 It's Wednesday and we're going to do this like we've been doing it for 11 years. We usually meet in the lobby of the public theater, but since this COVID thing we've been totally going online like this and we wanted to give a shout out and a deep thank you to the public theater for supporting us for these past 11 years doing Watch Me Work and also HowlRound has been awesome in pulling it all together. So this is what we do for those of you who are new or for those of you who have maybe forgotten since yesterday we work for 20 minutes and together any kind of work you want and then I take your questions about your work and your creative process and should you have a question Audrey is going to tell you how to get in touch go Audrey. Thanks SLP. So yes if you have forgotten since yesterday here's how to ask a question. If you're inside of the Zoom all you need to do is click on the participant tab likely at the bottom of your screen on the laptop or the top of your on an iPad or a tablet and once you click on the participant screen there's a little raise your hand button it'll pop up a little blue hand and I'll call on you if there's time. If you're watching on HowlRound.tv you can tweet at us at watch me work SLP with the hashtag HowlRound H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D or you can tweet at the Public Theater's account which is at Public Theater NY or write to the Public Theater's Instagram and that's it. All right okay here we go here we go right here we go. Is that a new tone? Well I can't find my phone so I have to use a different item. Do you want me to call you? Philip just called me it's somewhere in this house I don't ever leave but thank you. Never leave. All right well hey so um anybody have a question or should we practice our posture? We don't have a question quite yet. Oh good. Oh we have a question. You're back right. Mary you're up. Are you there? Can you hear me now? Yeah hi. Hey hi hi Susan Laurie. So hi so I came to this all a bit late I've been here all week and then I was here one session previous before that long week break. So I'm excited I'm nervous to ask a question but here here goes. Okay I'm ready. Okay um all right so I I've come to writing later in life my mode of artistic expression has been acting and performing so I come to theater and the arts through that um can't really do that anymore can do improv I've been taking a writing class for about five years that is all different kinds of writing so it's great um I feel free to write what I want to write and a play developed out of a short story that I wrote two years ago that became a 15 minute play now it's about an hour and I'm hoping it'll be a full length cool okay so here so here's where I am we're talking about flow a couple nights ago um my process has been my process it's been sometimes I've been coasting along sometimes I've been the the river's really slow that's okay I can reflect on what's around me now I'm kind of stuck at an eddy um and I think that what I tell myself and what I'm starting to believe and I think this is leading to me being quite stuck is um I don't know where this goes I don't know where this goes my process a lot of it has been born of images coming to me it's it's a lot of it is it's sort of metaphorical about aspects of my life so um because my life is unfinished I can't it's not a direct story um I can't use that and I'm I find that I'm getting kind of stuck in my editor part the analytical well what's the arc where is this going how is this and um and so I'm I'm and it's almost like I know how to unstuck myself and like I've got all these tools at hand but either I'm not doing them or they're not the right ones for me right now um so I could tell I could tell you more you could just respond to oh it's exciting it's exciting Mary because you know during this time where we're we're in some sort of isolation you know you've chosen to you know amp up ramp up your writing which is great it's hard in my experience anyway it's really cool what you're doing because it's hard to try new things you know especially when we are you know somewhat accomplished or somewhat accustomed to doing other things you know so you do a lot of acting you know and now you're you've been trying this writing thing and so you have to I hope you feel really proud of yourself first of all do you yeah I do I do good good that's very that's very important it's like it's like it's a big deal you know it's like I do yoga every day and every time I even make an attempt at one of those really hard poses it like makes me go I say to myself I'm proud of myself so keep with everything else you're feeling make sure you add keep adding that ingredient in there because you're doing something big okay um you have a lot of tools and they don't seem to be working so we could give you some maybe you have these already you know and if you do that's okay um maybe you can just try them I would the the main tool that is always best for me anyway is show up showing up can you say with regularity i.e every day for a piece of time it can be 20 minutes or it can be longer can you say can you tell us that you're showing up every day for your work okay I have not been showing up every day so I can say to you all that I will show up every day you can try it doesn't it can try for 20 minutes it doesn't have to be like five hours you know it doesn't have to be heroic you know what I'm saying right mm-hmm you know it just just show up every day that um it is something that I all without fail that one works because even if the writing is not good which is I can tell myself at the end of the day I tried and although I don't know who said at Yoda there is no try there is only do and not do whatever Yoda says somebody like that said it you know to me that is I like to think of the Bhagavad Gita no effort is ever wasted and so what we're doing is we're putting in the time we're showing we're displaying faith we are um preparing ourselves to receive the sacred and there you go you sit at your desk or wherever you write and you show up okay you can try that um other things could be writing I mean I'm into outlining I don't know well let me address that so I so because a lot of the because the the the nexus of the story was just sort of born you know it was a spontaneous thing and and it had that big creative juicy bubble thing I haven't been inclined to use an outline but I did this is what I did the past 20 minutes I made it I wrote on the cards oh okay all the scenes so far you know and they can be rearranged and then I just started improvising other scenes moving forward yeah and I thought I can just drop them I don't know right practice not attachment there you go well girlfriend let me tell you as a professional that doesn't sound like you're stuck to me that sounds like you're working that sounds like fun like you wrote scenes out on cards you just started brainstorming and spitballing and improvising other scenes they can go wherever they go and it sounds like you're you're moving well I I just did it the past 20 minutes so okay I'll keep on keeping that do you have yeah do you have a time of day that is most more possible than not for you to show up for your writing do you have a certain time of day morning afternoon evening um it's uh it's probably after after I've had my coffee and then also in the quiet of the night say 10 p.m. okay after I have your coffee I'm assuming that's morning yeah yeah yeah after I've had my first drink no 7 a.m. no so after I've had my coffee okay so why don't you see if it feels good if you can do 20 minutes in the morning after you've had your coffee okay it's great because then you get an extra bonus Mary of having done it already and the rest of your day you can frolic in the periwinkle really right you know what I'm saying you know and then if you pick up an extra 20 minutes with us you know money through Thursday and then you want to maybe it might pick up an extra 20 minutes in the quiet of the evening maybe you know right you know okay okay all right okay thank you Susan you're welcome thanks Mary um up next we've got jack hi hi big fan um so the question is kind of a continuation of some of the subjects from yesterday but in terms of character development and new work and it's on my mind a lot because I think it happens a lot in writing and also acting so you see so I'm writing this new character and I can see how this character could be perceived as a stereotype and you know the same thing happens sometimes with writing when we say oh that's a cliche but is it a good cliche or a bad cliche and things like that so like I've been doing the work of trying to go deeper into making and I think now I've sort of realized well he's not a stereotype but he's upset he wants to be a stereotype he's obsessed and that's also kind of disturbing but so just more insight I suppose and how to either prevent people from perceiving your your characters or your work as a cliche or a stereotype or just you know just preventing that from how so like even if they're like okay yeah we've seen this kind of that makes sense because those kinds of people are like that and they have those kinds of problems but how to get past that and how to bring the audience past that not just the backstory the actor or the writer any insights yeah I love your question jack because it goes to the heart of something that's has interested me for a long time controlling other people so how do we make sure that the audience doesn't do something or other huh yes of course you know it's it's an exciting prospect and let us let us put it on the pile of things that we cannot control because no matter how brilliant your writing is we cannot control the responses of the people who see it right because people are going to bring their own shit to the party and you know right so let us let us let that go if we can let's try to let that go and and maybe replace it with things that we can do something about which are make our characters regardless of their specifics real and deep and meaningful right because people are going to think whatever the fuck they think right I mean right okay so right so hey right but we can or and we can make our characters rich and nuanced and meaningful okay so maybe if you find yourself going gee that's a stereotype or that's a cliche ask the next question might be why you know why oh because he always wears a red hat everywhere really why you know I mean whatever you know you know right I mean so you can keep asking you can keep you can continue to be curious I think stereotypes or you know when we judge people from afar look at that person over there there are such and such you know what I mean we stop being curious right and we read them poorly and quickly and make a snap judgment based on I don't know what the shoes they're wearing and their height and whether or not they're pushing a stroller and you know whatever right and we make our judgment and then we're done and instead of being curious and continuing to look I'm practicing it right now because I have a window here I'm looking out the window and imagining I continue to look at that person that character and I continue to look at them and I continue to look at them and I don't stop looking at them until I'm finished writing the play or the novel or the poem or the song or the whatever you know okay um which is another way of saying respect right okay so keep looking at them keep asking yourself what is with you know what's up with my character you know what's their story okay often as an actor I hear the voices of the characters in my head and then I'm just acting and writing acting and writing it's fun like oh I've done the whole show um but you know what I enjoyed from you know hearing you speak and getting these new insights is going is looking at some of these characters that you know I I hear them and I I feel like they're kind of being channeled but then kind of really trying to go a little bit deeper I'd like to go just a little bit deeper and so I guess if they don't get if the audience gets it most of the time they I think they do but still it's like you know I understand letting that go but yeah like I guess yeah aligning being free of that prison of worries I mean that that could go back to another question I was going to have to because that's happened to me sure it's happened to a lot of people where one person's like that was great fantastic and the other person's like oh my god that's a mess like but that's supposed to be a mess no it's yeah so it's like I'm always I try to always filter criticism I take the good and you know and try to understand it but I you know I guess when you're doing most I just enjoy creating so I don't even if I didn't want to do it I just do it even I mean you think of like a play that you know scholars throughout the ages have agreed on is a fine work of literature like you know Hamlet for example okay well some people think Hamlet's fucking boring and Hamlet the character is dumb like why don't he just do it already right what is all this talking talking talking right I mean you know so there's different takes on everything that's somebody else's work and not being able to control the the reaction from the audience and for your own work yeah people are gonna say what they're gonna say you if you have a writing group or a group of trusted friends hopefully their critiques and their their feedback is going to encourage you forward right you shut you down if you are getting critiques and feedback from people trusted friends and it's shutting you down then take a push pause on that feedback loop that doesn't mean they're not your friends some people don't know how to give positive and helpful feedback helpful not just positive helpful okay just be mindful of that great I mean I liked um conversation I like hearing what you see I love hearing what everybody else asks to I usually find if I just have a quiet somebody asked my question but today I thought well it's nice that you're asking your own question yeah okay thanks jack thanks jack um all right up next we've got Lou are you there yes hi hello how are you good to see you I'm doing I'm doing okay today actually I wasn't gonna say this but you asked me the question I had to put my cat from 10 years to sleep last night I say my my cat yeah that's not what I wanted to talk to you about but I guess I have to bring it in because it's part of how I am so I'm so sorry thank you yeah it actually um has been interesting to have that experience in line with a whole other set of experiences over the last week which is about my work uh that was stuck I think we talked to me remember I had a book proposal sort of floundered a little bit and I've been stuck and I've been working with some really exciting collaborators trusted people and I'm starting to think of new ways and and I've been really excited and it's been going going and then that thing happened last night with my loss and I'm very sad about it but I also feel like it's something energetic I don't want to say that's not what I actually want to talk to you about but it's something energetic is like moving I loved him I miss him and it was hard but it was like making space for something else um but what I did want to ask about is um one thing I've come to realize about the project that I've been working on for a while which is a memoir which I always feel self-conscious about because it's like why me and blah blah um well I'm starting to understand you know some of the themes the things I want to talk about I think are relevant and have a reason to be and I'm getting more confident I come here all the time I'm like you know I feel like I'm like I got my box and gloves hanging but you know I feel like I'm a little like in training to like trust myself I'm gonna try to bring my point I'm writing about a lot of years and a lot of time and I'm working now to bring it in and focus it and I have some ideas about how to do that but I think I just wanted to bring to you in this space you know how do you know like the image I have in my mind is like a tofu press you know when you make tofu and you squeeze out all the water and you make it it's real tight and it tastes better like how do you know what to like squeeze out of a project and like extract and do you find that you have to sort of write it all before you can squeeze it out or do you sort of can you can you find a way to figure out like what the important parts are of a project before you sort of sit down to do it or do you have to write the war in peace before you can write the haiku haiku you know so that I'm just like thinking about that I just love your take on it because I'm feeling like I know how to tighten things up but I'm also feeling like I started from such a big swath of time and material how do I sort of bring it in and I'll stop no no no that's that's really good um I just want to ask you one question which what's your catch name uh Aiden yeah what color was he he was orange and white oh pretty handsome he was a handsome very handsome guy well that's great yeah thanks no I mean you know I like to write and then rewrite you know I I don't uh generally you know edit while I'm in the flow of writing because I feel like they have two different energetic wave lengths you know it's like if you're surfing if you ever have ever been surfing well anyway even if you have it you're out there I mean I've been I used to go surfing when I lived in Los Angeles you out there and you paddle out that's one that's one thing you got to do to surf and then you hop on your board and you ride back in you know so you're trying to paddle out while you're riding back in it's very messy right yeah right and then rewrite okay so that's that's one thing but then how do you know what to how to what to leave in and what to leave out you brought up two great things you know war and peace and a haiku now it would be a tragedy if who is it Tolstoy right tried to make a haiku out of war and peace right we would have missed that brilliant novel okay so I'm so glad that war and peace is not a haiku and a lot of great haikus if they had been stretched out they wouldn't be much any much good right okay so each piece has its own form the question again what do we leave in what do we leave out it's an energetic thing you can feel when um when you feel if you if you if you've written your piece like you've gotten it all out or you think you've gotten it all out right and I usually read it aloud and if I feel a drag like not in drag not a drag but something like it's like it's like leaning back when it starts to do that it's like maybe I don't need that uh you shoot me when it's doing this mean great right it's in the pocket when it starts to uh maybe I don't need that part or maybe I need to reconfigure that part to bring it in line with the main flow right and so it's a feel thing it's a feel thing it's a rhythm thing I like to read my work aloud um because that that way I can it can bounce off the walls it can literally be amplified and I can you know hear it before I give it to actors or or if it's a novel or whatever it doesn't matter I just I read it aloud um and when it starts to kind of get out of focus or then either take out the scissors or circle it and do something to bring it into line does that help at all yeah it helps a lot and I actually just got like 1,000 note cards for the first time ever after what you were talking about the other day so I'm ready to like tape it all to the wall and go to town yeah there you go because note cards are all note cards are good when you're starting out note cards are good when you've been going for a while like like mary with their note cards note cards are good after you've done a draft or even two drafts and you want to get clear and concise and you start writing things out on note cards also time so you think you're doing this like tofu right right so you want to bring it in note cards are great they're gonna they're gonna help you bring it also time you can work for a certain amount of time every day 30 minutes I'm just gonna focus on this for 30 minutes and I'm gonna relax I'm gonna do something else I'm gonna come back and focus for 30 minutes and then I'm gonna relax that kind of thing helps you focus yeah yeah that's all great I'm gonna show you this guy too before we go that's it oh he's very handsome yeah it was a really good dude he's awesome dude thank you so much this really helps yeah I can't thank you enough thank you it's all all of your change in my life one day at a time thank you thanks Lou thank you all right we actually have a question from instagram I believe from the bubble theaters instagram um I'm gonna read out loud uh it is can we talk a bit about our writing and art as a space for self-care and mental health do you have any idea about keeping our your practice safe and healthy writing through my depression can be either the whoa cathartic or dwells in a toxic place in the latter circumstance it's very hard to show up um to the page sorry I'm a musician my husband's a musician you know and so which means he plays really really well and he tells me he says um you know when I'm like in there like noodling and you know playing he's like remember uh music uh what is this say Pythagoras that's right it was Pythagoras Pythagoras said and I'm like really Pythagoras Pythagoras said that the first um the the first and we play the first and foremost reason why one would play music is to align oneself with one's own spirit right so I said well that's exciting so now when I play music I think of it differently it's not like I gotta get good at these scales you know or like that you know it's I'm better aligning myself with my own spirit so I would say the same thing as of writing same thing it's the same thing because music and the muse and all that Pythagoras and the Pythagorean theorem extra points if anybody can put what that is in the chat because I forgot it's something like the right angle of a hypotenuse or some shit but I would say that that's what writing ultimately is for that's what our work is for whatever your work is um James Baldwin said the day came I'm paraphrasing the day came when I decided to be a writer because I thought it best that I heal my people that way or that I save my people that way but because I thought it best that I try to save my people that way so his writing he said was an act that he did to save his people all of us also to save himself right so writing is definitely an act of healing if you can person from twitter thanks for tweeting in or insta wherever you were from if you can make a promise to yourself to just keep showing up to the page sometimes it's a mountain that you think I cannot climb this mountain I didn't say you have to write I just said show up to the page and just sit there in front of your notebook just keep showing up that will go be a great you will be really giving yourself a great gift and again not to stop the other things that you're doing to help you know with depression like if you go to therapy or if you are it's been suggested that you take medication or anything like that we're not saying stop that but in addition to all those other things and talking with friends of course just keep showing up for yourself it's really important so that's what I do things that's okay it's long answers to short questions that's a great answer I'm actually don't have a question at the moment we can practice it's Barbara Barbara everybody Barbara is an amazing yoga teacher Barbara is my yoga teacher when we used to meet in person it was at the Shala in New York City which is a brilliant yoga place and Barbara is an Estanga yoga teacher which means like it's a hard core shit but it's the best thing I think she also teaches online I'm plugging you sister I don't know if that's kosher but she's really really really really good okay hi how you doing hi hi I'm good I miss you I miss you I love you totally inspired by you and everyone everyone's questions and your answers I wanted to ask about the outline that you mentioned earlier I forget who is speaking not Lou but another woman Mary maybe yes Mary and so when that comes in so and it also relates to something you were saying like just write and then rewrite right like they're separate things so I'm imagining that outline is maybe another thing and when when does that come in because I find that I write a lot a lot and it's just like messy to the point where I don't even want to go back to it okay um and so I think I need some outline uh huh uh huh okay are you are you enjoying when you write and write and write and write and write are you is it enjoyable do you having fun sometimes yes okay okay okay so I would say I would say that is in the right direction okay so that's that's good so you get but when you get and when you get to the point where you go okay I kind of want to give this little shape right then that's the the the moment when you start outlining it's an organic moment for you right different people start outlining in different places okay a lot of people might instead of doing a lot of writing on the page or on the screen a lot of people might just noodle it around in their heads for a month or a year or something you know what I mean I've just been thinking about this idea for a lot and then they okay which is similar to what you're saying so you're writing you got a lot of writing now you want to shape and you say sometimes you don't even want to go back and look at what you've written did you say that okay and you know what that's okay that's okay for those of us who for those who do want to go back and see what they've written and pull the outline from that that's cool but if you don't want to go back and see what you've written just see if you can tell yourself the story without looking at your pages okay just tell yourself the story well you know I really or the you know I really want to write about this and the first thing that happens is write it out on an index card I love index cards because they're small you know you can carry them around with you when you go to the park for your socially distanced walk you know but you know what I mean so that's so it's time to outline don't look at the pages because it's doesn't feel right you know it might put you off sit down pick some time right 20 minutes see if you can tell yourself the story card by card almost like polaroid photographs photograph by photograph what are you seeing what's the story you know what I mean um and that that could be a way to introduce outline in an organic way also with the writing and rewriting that you want to talk about that it's like you know fabulous yoga teacher sister inhaling and exhaling you know writing rewriting you know what I'm saying so the re the writing is a long really long inhale and then you're rewriting you know like that okay so they for me it's helpful if they're two distinct processes like the paddling out to see the writing the way back in their their distinct processes and they um I can be personally I can be more effective if I keep them separate um other writers write differently so and I owe you a thank you love you thanks very brave um all right we've got about five minutes left um and we don't have a question at the moment um but let me check one thing Larry go for it Larry I'm gonna jump in if no one's going um uh I'm just I would be curious to know how you to what extent you consider actors and directors while you're writing and like how are you um I don't know anticipating the way actors and directors will read your work you talk about you know I love the the comment you made earlier about like surrendering the control you don't really have and um what what I guess how much just the fact that you're writing essentially an unfinished work that is going to get finished by others just how does that play into your process do you do anything about it do you release it to the the universe um how zen are you about the fact that your work gets interpreted mm-hmm it's a really good question um in uh for plays and most movies and teleplays I write I do not write with a performer or a director in mind right now I'm working on a the genius orita and I'm very much writing for performers in mind because we already cast them and we're about to go back and shoot episode seven so I'm thinking very much about the actors but ordinarily I don't think about them at all I think about actors and I think about a director but I do not think about anybody uh specifically that is kind of what I mean I wasn't really thinking about specific people but like sure do you try to sort of direct or proof actor proof I've heard I've heard though there's those phrases used used by a writer that I really really love um and uh I I I do not I I really work on writing see see larry this is a thing I mean don't get the wrong idea it's not like I don't like control I just like to exercise the control I have right so I let go of the control that I don't have so I can maximize the control that I do have don't get me wrong yeah you know I'm basically you know like we all are if we write plays or tv shows or movies we're putting words into people's mouths hooray and they love us for it oh my gosh we so love those words that you put into our mouths yes yes thank you very much you know right but I'm not I can't control like every aspect of an actor's performance right I have to let that go we I have faith in my community which most of the time has turned out well and I write the best as best I can and you know I I take input from my collaborators once we're in the rehearsal room or whatever and rewrite as much as it takes to get it to where I feel good about it and they feel you know we're working together um but yeah then I let it go I mean and I feel okay about it because you know Shakespeare did it right and August Wilson did it and into Zaki Shange she did it all right you know what I'm saying and there's a long line of people who have practiced this kind of artistic bravery you know what I'm saying right and so we're like one of them you have to be very brave and it's okay I mean when I did 365 days 365 plays I just I would go hop around the world and visit theaters that were performing them I had the only input I had was giving them pages and it was mine there's some freaky shit out there man there's some freaky people like whoa shit you know and it's all very beautiful it was all very beautiful and not what I expected appreciate it thank you thank you great question man great question it's six o'clock it's six o'clock on a Wednesday here we are well thanks everybody it's great as always um we as a reminder please sign up by three p.m eastern Monday through Thursday um you can sign up on the public theater website or haul round and I will send you a link between three and four thirty p.m eastern that's all good luck finding your phone oh god if I call you you know I found it love you guys love you thank you SLP