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first things first

I'm not a playwright, although I create plays. I create plays in which - for the most part - I write the words I speak. I guess you could call what I do when I do it with the people I do it collective playwriting, but really it's strange to think of it in that way. It's strange because to me, it doesn't feel like what we're actually doing is writing a play. We're making a play.

That being said, my experience of play making is one that probably strays farther off the path of conventional playwriting than most others. In most of my experience of making plays, in the collective, the physical material is just as relevant to the narrative as the written material. In fact for me, it has most often been the case that a physical score or sequence of actions is preeminent, and once it is created, the words emerge. You could say that the creation of the physical material is, in its own way, another form of writing. If I were to write down the physical actions on the page, they might look like elaborate imagistic stage directions, but they are so much more than that. My process of play making involves the creation of physical material in the studio as well as sitting down at my computer and writing. It is the marriage of these two elements that make the play. I have come to know this method of creating material quite intimately, and even though at times it may feel somewhat systematic and methodical, I have found that there is no formula in arriving at what is to be the end result. To me, building material has always been a very instinctual process. It can often feel very free form, like an ongoing stream of consciousness that involves body and mind. It's a matter of doing what feels right and following your gut, and trusting that the audience will get it. I've often felt like a rebel, foregoing narrative for image. What always amazes me is the significance of the physical material in getting the written material across. The physical material contains codes or clues that allow the written material to resonate. It is this careful and clever combination that shapes the story. It's a bit like creating a whole new language, and one that must be easy to pick up by the audience.

Now, in the face of making an entire play all by myself, I begin to crave narrative -- a story structure that will anchor the material that I am developing. I'm excited by the notion of working with a dramaturg, to see how this relationship can inform the process. I look for ways to mark narrative "sign posts" that will help me guide my play in the making. Most of these are oddly enough very specific physical images that I have sketched out, like a blueprint. And around these physical images I have begun to write. What has emerged so far looks on paper like a series of heavy stage directions surrounded by monologues. But it's a start. Although it will never be fully complete until it enters the rehearsal room and the physical material is fleshed out, I guess what's happening is: I'm writing a play.