K-Blog

As the author of such plays as The Raft, The List, The End and Park Bench, it would be dishonest of my not to say that I'm really, really, really bad at coming up with titles for my plays.  My full-length play based on the Terri Schiavo story, which has been in "final draft" stage (or, as much as any play is ever in that stage) for about two years now, still doesn't have a permanent title.  I just can't come up with one.

The other day, I got an e-mail from one of the editors at Brooklyn Publishers, asking if I was willing to re-title my short play, Intervention, which they are publishing this fall.  Their request is perfectly reasonable.  It seems they already have a play in their catalogue called The Intervention and, with nearly identical titles, they were worried that script sales and royalty payments for the two plays might get horribly confused. 

So I was absolutely willing to change the title.  But then the question arose... what the heck do I call this thing now?  I e-mailed Janis back and told her that I would be happy to come up with a new title, and that I'd be in touch the next day.  And then I went home and spent the whole night trying to come up with a new title.

The play is about a romance novelist whose characters get together to try to convince her to quit writing, because she's really bad at it.  It's fluffy.  It's cute.  No need for a deep, provocative title... but I still wanted something somewhat clever.  Someone suggested I just use a synonym for "intervention."  I thought about it, but... nah.

It took me nearly 24 hours to come up with the replacement title.  That's pretty quick, actually, even though I'm not totally happy with the title now.  But I'd thought of this play as Intervention for so long that I'm not sure any other title will ever sit comfortably with me. 

 So, in Brooklyn Publishers' next catalogue, you will be able to purchase a copy of Revolting Characters by Kristyn Leigh Robinson.

Still feels awkward.  Like finding out that your friend Mike who you've known for ten years is actually named Paul.  But for better or worse... that's the new title.  :-)

So in May, I posted that Brooklyn Publishers had sent me two publication offers in one day.  That was very exciting news... but I spoke too soon.  They sent me, in fact, four publication offers that day.  So this fall, you will be able to visit Brooklyn's website and purchase The First Date (which is already available through them), in addition to The End, The Raft, Intervention and Park Bench. 

Right now I'm in the process of scrounging up as many production photos as I can for these plays (and... many thanks to those who helped by donating photos to the cause) for Brooklyn to use in their catalogue.  This process is more involved than it might seem... first I have to locate the pictures, then I have to get written permission from the actors to use them in the catalogue.  It's proving to be stickier in some cases than in others, but I will have some photos to send to them.

Also fairly exciting is the fact that they asked me, last week, if I would be interested in writing a short intro for their ten-minute play catalogue.  Um... yeah.  So I've been very excited about that, in a good-stress way, trying to figure out exactly what to give them.  I hope what I sent them is what they were looking for. 

So anyway - fire up the internet this fall and check out Brooklyn's website and buy some scripts - preferably mine.  ;-)

Other exciting news... Theatre Unleashed in California is in the middle of the run of one of the last royalty-free productions of The End.  I like these guys; every interaction I've had with them has been great.  They're brand-new, so if you live in L.A., go check 'em out and support them.  They got a really good review for this festival, and you can check that out here.  An aside:  This is yet another festival in which my work is appearing alongside that of Mark Harvey Levine... who needs to get himself a website, because I'd link him here because I think you should go read his stuff; each of his plays I've seen has been hilarious.

Upcoming productions... well, not too many, because I've been completely lazy about submissions lately.  The Most Offensive Play Ever Written will be making its debut at the Wilmington Drama League in February 2009.  I don't remember the dates off the top of my head, but if you're in the area, come check it out.  It's a silly play.  But that's the point.  ;-)  The End has one or two productions scheduled on Long Island this summer, I believe. 

And I think that's about all the news that's fit to post right now.  Stay tuned, though!

You know, pretty soon I'm going to be forced to write new short plays, because I won't have any left to send any place.

Got not one, but TWO publication offers from Brooklyn Publishers today.  As you may recall, if you know much about my work, these are the folks who have my play, The First Date, which was the first play I ever had published.  My experiences with them have been nothing but positive, and I'm thrilled to have TWO more plays being published with them.

First, The End.  After receiving a note from Brooklyn's Associate editor asking me whether I'd be willing to remove the testicle references from the script, I happily did so, and today she contacted me to let me know they're mailing out the contract for my signature.  I'm happy this play is being published with Brooklyn, and I'm thrilled beyond words to be able to close the book on it.  I think the script is tight and I'm happy to have it out there. 

And then, surprisingly (to me, at least), Intervention.  I recently told fellow playwright John Shanahan that I thought this play was in dire need of an overhaul.  But hey, if a publisher is willing to put its name on the script, I'm not going to argue.  I guess the script is fine.  People seem to think it's funny.  So what the heck, you know?

 So that's some pretty exciting news from my little corner of the world.  Hope everything's well in yours!

Kristyn

I'm coming up for air to update this page, but things are VERY hectic right now!

On April 14, I took my play The End up to the 14th Annual NYC 15-Minute Play Festival hosted by the American Globe Theatre.  I really cannot say enough about how wonderful these folks are.  They are the most courteous, professional and friendly people you can possibly imagine, which is why I was so thrilled to be able to take part in this festival again.  (I'd been there once before, eons ago, with my play Poisoned.)  So Heather Ferrel, Angela Dalecki, Brian Couch and I headed up to NY for this production.

The day was a ton of fun from beginning to end.  It would be exhausting for me to write the whole thing out, but suffice it to say, the trip was totally worth it.  The play did not advance to the finals, but honestly, I couldn't care less.  I was proud of the performance, and I got to spend a day playing in New York with some incredibly fun people.  You simply cannot ask for more than that.

I had the opportunity to go back up that Friday, April 18, to see Matt Casarino's play, Never Land.  And Matt's a much classier person than I am - I'm going to be a little indignant on his behalf, here.  Whoever that ignorant waste of human life was, in the back of the theatre, laughing at a sound effect like a freaking two-year-old... you were rude and disruptive.  Matt's play went well.  The performance was great.  However, I spent the entire time seething because some moron wouldn't stop laughing inappropriately at a recurring sound effect.  Seriously, if you can't control yourself when you're in a theatre, just get up and leave until you can get it together, instead of ruining the experience for the entire audience.

*deep breath*

Anyway... with the exception of that jerk, it was great to be in New York, and it's always a pleasure for me to watch one of Matt's plays - it's truly a gift to have a close friend who I admire personally and professionally, and I was really happy to be able to be there to see the play.

In other news... production-wise, I've got The Raft coming up as part of Madlab Theatre's Theatre Roulette in May.  I won't be able to see it, but the Madlab peeps seem really cool, and I'm seriously hoping there will be pictures of some kind associated with this production.

 The End is making its (and my) West Coast premiere in Los Angeles in June, at Theatre Unleashed.  This is a new theatre company, and I'm happy that my work is being included in this festival - again, because they seem like a fabulous group.  And again... I'm hoping for pictures.  ;-)

I think that's it - I hope I'm not forgetting any upcoming productions.  I've been a total slug about submitting lately, and I need to fix that.  But first, I'm planning the 75th anniversary celebration of the Wilmington Drama League, which is happening THIS SATURDAY (yikes), so if you're in town... GO TO IT.

Be good!

Kristyn

Well, a little news on the playwriting front...

 The End will not be representing the Wilmington Drama League at the Delaware state one-act festival, although it was apparently a close call.  (We lost by one vote.)  And that's okay, because honestly, with everything else on my plate right now, it would have been very stressful.

The production headed to American Globe in New York is well under way, with a really fun cast who, after only two rehearsals, is doing pretty darn well with this script.  Our performance is on April 14 - if you're in town, come see it!

Tomorrow is opening night for Curtain Call Theatre (Braintree, MA)'s production called "If The Shorts Fit," which will feature three of my short plays, Intervention, The Raft and Vanilla.  I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback, and seeing the DVD, which producer/director Stacey Shanahan has promised to send all the participating playwrights.

And finally, the truly big news... another publication!  The Catharsis is going to be published by Heuer Publishing (www.hitplays.com) in the coming months sometime.  I literally just mailed the contract back to them yesterday.

All in all, not a bad month... and it's the start of a 30-plays-in-30--days submission binge with my fellow playwrights, so hopefully that will get the creative juices flowing!

(Congrats also to fellow playwright John Shanahan, who received a publication contract from Heuer on the same day I did, for his play Bob's Date.)

Whew!  I've never gotten so many productions during a lazy, non-submitting period!  Sometimes I'm just happy that opportunities fall into my lap - if they didn't, my production resume of late would be somewhat bleak.  And actually, it is, but it'd be even bleaker if it weren't for a little help from my friends.

Very soon, folks in Massachusetts will be able to see productions of Intervention and The Raft as part of Curtain Call Theatre's evening of short plays by a few playwrights I know (and know of).  I believe the production is in early March.  Fellow playwright John Shanahan, who hooked me up with this production, can correct me if I'm wrong.  And he will, believe you me.  :-)

Intervention is a fun play, though I think it's probably in need of a rewrite.  It hasn't had stage time in several years, so it's probably due.  The Raft is probably getting far more than its fair share of stage time (this being its eleventh production), but as I've said here before, that's okay by me.  Anyway, if you're in Massachusetts in early March, go check out the production.  I'm told the production's gonna be killer.  :-)

 And now on to the funnest news I have right now... got a call from the American Globe Theatre last week notifying me that The End, the play I'm directing for the Wilmington Drama League's one-act play festival (February 22-23, 2008 at 8:00 p.m., tickets are $8 - GO SEE IT) has been selected to be included in the Globe's collaborative (with Turnip Theatre Company) annual 15-minute play festival.  This is a festival in which I've only participated once before, but I had such a fantastic experience with this theatre that I've been dying to get my feet in the door again.  As it is a self-produced festival (meaning, playwrights are responsible for everything except the venue and the marketing), it's lucky that I happen to be directing the piece at the moment.  That performance will take place sometime in April - but I don't have the exact date yet.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get started writing again.  I've been having trouble concentrating, but I've started feeling the nagging of a story at the edges of my brain... so hopefully this means what it usually means - that I'm about to start writing again.

The Raft is getting another production!

I know I say this a lot, but I sure do like this play.  It's not terribly brilliant, or even particularly representative of my work as a whole, but it's a cute little comedy that seems to make people laugh - and that's the whole point.

 Plus, this marks my very first Ohio production, so I'm adding another state to the ol' playwriting resume!

Anyway.  Madlab Theatre in Columbus, OH received 999 submissions for its play festival.  Yep, you read that correctly - nine hundred ninety-nine.  They selected nine plays to be in the festival, and The Raft was one of 'em.  So thanks, Andy Batt and the folks at Madlab, for lovin' The Raft just a little.  And if anyone's there to see the production, drop me a line to let me know how it goes.  Oh - it helps if I, like, tell you when it is.  May 4-26, 2008.  Details on their website, I think - if they aren't now, they probably will be.

 Keep sailin', The Raft - someday maybe we'll getcha published!

I realize I’m probably going to get crucified by a lot of playwrights for writing this, or that I’ll end up on their DO NOT READ list of blogs.  But I’m going to take that risk happily, to say what I have to say.

I’ve noticed that there seems to be a sect of playwrights who believe that our function, first and foremost, is to reform the process of submitting our work to a theatre for consideration for production.  The theatre, apparently, is not allowed to have any rules or guidelines for submission.  To have these things in place is taken, by a large number of playwrights, as an act of war.  As though theatres are in the business to prevent plays from being produced.

In truth, the guidelines are very simple.  Usually, they require standard playwriting format, which generally refers to the page-a-minute formatting recognized by most publishers or theatres in the known universe.  They typically want the play to be bound in some way, even if, to them, “bound” means “stapled.”  They’d like a cover sheet – and sometimes they ask for this to be detachable so the play can be read “blind” by their committee. 

Now… as a playwright, I have to say, I don’t put a lot of time into thinking about new and interesting ways to physically format my plays.  Apparently, to some playwrights, this automatically means that my work is “standard.”  Well, okay, if it is, I suppose I can accept that.  My purpose, as a playwright, isn’t to write my plays in some three-dimensional manner that cannot fit into an envelope.  It’s to write something that will be seen by an audience.  And if that means that I have to center the character’s name on the page, so be it.  My life won’t end, and I don’t think it significantly alters the meaning of my play.  I can’t imagine ever hearing the words “Gosh, Kristyn, this play would be so much more resonant if you put the characters’ names in the right-hand margin instead of centered…”  Never has an actor told me that they’d have been able to gain a better understanding of the character they’re playing in one of my plays if only the dialogue was written vertically instead of in the “standard” format.

My feeling is that if you want your play produced, you do what you need to do in order to get it produced.  If what you’re doing is working for you, great.  Keep doing it.  If it isn’t, then don’t start attacking theatres because the way they do things is wrong.  After all, if you were trying out for a Major League baseball team, you wouldn’t come in and suddenly insist that everyone start hitting the ball with a golf club.  So why would you come into the theatre world and suddenly insist that you, a relative newcomer, know better than anyone else how “it” should work?  I guess in order to understand what I mean, you have to ask yourself, the playwright, this question:  What is your goal, exactly?  To get your work produced, or to piss off the artistic director of every theatre in the world so badly that they don’t want to come near you or your plays with a ten-foot pole?

It isn’t “Us v. Them,” folks.  We’re all in this together, with a common goal: to get good work on the stage.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a revolution.  I want a production.

Monday and Tuesday of this week were audition nights for the one-act play festival at my home theatre, the Wilmington Drama League.  I know I posted here about bouncing back and forth between two plays, unable to decide which one I was going to direct.  For a while, I felt pretty strongly about The List, but I succumbed to peer pressure and decided to direct The End.

 Auditions went well; we had a lot of really talented people show up.  I was very impressed.  So I've got a good, strong "Rachel" and "Counter Girl."  But although the men who auditioned were talented, none of them really jumped out at me as being a good "Benny."  So I'm in the process of fishing for one.  I may have one; I'll be very happy if the guy I asked to do it says yes, because that will mean I have an all-around extremely strong cast who I will enjoy working with.

I'm looking forward to directing again; it's been a year since I directed a piece that wasn't a staged reading (John Shanahan's Waiting for the End of the World was the last, for this festival last year).  And it's been a few years since I directed something of my own for full production, so I'm a little excited about this, I gotta say!

I had a friend once - director, playwright, actor - who is possibly one of the most creative, passionate and talented people I’ve ever met in my entire life. There is some kind of magical magnetism that surrounds this guy - people are drawn to him. He seems capable of anything and makes those around him feel as though anything is possible. But he is also one of the most melodramatic, high-maintenance people I’ve ever encountered. Our friendship fell apart from sheer exhaustion. But while it lasted, he taught me a few things - most of them inadvertent.

I remember once we were sitting in a bar after a show, talking about... I don’t know, life. I was talking about something that had upset me, and, with this very urgent tone in his voice, he said, "But don’t you see? Without that kind of pain... you wouldn’t be who you are. You wouldn’t be a writer. You wouldn’t be so talented."

His theory was a common one - that those who suffer the most are the most capable of producing great art. Now, personally, I think that’s a load of hooey. I think sometimes you just have a bad day. I do not believe that, in order to be a great artist, you must be a miserable human being, or have a miserable life, or drag everybody around you into some whirling maelstrom of angst and rage and joy and despair and love. When you do that, when you expect the people around you to be as upset about something as you are, or to rally to your own personal cause... you are sucking the life energy out of those people. And you don’t have a right to do that. They need that energy for the things that matter to them. It isn’t yours to take. If you choose to suffer... then do it. But keep it to yourself.

Art is supposed to bring you joy - whether you’re creating it or observing it. Even the saddest dramas are supposed to infuse your soul with life. If art hurts... it’s time for you to stop what you’re doing and find another creative outlet.

Playwriting is hard. If anyone tells you it’s easy to write a play, they’re either lying or they’ve never written one. And depending upon the subject you’re writing about... you can suffer while you’re writing a play. Sometimes the suffering comes because the subject matter is deeply personal. Sometimes it comes because the playwright has trouble making the script say exactly what he or she wants it to. Sometimes the suffering comes because the ideas don’t. But the key about the suffering is this: it should never be constant. And if it is... you’re doing something wrong. If, as a playwright, you can’t find joy in anything but having your head patted and being told what a genius you are, then it’s time to hang up your playwriting hat permanently and find another creative outlet.

It is important to learn from the negative experiences in your life. It’s equally important not to wallow in them, or to expect others to wallow with you.