 Hello everyone we'll get started in just a minute. Welcome. All right. It is five o'clock. And we are ready to start watching work actually it's 501 if anybody's counting. And we're ready to start watching work with the me and the title is you we've been doing this for like forever. No for like since like, I don't know, 2009. Maybe. We started out in the lobby of the public theater, where I would just show up and work and invite other artists and people just to show up and talk with me about their work and their creative process and we've been doing it pretty much the same way ever since. And, and so what we do is we sit here together for 20 minutes by the timer. And then when the timer goes off, we talk with you about your work and your creative process so watch me work the me in the title is you now on zoom, which we're very blessed to have thanks to the public theater and Lolly is organizing this for us in real time so if you have a question, Lolly can tell you how to get in touch. Yeah, if you are in zoom with us and you have a question you can use your raise your hand reaction which is going to be in the reactions tab at the bottom of your screen. So if you have any trouble finding it just send a message in the chat and I can help you out. If you're watching the live stream with us on howl around feel free to send us your questions via the public feeders Twitter, or Instagram account or via the watch me work Twitter account, which is at watch me work SLP with the hashtag howl around that's hashtag H O W L R O U N D. So that's how you'll ask us questions. Okay, let me set my timer. And here we go. Alrighty. Here we are. Does anybody have a question. Is that long did Lolly just text me and say that her laptop was that Lolly. Let me go get my phone I think I don't see Lolly on here. So I am going to. I think her laptop might have crashed. Hold on just a sec. Yep. Okay. Great so we're going to wait she says her laptop is going to be back on shortly. Jennifer you've got a question I can't unmute you because she's the host. So we're just going to wait anybody else. Think of your questions have them ready to go. It's magic Monday. We love technology. We just love technology. So what we love about having watched me work on zoom is that we can, you know, show up from wherever we are, which is really, really cool. So it's, it we're very fortunate and very lucky. And sometimes you know, tech is what it is. So it's all right. We'll have a few more minutes to work maybe. There's Lolly I see her a little square. Hello. Sorry about that. That was very dramatic. My computer just crashed and I was like, no. Here we are. Oh, great. We have a question. Let's get to it. Thank you. How are you. Hey Jennifer, how are you? A question but also related to something I'm working on. Okay. I'm working on this like one act play that sort of dealing with like a feminist sort of limbo, if you will, or a character kind of like trying to kind of like, is an in between world between like the world she lives in and the world she wants to live in kind of dealing with issues of like how women treat each other, how men treat women. And I really want to tackle like her mental state in an interesting kind of physical way. Yeah. So I've read a lot of your work. Is there a stage direction that you can write? That's impossible. To do. Yeah, like, could it be ever be like too extreme that like you shouldn't even try it? Or should you just put it out there and let the director and actors figure it out and they could let you know. It sounds like it's going to be a really fun play. I would say write. Write it the way you see it here. And then I think the production is going to have a wonderful time. You know. Coming up with. With what they can. I think that's the fun part about creating a creating anything. You know, you get to see what happens as they grow into themselves or become themselves. Or get produced. You know. Yeah. Person to be honest with you, like directing and all of that. I've tried that. But I don't think of like how this works, but I like writing because someone else has to figure it out. But I just wondered if there's ever like a burden you could place on someone by maybe going too far. I say, I think you're, I mean, I. Think that what the most important thing is right. How you want it. You don't have to make it more challenging than it needs to be. You know what I mean? Some people think, oh, what a director. What do you think you went too far? I'm sure they'll like, wait, because I've written a stage direction that they can't do. You know, let that go and just write it like you imagine it. And if it's too far out there for your director, you know, maybe they can grow with you and find a solution. Or you find a director who's like, I'm really into this. These kinds of, you know, possibilities for staging. You don't help me maybe find your right. yourself, you know, but but yeah, just just write it. You stay true to what you want. Don't be unnecessarily or you know, I'm going to impress them by writing really out their stage direction. I mean, you know, that's like someone who uses a $25 word when a $2 word will do. You know, so you know, you know, that's kind of a thing. Yeah, no, that helps that helps a lot. I just wanted to ask you, I appreciate that. I'm fine with it. It sounds really cool. Yeah, I'm having fun. I'm having fun, but you're right. I don't want to just be unnecessarily like challenging just like show. I'm astute. I'm more just want to do it because it fits the character more than anything. Yeah, no, it sounds great. It sounds great. Go for it. I would totally go for it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks Jennifer. Oh, it looks like Jonathan has a question. Hey Jonathan, how you doing man. I'm fine. How are you? Yeah, good to see you. Good to see you too. So I've been, I think the last time I was having these questions about, I guess it really came down to like enlarging community and beyond like, for the sake of a piece of work, which is enlarging my community, for the sake of enlarging my community. People that I know and elders and what have you and, and surprisingly, surprisingly, there are folks much closer to me than I had originally realized. Oh, wow. Which is really kind of cool. I never thought like in that way or you, because you have to be focused really close to you, you don't really. You only see the surface of who you know the thing. So that's been really wonderful. Where I'm at now though is I'm in a moment of kind of like nearing the home stretch, which I'm excited about. But as I'm approaching it, I'm realizing that like, there is the thing that needs to happen in the play is, is ultimately probably something that needs to happen for me. So, so I'm in this moment of like what you're like, are you writing the players to play writing you and and trying to figure out basically trying to negotiate. Because I am in a home stretch and there's just wonderful feeling of like those three words, you know, in the play seems within sight. I can explore it and do that. But then there's also this moment where I'm like, Oh, maybe there's something I need to investigate here. And I can, I can take that time to do that. So I think that my question is, what is how do you that the idea that writing isn't just a physical act of writing, but that there's so much potentially many other types of things involved in writing than the actual physical act of it. And I was curious if you had any thoughts about that. I mean, yeah, I mean, there's, I mean, what so I think that's why people think that I'm writing is easy or being a writer is easy. You know, most everybody we know how to do, you know, people can do it, you know, everybody who can do it can do it right. But I think then when they sit down to write something. And they realize that it's a lot more difficult than they imagined. Because maybe watching a play is easy. They feel like writing one must can be that hard writing reading a novel is relatively easy can be that hard. You know, and then because as you said, Jonathan, there's a lot more to it than just the active, you know, doing that. But it sounds like you're, you're, I mean, you're gonna, you're almost finished and yet you're going, maybe I won't be finished. Maybe I don't want to be done. I want to be done. I do. I mean, you're gonna be done with the draft and then you're gonna put it away for a week or so and then you're gonna pull it out again and then you're gonna rewrite it. No. Yeah. Maybe right. I mean, you know, the things that you need to do and the research or whatever those loose sense that you were like, I don't know about those. You can do them when you rewrite. I can, I can. I suppose it felt like it was more personal or internal type things, but that can also the play can live with me as I continue to do that. Yeah, it's not going anywhere is it. Walk off and like, oh no, now I can't work on it anymore and I don't get to feel it because I'm, it's, I typed the end. Right, right. The end again. The end again. The end again. You're gonna get there several different times. Right, right. You know, So give yourself the, the reward, if you will, of crossing the finish line. Multiple times. The first time. Give yourself the reward. And then, you know, get back into it. You know, you lost the finish line. You know, cool. You do. In other news, in other news, I did not eliminate my artistic license. I'm totally using it. Totally. And put it in my back pocket did not do it. There you go, brother. There you go. There you go. Thank you for that. Very, very, very well. Also, you can, you know, take a picture of it so you can have it on your phone. Okay, there you go. You can have it on your wallet. You know, so I, I got that. I see that. I received that. Well, come on. You deserve to cross the finish line. I mean, come on, you victory. I'm gonna do it. Thank you. It's fun. Thanks for your question. Thanks, Jonathan. Up next we have Louise and then we'll go to Jillian and then Gloria. No. Okay, so this is a comment. Some weeks ago I had mentioned what my challenges were in terms of writing about my mother. And you had made some suggestions. And in particular, just setting aside a certain amount of time to just focus on whatever you're focusing on, which I started to do, you know, like, five minutes here 20 minutes there. What's interesting is that, and this is sort of eludes to part of what Jonathan was mentioning that it's not just about the writing that when you start to write, all these other things are conjured up. And as starting the process, there were things that happened that, well, the brain never forgets. Number one. There's this storehouse obviously that we all have. And what I found, which is quite striking is the things that I'm able to. Oh, that really happened. Oh, this happened. And then I'm able to go into the detail of the specifics of what it was that happened. So I guess my comment is not really a question is that a lot of opportunities are presented. And it's, there's something that's imaginative and powerful to to just go back and have access and relive what everyone call it. Very real experiences that you put someplace else, right, over there, but you put it someplace else. And then when you start dealing with it. Here it is. That's really cool. And how is it feeling working on your project. Well, it's a challenge because I'm actually working on a couple of projects but I sort of, it feels like it's going to be a memoir. A lot of things that what what has hit me is just the storehouse of information that has surfaced. I can't mention. Well, I used to be into Alex Walker. I mean I'm still into Alice Walker but I remember, I mean I remember three the color purple. She did a book of short stories called, you can't keep a good woman down. And I saw her and heard her when she was reading from that book but then she also went on to talk about which I agree with how healthy writing can be because you can really get in touch with a lot of different things. And then if you write long enough I'm not even talking about necessarily publish this but just the record that you keep how in touch. You can be with your feelings with what's going on but the process it's ongoing. It's ongoing but I wasn't going to say anything that time. I was not going to speak up. I did and I'm glad I did. We're glad you did too. Yeah. All right. Thanks Louise. Thank you. Thanks so much Louise. Moving on to Jillian. Hey Jillian. Oh I don't think we can hear you Jillian. It seems that you're unmuted but. Oh Jillian. Okay wait let me ask I'm asking you to unmute again. Can you hear me now? Oh yep. Hi how are you. Well thank you good to see you. Good to see you too. So this week you know just plug in away and I think the challenge that I'm running into is. Yeah breaking into act two and starting a scene in an exciting way. I mean maybe it's really basic, but it's. Yeah, that's it. I feel like I every time I take pen and paper I keep going it's just how can I make something except more exciting so that's kind of what I'm at right now. I love this, this language. So, I mean, are you, are you in a writing program or something. I love it. No. The house is back to a house. You guys break it into the house. The language and I will say things like breaking into act two or I got to like break the back of the story or, or, or. You know, yeah, I run to you're going to break in my house. Um, right. You know, where are you at in the story. You know what I'm saying I think there are rules or you know maybe a writing book or a teacher might say and maybe correctly, you got to start act two in an exciting way, like what with the car chase. What are you talking about, or a gun, a shoot on, you know, Wild West suddenly you're in the Wild West and people are shooting and somebody's running and there's a wagon, and there's an indigenous person saying oh come on already, you know, where are you in your story. I think probably the most important question. Right. So instead of trying to be exciting. Yeah, about where you are in this story, and what do you need to see the characters doing being whatever where are they're in their story. You know, yeah. Well, I think that's kind of. And if you know certain for certain where they are what you need to see next, because you've written a series of scenes. Right for act one, and you've won it up place. You know, yeah. Yeah, I think to address your point with the language to I think it is just something you get caught in, you know, like this is the language of writing and things like that. So when you get notes or you get working and developing fashion it becomes this okay well. It needs to be more exciting or, I don't know. I guess that's the thought I have with it is, oh you have to have an up and then it down sometimes. I mean, I just kind of a tangent on this is how do I'm struggling with breaking out of my director producer making it happen mine and just free flow writing the story that I want to see mine. And so, there's any hints you have on how to like, put one hat aside. Right, I know great. I have a lot of hats. I'm going to, I'm going to theater right now. Most of them look like this. I would just say focus on the story. You know, so I think as a producer we could focus on, you know, the how like, how is it going to get done. How are we going to pay for that. How are we going to finance it. How are we going to get the permits to shoot at that location you know it's a lot of it's a you know how to realize that the director is how the house of it on a different, you know what does that look like, what kind of car are we going to get for that scene, what kind of actor are we going to get, you know, when you know things like that, but the writer, I think is best served by just thinking about the story. What's the story. What's the story. So it's bedtime and you're putting yourself to sleep and you're telling yourself a story. Once upon a time there was a person who wanted this and this and they did that. And then they did that. And in the end they got that. No, it's just it's just as writers I think, when we put on our when we wear our writers hats. And focus on the story. And not like we were talking to Jennifer not really worry about it this stage direction is going to be a well we're going to be able to produce that. Oh no I'm so I better not write it and just think about the story. And, and tell it how you see it tell it how you hear it. Thanks yeah I'm struggling with putting those other parts of me to bed because they always want to come out and have stuff to say. If anybody else feels that way. It's a really good story. Tell them a bedtime story and it's a story of your play and imagine them in there. I'll tucked in. Okay. You're going to hypnotize that part of yourself to sleep. Good. All right, thank you. Great question. Thank you. Thank you, Jillian. Going on to Gloria. Hey Gloria. Hello fun to be here hi everyone. I believe that early this one to ask a quick question. And I was wondering, I guess for you. Like, in terms of structure of a piece, I think for me, I'm really I'm, I've had the fun of being like, I, you know, the kind of like kind of a more nitty gritty structure it's been fun to kind of write it and to be taken on the journey and the gut and then I feel like I'm more in the weeds of like, like timing wise things are feeling a bit off or like okay does this make sense to happen here and this is just sort of the way things land. I think in generalized sort of was wondering if when you write when you when you in your writing process, like how do you go about structure, are you someone that is more so led by the idea of like, if things feel off writing through them until they don't structure wise do you have a do you put it in a container of sorts to help with structure like how do you are just different for each project. Yeah, so I had to say, yeah. Yeah, no it's a great question it's different for each for each project because I'm always following the story. Yeah, I'm telling you so each story has its own specific container. And because I don't, I tend not to, you know, write the same kind of for example just plays, I don't write the same kind of play over and over and over and over. So, and some writers do so they have a formula and they can kind of this happens this happens this happens and they do that I sort of do something that's new to me anyway. Every time I sit down to write so far. And so I have to follow the story. If something doesn't make sense or doesn't land right, it's a feel thing, you know, I have to really feel like, ah, that's that's a little too early to hear that information. And I like to sometimes I like to just write it out and see where it goes. Sometimes it's fun to take some index cards and just like, you know, write them out and flashcards so I can tell myself the story without having to write out pages and pages and pages of dialogue. That's helpful. She's like, it's like a sketch, like Van Gogh sketched before he painted. You know what I'm saying. It's a technique so you can make a sketch of it which you do on index cards. And, you know, do like writers in a TV room storyboard it or whatever they call it, you know, that's helpful. It helps you see the whole thing or get the whole thing in your mind without having to commit to dialogue and scenes and a lot of pages and pages of writing. Yeah. Move things around really easy because it's on index cards. No, that's fun. But those are, you know, but with every story it's different for me. Yeah, I've already written the team and now I'm kind of like, oh man, like, how do we get it like how do I kind of, yeah, basically, but I think, yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. I've already written it. Did you say? Oh yeah, I've already written it. So it says like, I'm like doing the index card thing and it kind of makes sense to me but also kind of doesn't make sense to me. I see how to even do it but yeah, yeah. If you have a draft of it you can totally still do the rewriting process you can still use index cards for the rewriting process. Cool. You have a draft. And while you've already. So instead of taking like seven pages and trying to move them around in the script, you just take the scene on an index card and move it around. It's just a lot. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, you can still use index cards to rewrite, even if you have a draft already. The great thing about having a draft already is once you find the order that you like, then you just cut and paste the scenes. And then kind of shimmy it up a little bit to get them to fit and to make sense. Yeah. Like if one scene was at night now it's a daytime you moved it around, just make the time sequence work or whatever you got. Does that make sense? That makes sense. That sounds good. Okay, thank you. Yeah, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Gloria. Next up we have Addie. Hey Addie. There we go. Hi Susan Lurie. It's so great to be here. My question is about, I'm really interested in a story that revolves, or I'm interested in developing a story around the character that has a particularly unique lived experience that I at least haven't really seen been told before. I think it's a really important kind of lived experience. I don't know why I keep using that word lived experience but that's what comes to mind right now. But it's something that I, the subject matters and the kind of like issues that I want to touch on in the story and in the through this character are not really experiences that I have experienced up close but necessarily or a lot of personal ties to by any means. And so I'm wondering what your process is like researching and developing characters that might be different from yourselves. And have you ever questioned whether you're the right person to tell a certain story? Well, yeah, that's great. And I always question like, am I the right person to tell the story, even if the story, and I'm used to quotes is someone who looks like me, you know, because because there's always going to be someone to tell you you shouldn't be telling that story. Maybe it's a story of your family, and your relative will come out of the word work saying how dare you tell that story. You know what I mean? Okay, so that's that's as close to you as you can get. Maybe it's a story of someone in a different historical period. Well, you're lucky because they probably won't come back from the dead to tell you that you're not. But maybe people who are maybe more related to you maybe they're I don't know what from from neighborhood XYZ and the people who live in neighborhood XYZ are like we live here. If you don't live here and you don't have a right to tell the story. Sure, sure, sure. There's always, especially these days, a lot of mindfulness going on, which often demonstrates itself as policing. I'm just going to say that there's a lot of policing going on these days. And sometimes people go you know we have to make sure that only the right people tell the stories that they should. At a certain point, in my personal opinion, it goes a little too far. It goes a little too far and people question your bona fides and authenticity every turn when we did the Gershwin's poor game best on Broadway there was a letter in the New York Times the Gershwin's poor game best you know, we were invited by the Gershwin state to adapt the beautiful musical right me and Diane Paulus and she gathered together a great group of people and we were invited by the Gershwin state there was a letter in the New York Times condemning us before they had seen the show. How dare they I'm paraphrasing the letter how dare they they meaning me and Diane Paulus and the handful of awesome artists. They don't have the right to adapt that work now. I don't know this does this give me the right to adapt poor game best from the Gershwin's at the invitation to Gershwin state. I don't know. But someone thought we didn't have the right to do it. And that's that's some that's like what okay and that person was Steven Sondheim you can look it up. Did anybody question his right so there's a lot of like who's got the right to say what I say, Addy if you come to it with do a lot of research if they don't look like you and they ate your people or whatever. Do a lot of research be respectful to as much as you can be, maybe bring on people who might have a more close to lived experience with the people and continue to ask yourself that question every day. And there's always someone come out of the work saying now you can't talk about granny only I can talk about grandma. Yeah, yeah, a whole lot of policing going on these days. Yeah, I don't know if it's good for art I don't I don't I don't know. I don't know. It was very hard for working best we still want the Tony, but anyway, right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. We have one last question from Jake and just to be mindful of time we only have a couple of minutes because we got to end right on time today, but feel free to ask your question Jake. Hey Jake. Hey, hi miss Susan. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. I'm just, I'm still a beginning like playwright trying to find my footing. So I have an idea for a play and I'm starting to feel like I think I hear the different characters talking but I'm not quite sure when or where to start and I didn't know if you could offer any sort of perspective on how maybe you decide like how you go from I kind of have an idea I'm stirring around to like I think I'm ready to start figuring this out on the page and like you know the hunter gathering part of the artistic process yeah. That's a great question Jake. So how do we go from like, I got some characters in mind to. Yeah. I would say what might be fun is interviewing them. As if they're real people, because they're going to be soon, you know what I mean, talk to them. As if you're in a, you know, you can interview them like do the sort of, you know, 60 minutes, you know, talking to them like this, or you can pretend you're overhearing them talking in a coffee shop with another character that might be in your play. That's fun. You know, kind of write down what they say that might be really fun and spend, spend some time with them you know set your timer for 20 minutes and talk to them do more listening and talking. Ask them why they want to be in the play. Ask them about their life and what they're all those kinds of things you have your gathering information on them, and you're also gathering maybe you know information about what might happen during the course of your play. You know that might be fun. That's that's that's kind of fun to I just like talking to my characters. Get them in the habit of talking to you. That's what I'm saying. Just to get through your play they're going to have to talk to you. Okay, listen. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, and check back in with us that you have to do to talk to your characters and check and try to do it every day you know 20 minutes a day. You know it's a good amount of time and check back in with us. We'll be here. We'll be here next week. Yes. Yes, we will be here next week and then we'll take a little break for president's day and then we'll be back. Oh yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Great question. Appreciate it. Likewise. Thanks so much everyone. We'll wrap up right on time today and we'll see you next week. See you next week. Thank you. Bye.