK it could be done with a minimum of 4 basic sets, but I'm not sure. I guess we'll see. At any rate, my plan was to write it as though were going to be a mullion dollar production and then include an annex on actual set designs. What do you think of that?

I'm gonna definitely keep what you said in mind and come back to you later when I get a bit further into it and start re-writing. Thank you so much.

[Scribe]

At any rate, my plan was to write it as though were going to be a mullion dollar production and then include an annex on actual set designs. What do you think of that?

I wouldn't take that route for two reasons. One if a producer or director takes a look at the play and sees millions of dollars in production values most that I know are just going to put it down. Very few professional dramatic productions have budgets in excess of $100,000. If you're writing a big stage musical that's different, but you're writing a one act you hope colleges will perform. Also if you do expand it to a full show, given a chance to pay for a big name star, or really fantastic sets and production values most producers are going to choose star power because star power has a better track record of pulling people in.

The second reason I would say write with as few technical demands as possible is because plays aren't so much about what you see as about what you hear. Dialogue and character are the meat of a play, any sort of visual effect is nice, but it's what your characters say and do that provide the story.

Since I understand Bronx Angel to be about a veteran struggling to resume his life at home I think you should focus on that and keep the audience guessing as to exactly what happened to him in Iraq through most of the play. I'd suggest starting off in New York and tell the story of his deployment in a series of set-minimal flashbacks with most of the action coming from sound.

One other thing I noticed, while it works in comics to just end a scene after just a few words you really can't get away with that on stage. I would really suggest you expand the scene between Angel and Darlene because that's where I expected the story to pick up and then it just abruptly end. I see a lot of shows, and I've written a number of plays and the theater moves and feels entirely different than every other format. Go see some good shows and I know it will help your rewriting process

[Kep!]

I have...and I've performed it several times (it was a one man show). I'll definately be back later to read through yours. FUN!

[DannoE]

Thanks guys. There's a lot here that I have to think through. This is a process. Scribe, you're certainly right that I should go see some shows, and doubly so because I'm already in NYC. Small budget productions abound.

BA already had a problem with pacing in that many of the scenes were quite short. That's a by-product of the small press, where you try to get as much done as fast as possible because art costs per page. The original 5-issue script was a bit more decompressed, but I still knew I was on a budget and consciously cut down many of the scenes for that reason. The good news is that this seems like a project to spend some time on. The bad news - which isn't really that bad - is that it's going to take a lot of time to learn to do it right. But I guess we're all aren't going anywhere.

Thanks again. I'll post more when I get a chance to work through it, and I feel like I have something to show.

[Peedee]

Plays for fun to write. I think they're fun specifically BECAUSE you're facing the limits of what you can do on a stage. That's the joy of it. Plus, you're writing for PEOPLE on a stage, who are interacting with PEOPLE in the audience. That's magic that's really sometimes lost (or at least distanced) in most other mediums, and I love that too.

[Penchant]

I'm sorry to hear about your crises (flooding, loss of Proletariat). I've been wondering how to classify the modification of Bronx Angel, which has for a while now seemed like your opus. Your first choice of medium, comics, it now seems as if you've abandoned, and as to whether or not this is a good or bad compromise is open to interpretation, since on the one hand we (as in the public) know of these other issues, and on the other, all we know is what you tell us. Maybe BA's new iteration has nothing to do with what seems obvious enough. But is a dream dying here or being salvaged in a different form?

Whatever's going on, you have our continuing support, as one of the Internet's young and ambitious creators, who has made bounds of progress and who thus has earned the right to assume maybe he may be worth the trouble after all. Because you really are, and not the least because you're continually willing to work at it, as demonstrated by this very thread. So yeah, your adaptation has some ways to go, your writing style some acclimation. Best of luck with that, and everything else. Don't give up hope!

[DannoE]

I'm sorry to hear about your crises (flooding, loss of Proletariat). I've been wondering how to classify the modification of Bronx Angel, which has for a while now seemed like your opus. Your first choice of medium, comics, it now seems as if you've abandoned, and as to whether or not this is a good or bad compromise is open to interpretation, since on the one hand we (as in the public) know of these other issues, and on the other, all we know is what you tell us. Maybe BA's new iteration has nothing to do with what seems obvious enough. But is a dream dying here or being salvaged in a different form?

Whatever's going on, you have our continuing support, as one of the Internet's young and ambitious creators, who has made bounds of progress and who thus has earned the right to assume maybe he may be worth the trouble after all. Because you really are, and not the least because you're continually willing to work at it, as demonstrated by this very thread. So yeah, your adaptation has some ways to go, your writing style some acclimation. Best of luck with that, and everything else. Don't give up hope!
Thanks man. I don't know what to say to that.

I haven't stopped writing or writing comics or writing about comics. It's just easier for me to do freelance/submissions stuff now than it is to self-publish. Really, it always was, but now I HAVE to do it in what we might think of as an "establishment" type way rather than in a "tear it down!" way. As I said in the last NEWS Page, that's probably for the best. But I'm still doing some comics stuff. I have my column at PBR (http://www.paperbackreader.com) (more popular already than the PC LLC NEWS Page ever was), and I'm editing a major project for ASJ-41 (the Origins Project, which will run after the Saiko Mini Series and total maybe 150 pages), and I'm working on a submission that I'm excited about. I'm happy about that stuff. I'm even still having my Memorial Day BBQ. So no I can't still afford to self-publish, but that doesn't mean that I've come to the end of the road. Really, I hope it's just the beginning.

Anyway, at a certain level, BA stopped being my opus when I cut it from 5 issues (134 pages) down to 72. It's not a bad story now, but it isn't what it could have been. So one reason that I want to re-write it as a play is so I can at least put the whole story out there in a way in which it might get read. Folks read plays moreso than they read comic scripts, so that's at least part of my thinking. But we'll see.

This specific script was an experiment. The issue here is that there are too many characters right now, and so BA itself needs a pretty significant re-write. I'll probably start tinkering with it after I finish GMG.

Thanks for the very nice note.