Mac Theatre Class
2011
It’s good to see Mac getting active in theatre again.. Used to be the best around.
I went to I.C. .. always liked to visit Mac. Had the most gorgeous women. Once helped burn a big IC in the Mac soccer field…Mac came back and used fertilizer… Streak off…IC and Mac… And no, I did not steal your computers. My family …free ride… Girls only.
Mrs. Smith.. Perry 5th grade.. “Whatever you do….”
I write plays & musicals. About 200 published. Newspaper column ..14 newspapers every week. Six books. Hundreds of TV commercials. Been Writing for 37 years. Took teaching job.. saw scripts, thought they were terrible. First play.. didn’t know where to find them. Wrote one. Published. I’d planned to be an undertaker. Some of you are probably taking this class for the credit with little interest in theatre… You never know. At your age I had applied to three schools of mortuary science to learn how to embalm bodies. At your age I had no interest in theatre. I’m supposed to be famous…..Cerro Gordo Famous Author’s day 3 Favorite…Shakespeare, J.K. Rowling, Ken Bradbury Roger Ebert.
I would rather write than anything I know. Nothing more satisfying. . Audience response is nice, but…….Private shouts of joy which only my computer can hear are far better. Yesterday morning…first rehearsal of a new play.. A new play opening in Arizona next week.. Last night began a new one. ..the most exciting part of the day
Best way to become a playwright.. Sit in the audience and cringe. After a bit, you’ll learn to cringe at your keyboard and the bad stuff won’t make it onto the stage. Theatre is like practically no other art form in that an audience is not only necessary, it’s part of the equation. Tax man yesterday…$150 for an hour…but where was the fun? No audience.
You never stop writing a play. One day you just quit. Behind the Curtain…drove actors crazy. Lincoln Land Theatre Group…excited by changes.
Rewriting: .. closed 10th season of Abraham. Over 100 peformances.. Still changing things.. this year we added a whole new song.. an 8 min scene without music.
Why do I do it? You get to create something. I think the creative process is the most enjoyable experience in the world. My hope for all of you…is that no matter what you do in life, you get to create.
I firmly believe in the old motto: Write about what you know. Monsters… Grandpa’s finger. Grandma…cutting chickens heads off… Lead to: walks in the woods…she died.
The cool thing about writing….no matter what happens to you, it’s an idea for a show… Kid on meth…kicked out of class…busted my car and house windows…I went to his house.
I’ve nearly stopped speaking on how to write. My answers are often unsatisfying. Spoke to writers’ conference at U of I. Introduced me: I’d written over a hundred plays.. most produced author of school scripts in the US and my answer to “How do I write?” I don’t know. I pray and sweat and it comes.. Not satisfying for the PhD’s congregated there.
Undertaker Me: IC prayer.. next day, call. Write plays. This doesn’t make a good how-to seminar on how to write.
The idea is the hardest part. Writing is easy. The Idea is hard.
A gift from God.. pure and simple.
Being published is dangerous. A Sermon Diary.
A common question…Where do you get your ideas? I don’t know. I live each day…just like you do. Went through the McDonald’s Drive up this morning. They told me to have a nice day. I asked them why. It was an interesting conversation. You do the same things…you just don’t notice them.
One time at MacMurray…bagpiper…Mr. Rogers…in closet. Matt Baritone….
But…I often use Improv as a jumping off point for a play. I teach Improv and get to see probably 300 scenes a year… I steal freely.
The stories my dad would tell over and over now become material for plays.
I had to return to my family after 30 years to find out why I’m a writer. Recent family reunion… all telling stories of Perry 60 years ago. Storytellers. That’s why I believe we’re all writers. Some of you just haven’t begun yet.
Newspaper column… My own hate fan-club in Peoria… White Supremacists Militia members.. Don’t like my remarks about equality of the races. Springfield African-American lady.
I sometimes use a writing partner…I never like it very well, but they sometimes come in handy.
New writing venture… TV commercials.. An entire story in 27 seconds. Good practice for a playwright. Tell a story in 30 seconds. Horse fall.
Given an idea for a car dealership….based on the Andy Griffeth show…it was really dumb, but I wrote it. Recently won an Emmy for commercials.
I’ve always wanted to write full-time…to try it. I retired from teaching in the public school two months ago..now teach only a few college classes and I do write full-time. Interesting.. I’m still finding out whether I like this or not.
Current projects: 4 right now. I need to work on more than one at once.
A new play for the Lincoln Museum. A new play for Mt. Rushmore. ---Most recent project: Misfits.
Probably why you asked me here: How do you write a play? Actually…I’m not sure. I don’t think much about the process. A good description I once heard.. Put a loaded gun onstage at the opening of the play then don’t fire it.
A FEW THINGS I’VE LEARNED: ---Know your audience… different writing styles for high school contest, and a tourist crowd at New Salem. ---Plays aren’t written as much as they are re-written. ---If your audience doesn’t care about your characters, the play won’t work. I saw STOMP in St. Louis Saturday…took six hours traveling time, cost forty bucks a ticket, one of the largest theatres in the world..and I was pretty bored. Good performers but I didn’t care about them… Sunday: FLIGHT in S’field…six characters..90 minutes (a Mac graduate) … I cared deeply about each..wonderful.
---Some character has to change. That’s more important than action and more important than plot. A character must grow and change. Otherwise you’ve written a skit and not a play. ---Number one rule: Do not bore. --- Anger is a good start. I get in a lot of trouble writing about religion, but nothing makes me more angry than people who sit through church so they’ll feel more holy but aren’t doing the world a damned bit of good.
You have plays inside you… BALL TOSS When you were little, what really, really scared you? The best thing you ever ate? One thing that you wish more people knew about you? The neatest moment you ever had with your grandmother. In all your MacMurray career…the most terror-filled day.
Questions?
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