Last Frontier Theatre Conference: Richard Dresser on playwriting

June 15, 9:27 AMAnchorage Theater ExaminerMaia Nolan

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Anchorage Theater Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Playwright Richard Dresser opened a session Monday afternoon by commending the writers in attendance who were participating in the conference's play labs.

"Personally, I find readings of plays much more terrifying than opening night," Dresser said.  "Opening night, we've all drunk the Kool-Aid.  You know, you either sink or swim."

Dresser, whose plays include "Augusta" and "A View of the Harbor," talked to the assembled playwrights about the writing process.  The key, he said, is not to try to write well.  Get the words on the page and don't worry about craft until you're done.  Avoid "craft without creativity" — focusing on the way the play is written limits your creativity.  Give yourself license, he said, to "go off the tracks."

"I bet most of you would rather see a messy, sprawling play" than one that's well-crafted but "sends you out into the street with nothing," Dresser said.  Trust your own point of view, he added, and "trust the other side of your brain."

(It's worth noting here that I was sitting next to "Stage Talk" host Mark Muro, who was drawing an elaborate abstract landscape in his notebook as we listened to Dresser.)

Dresser also spoke about receiving criticism (which I found particularly interesting given that Dresser wrote the book for "Good Vibrations," a musical of which the New York Times' Ben Brantley wrote one of the most eloquently cruel reviews I've ever read).  Take it as you will, he said, and learn from it.

"You will never talk anyone into liking your play," Dresser said.  He advised the playwrights in the room to listen to the audience. 

"The audience is right," Dresser said.  He used to be in the habit of going into the men's room during intermission and listening to what people were saying about his play.  If they complained that it hadn't been worth the babysitter, he would know there was something missing.

Dresser's other advice to would-be playwrights:

• If you struggle with finding time to write, commit to writing 20 minutes a day.  "There's nothing daunting about 20 minutes," he said.
• Freewrite every day for five minutes without editing yourself.  Let your mind go where it will and "really trust the unconscious."
• Finish everything you begin.  "If you have 10 half-written plays, I don't think you have anything," Dresser said.  Sometimes you have to write all the way to the end to find out how to write the beginning.
• Get inside your characters.  "The characters need to tell the story," Dresser said.  "Ideally, for me, it isn't until I grapple with the characters and we're on a journey together that I have a play."