Playwriting: Breaking the Block, Part 2
I have a play in my head that has frightened me for a long time because it will require considerable research to write authentically—and the stack of books I’ve accumulated to begin the work is a bit...
View ArticlePlaywriting: Breaking the Block Part 3
Last week I wrote about an exercise from Michael Dixon to help raise the stakes in a scene. And here it is again: 1. Put two characters who share something in common in a place neither can leave....
View ArticleBreaking the Block Part 4: The Worst Case Scenario
Some years ago I came across a funny yet utterly serious book called “Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook” by Joshua Piven—a guidebook on how to survive a series of unlikely disasters—from an...
View ArticleBreaking the Block, Part 5: The Exploratory Scene
We’re back with my series on feeling my way through a draft of a new play. How to break through the block? In this installment, I’m looking at laying the foundations for an exploratory scene that might...
View ArticleBreaking the Block Part 6: Cooking With Commies
I confess to a panic attack the other day when I realized that not only am I behind on the promised scene, I cannot tamp down my anxiety to write it. The excuses are piling up—production, yadda,...
View ArticleThe Christmas Card from Hell
I got a Christmas card today from the child molester’s wife. This is not an unusual event. For the past several years, this woman has persisted in sending me birthday cards, Christmas cards, Easter...
View ArticleA Man Without a Conscience, or How to Stick it to ‘Big Gun’
When I started this playwright’s blog, I wasn’t interested in whining about the reasons why theatres don’t produce more plays by women in general (or me in particular, let’s be frank) or the politics...
View ArticleThe Artist as Activist–Take It to the Street or the Stage?
On Jan. 26, after a month of planning that was kicked off by Arena Stage’s artistic director, Molly Smith, the March on Washington for Gun Control took place—the first major public demonstration since...
View ArticleThe Long Shadow, Part III: A Soldier’s Story
The package that arrived in my mail in mid-January came as a surprise, not because it was unexpected, but because the contents were so much more revealing than I had imagined possible—nearly 70 pages...
View ArticleUntold Stories
“Murderer!” A week ago I stood outside Studio Theatre on 14th Street in Washington, D.C., with my friend Jacqueline Lawton and endured that accusation—that we were killers of innocents. Our crimes?...
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