 Hey, it's five o'clock. It's time for watch me work. I'm SLP. We are doing it again Because that's what we do We're doing watch me work. We've been doing this show for like I don't know someone good in math It's since like 2009 or 2010. We started in the lobby of the public theater Where I sat down and just started asking people how you doing like Weird, you know, how was your work going and the show? Basically grew out of that when COVID hit and the lockdown hit we went on zoom Helped by howl around who was helping us before of course And they helped the expanded New Work Development Department has embraced us and here we are so We've got Amritha. We've got Zoe. We've got Haley's Comet and I'll help him out and we've got the folks from howl around Anything so so what we do we do the same thing every time we meet we work for 20 minutes together And then I take your questions about your work and your creative process But we don't have time to share work specifically. We do have plenty of time to talk about process And if you have a question about your process, Zoe will tell you how to get in touch or Amritha You want to say anything before Zoe? I Will just very quickly say hello everyone I'm so grateful the New Work Development is supporting watch me work with SLP. Great to see you all Welcome welcome, and then I'm going to hand it over to Zoe and Haley to talk more about how watch me work works Hi everyone, I'm Zoe my pronouns are she her I'm the New Work Development Manager happy to see everyone Her what's already been said we're gonna work for 20 minutes and once we are opening up for questions Please go ahead and use the raise your hand function and we'll make a queue of questions And then I'll ask for you to unmute and ask your question. So that's how we're gonna have a nice little queue of questions Great, and I'm doing something that I never do But I always believe in trying new things. I have started a test kitchen Which is another way of saying I've started up a band and we have some gigs I'm trying out new songs working on a new show if you want to come to one of the gigs The link to the website is in the chat You can sign up for our mailing list and we'd love to see you there. So there's that and Okay, so here we go 20 minutes Hey Okay So, um If you have questions about your work your creative process you want to talk about how you're doing Well, whatever we are here Happy to see you Welcome in the people who haven't been here before if there are any Welcome in back to people who have been here before Yes, if you have questions, please go ahead and use your raise the hand function And we'll go ahead and call your your call on your name to unmute Mary please go ahead and unmute yourself Hi, I don't know what this means, but my Mount Holyoke College pen Ran out while I was doing my work. I'm also a Mount Holyoke alum I think the ghost of Mary Lyon was trying to speak to us Yes, I think she's yellow as they call them now moho moho Oh fellow moho graduate of Mount Holyoke College. What do you think? What is your process when you are working on something like how much of your day do you give to writing and Still have time to do other things like laundry and taking care of your family and then time for yourself That's great. Um, yeah, and it's it's a start the way we slice our days, you know the sandwich that we make with our days it's it's it's a It's an ever-changing sandwich and we should all do what works best for us So I mean I was watching some wonderful, you know, one of those American master shows or well Maybe it wasn't that it was some great show about some great writer who happened to be called Ernest Hemingway and You know, mr. Hemingway apparently when he was living in Key West would in the morning You know from whatever time to whatever time he would be up in his Upstairs study and the children would know that dad was up there, but they couldn't bother him, you know And then he'd come downstairs after lunch and he'd go fishing on a boat, you know, and I'm like, yeah, that's it So yeah, um, you know my son walks in my office at right after he gets up and That's how the day starts, but what's so any anything works basically whatever works for you is what's gonna work My son comes in my office At 6 o'clock in the morning and he reads aloud because I like to hear him read he needs to read but I have did it Did I have these wonderful things? earplugs and I put them in my ears and He's uh, you know a foot away from me reading out loud and I'm writing so whatever works and I Sometimes it's three hours. Sometimes it's 20 minutes Whatever work I would say try to do something every day Do something every I mean right, you know I do something and maybe you have lots of somethings, you know Maybe you have to practice an instrument and that's you can do that for 20 minutes And then you can write for an hour or oh you have a subway ride to your day job And you can write longhand in your notebook on the subway Just put in the time find a way to put the time in Does that help Mary? I mean Yes, I'm in the middle of my master's thesis and I'm writing an original play And I'm just trying to figure out like do I you know do I do a chunk on Monday? And then take Tuesday off, but I like the idea of a little bit each day and just kind of Ship away at it Yeah, yeah, and I think also my what might help is choosing your favorite time of the day like What is your favorite work time of the days morning or your afternoon person a night owl? What do you think but definitely not a night owl? I'm gonna I'm gonna go with morning I usually start teaching in the afternoon. So I have this like chunk of time in the beginning of the day So take take some of that at least some of it, you know every day Even if you only have an hour You know before you have to prep for class or you know your other responsibilities Um Yeah, I would say Meet it every show up because you're like you're sort of you're you're making yourself Discoverable if you will you know what I mean and the muses have to know that you're you're there and you're discoverable And I'd like to make myself discoverable every single day once I did one of these with you a couple years ago and you told me about index cards and I Stole that from you and I love it in my husband to this day It's like why are all these index cards around are these important? I was like, yes It's just my thesis and index cards, but That's great, and you can carry them in your pocket, right and almost colorful index car. Those are those a fun So for the the actual paint for the play, it's this for I'm writing study guides for secondary school educators They're a different color There you go. Yeah, I mean We we want to make it fun, you know, I was saying how do you how do you game the system or how do you game your system? into I Want to engage in that, you know what I mean because if it feels too much like work sometimes it's and but it's it's actually You're gonna game your own system into Into playing I like what you said about the muses you have to Remind them daily that you are there. So thank you. I Thank you, Mary. Thank you. And yay, Mount Hoyok. Yay Thank you, Mary Charlie, please go ahead and unmute yourself to ask your question. Thank you. Hey, Charlie. Hey, SLP This really nice place right now my co-writer and I are just we're probably like one session away from finishing a first crap draft of something We've been having a lot of fun with it and but but I And then we'll take a little break and then come back and see Probably better see what we have but we haven't you know, we haven't been trying to be too objective or wherever We just like flying with it feeding off each other. It's been fun but That was floating around up here any thoughts about like Without ruining all the fun, but still getting back and trying to see this a little more objectively Any thoughts about how to get down without going too low and get all pissy about what we did Right, right So how long are you going to take as a pause between? No more than a week Maybe less great. Yeah, great great. Okay. So you neither of you are going to read it at all. I Don't know we haven't decided. Yeah, I have a heart I mean if that was the right thing to do we would I'd I probably will take it out and read it through once Before we get back together Okay, are you curious? Sure. Sure. So are you gonna read it like? sitting down or Standing up or what? Probably sitting down in a comfortable chair Okay, okay Okay, I mean if you say I should like be doing wind sprints or something I've listened to that but No, I'm just thinking I wanted I wanted to be pleasant for you. How about You can I mean do something silly. I'm just making this up. Let's see if it makes any sense. You can Yes, do like say every Five minutes you can set your timer every five minutes you're reading the timer goes off and you have to compliment yourself. Oh My god, that was Wow, good job, man. Good job like that. You just just try that it could be it could be it could it's making you laugh now Well, it could be also assuming that I'm gonna be I mean I might start reading it and still really enjoyed it Which would be I don't know that I'm gonna overshoot but it's just like but I also I Also want to like get out of my own head a little bit Then then we go into the wind sprints so then get up out of the chair and read it aloud You know what I mean, that's that you get it want to get out of your head Then you got to get it off your butt and excuse my language, but you got a I mean standing up reading it aloud you know and and I would still suggest some kind of Reminder in there to compliment yourself every once in a while because this isn't like saying that you're not gonna like it This is saying get out of your head and put the responsibility of complimenting yourself on something else So this is taking it off off your plate if you will yeah Put it on plate of the timer letting the timer take the responsibility of reminding you You know, I like so even if you enjoy the scene whatever. Oh my gosh. This is such a great scene great go back to it You know, I mean it it helps you get out of your yourself And then when you read it with your friend when you get back together, I Don't know what you if you like to Drink wine you might involve wine, you know If you if you like that if you don't then please don't you don't start drinking Because I suggested so but if you if you're someone who enjoys a glass of wine You might want to share a glass of wine with your friend. You might even want to open a bottle of champagne and Celebrate make it a party Thank you. I will try some of that Yeah We're not there yet. Not there yet. Yeah, but I'm congratulating you anyway cuz you're gonna be there Chris, please go ahead and unmute yourself Hi Chris, how's it going? It's going well. I love that your guitar in the background, bro. Oh, yeah Thank you for this and for making this time and for everyone who's involved in running the show It's really great. This is my first time here So thank you for having me I'm in a place right now with with this play that I've been working on. It's like my family play That is kind of something I've been working on for a long time And I feel like I put all these dominos just like in this perfect order and Then I realized I hated it and I blew it up and then I Put them all back and so now I've got this first act Which is I feel like this domino goes into that domino and so there's this very What feels like Just structurally coherent thing But now I'm like, oh, that's if I'm starting to feel like a little bit like Overwhelmed by putting those dominoes in place and the crafty like kind of game of it and I'm like craving The burst of lightning or something that's less Like I feel like I'm trying to do a trick like I'm trying to I'm trying to trick it. I'm trying to be like oh well if I follow all these rules Then it'll be amazing and it's like I've got this first act and I and I like it but to proceed I don't know whether or not I should continue along this path of like very diligently trying to like set up the action in a very rulesy rulesy way or Just like let me just write the dream Whatever flash happens. I feel like that's kind of scary to me I'm also feel like it's what I need to do and I guess I'm just like Wondering I guess to put it in the form of a question. It's like When you've got something that you feel like is sort of technically working. How do you? Move when you feel like There's other things that need to happen for it to Know it's a really great question Chris. Are they your rules? Are they rules from like an outside source like? You know Joe Smith's rules of playwriting. Are they someone else's rules? Yeah, there's rules that worked for me in getting me here like But I haven't that's a really good question. They're definitely someone else's rules Okay, okay, okay, so that because that because a lot of times when we make up our own rules and our own systems were less resistant to them, you know, so Your resistance might just be that there's someone else's rules that that have worked for you in the past and you're wondering Will they work again? Is that what you're? Yeah, that's like the trick thing where I'm like I want to repeat the the magic thing that happened Right, right, right, right, right hmm Well, I mean You can you can do both. You know, you can follow the rules the dominoes the things you've set up and write the second act and Then if you're not happy with it, you could rewrite it in another way Yeah, you know because I wouldn't I mean there's nothing wrong with Following sort of this these rules, you know, you know, I mean it is, you know, I can screen screenplay writers are more Attentive to those kinds of things and on page one it has to be this on page three It has to be this those kinds of things and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just You want you don't want it to feel mechanical or you know arch so Go ahead and write it and that's what the rewrite might be for you know. Yeah, I think the other I think the other thing about like When I just kind of let go of the mechanical way is that I feel like my place starts to like become about everything It becomes a magnet for like any idea that crosses my mind It's like well, that's going in that's it and then all of a sudden it's nothing because it's everything And so I like always I'm like I'm me down to something Right I hear you so I mean, it's a great that's it's just a great observation about yourself in your process I would say for you know, I mean, how many pages is your second act going to be? I Wanted to be 70 pages For the second act. Mm-hmm. Okay, great. So You write those 70 pages and then you see what you think about it You know, and if it's like well, it's working then you don't have to blow it up and you know If it's working, it's it's working. That's great if it's Feels kind of false or fake or stiff or whatever your judgment is of your work, then you can go in there and You know turn over the soil a little bit and write another draft, you know Totally, but but you're in them. You're in the middle and in the middle is where you have to really stick to it, you know What do they say in the Scottish play screw your courage to the sticking post I like that Yeah, I'm reason I did I get it right? Did I am I quoting my Shakespeare? I am very close I think it's sticking place or post one of the two, but Yeah, yeah, okay, but yes, you know stick with it, bro, bro And shout out my holy oak because I'm from Northampton, Massachusetts in Smith College That's where I grew up on Smith College campus. So shout out Western Mass colleges. Oh my gosh, that is fantastic We're taking over. Thank you, Chris. Thank you Thank you Who's gonna be next next? Let's just do random quotes of Shakespeare. No Misha save us I think I'm unmuted am I you are unmuted. Yes. Yes. Thank you. So my um Hello all people my question is I think I have two but I'm trying to figure out how to make them short. So the first one is I'm always told You should turn these short plays into full length plays, but I don't know why I always have a reservation about doing that So I'll write a play and I'll stop at about 20 pages 10 to 20 and then I say, okay, this is enough If I push it, it won't have the same effect and then sometimes I think Maybe it's me having too much respect for the craft that I don't think I'm good enough to do that So I'm trying to figure out a good resolution Hmm I appreciate and admire you tremendously for like saying hey, this is how long it should be sam shepard The great playwright sam shepard who passed away, uh, not too long ago had a wonderful essay called Time in which he talks about how to paraphrase Harb horrifically a play should be just as long as it is You know what I mean because he would write plays of all sorts of lengths and He was really feeling like, you know Sometimes play should only be 10 minutes carol churchill has a great play called Far away, is that what it's called? Someone's in Far away Isn't it amazing? Yes, like you don't want it to be any longer. It's just like You know a lot of information in a straight line of time Right, right. So so you could say hey, I'm following in sam shepard's footsteps I'm following in carol church's footsteps Those are good. That's good company um, okay, if you want to Link you can write a lot of short plays many people, you know, write a lot of short plays that are related If your producers are asking for like an an evening of seiza um But I I I do think um That just just If your characters have more to do Then by all means allow them to allow them the ability to do it So it's like if you're watching a on tv, for example, if you're watching a 30 minute show And it's just 30 minutes and that's a nice episode. That's great And then the next episode takes over from where the previous episode left off um That might be what you're writing, you know Some some some and that's cool, too Uh, we have all these forms now that we can write in so feel confident that if you feel good about the length then Then feel good about it. Yeah Okay, thank you. Also. My name is pronounced naisha and My second question, um, this one's a little different and also tricky when writing about Black males there's been this debate. They are often emasculated in In media on stage and screenplays. This is what I've been hearing not a hundred percent certain So I'm trying to understand if I'm going to write from that perspective How can I tell a story without making them seem? Emasculated Seem that's a word that hamlet likes to use. Um What did you say? I am not seems something like that. Anyway What people perceive And what we write are often two totally different things Hmm, you know, so I'm thinking okay all august wilson's plays. I would I say there are a lot of black men in those plays I ain't seen none of them emasculated Uh thoughts of a colored man was on Broadway a couple years ago I didn't see those brothers didn't seem emasculated to the like to me top dog on a dog. They weren't emasculated I mean They were all these men the athello. That's not an emasculated man. These men are Seem very powerful and Wanting things and everything that great characters should be so I don't know what you're reading Stop reading the stop reading Stop reading those those books and articles because I don't think that they don't they don't jive with any reality that I've seen I don't know what it you know And if you're going to write a character just be true to what what does he want? How does he get it? What's he going for? You know, what does he love? What is he moving toward? What is he moving away from all the things that any other character Would need and want to be authentic on the page and on the and on the stage and you you write a You know a black male character just like you write a black female character Just like you write a horse of a different color. I mean a good character needs Needs great things You know Does that does that make sense? It does it does it actually solidified an argument that I presented uh Two other people who were telling me about um That topic of emasculation and I Pointed it out I use the same reference august wilson's plays aren't like that. Um Detroit fences Yeah, I've I've read all of his cycle plays. Um, I read a lot of plays about those characters But I just wondered if one one that I wrote a lot of people told me the character was too strong and a lot A lot to take in So I guess I guess in my mind I was looking for validation and maybe I received it too strong, you know too strong too much to You know, I mean also people have the right to their opinions and and you know, we we need to take in what helps And and leave the rest And I will consider this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Naisha. Thank you Thank you, Naisha, and thank you for teaching me how to say your name. Um Um, we actually got a question in the hellground chat Right on Do you ever feel blocked because you have too many ideas and don't know how to get them all out coherently? How do you navigate that bottleneck of thoughts? Yeah, that's a great question from the chat. Uh um I I feel it's it's very helpful to Do one project at a time? You know, even if you're just, you know, you can make a list I can't show you my my desk is is a is a pile of lists and inboxes and Different boxes for different projects Um, because I work on different projects every day, you know throughout the day and so But I I really work on I really practice working on one project at once So right now This is the project I'm working on. Watch me work. We're talking to you, you know I really work to focus Um And if you just say, okay, I've got 17 projects. I want to work on today For the next 20 minutes. I'm just going to work on project a And you just focus on that project, you know Now, okay. Now I'm going to work on project are I'm just focusing on that project Um, and after a while, maybe you'll prefer to work on project a most of the day or most of your during most of your work time But just you train yourself to just Work on one project at a time It's the same thing like when you're talking to someone don't also be reading your phone Just talk to them Just talk to them. You see you know what I mean It's kind of one that I have to practice too. Also Is that is that helpful? I hope I can't see your face while I'm talking with you, but I would assume it was helpful I S l t that's funny. That's funny. That's funny. Yeah Um, the theme is do try to do a little bit, you know Blocked is when you don't want to do nothing try to do a little bit little bit try to do a little bit Yeah but Um, crystal please unmute yourself crystal I'm good. I'm well. How's your shoulder? You know It's healing. It's healing. Yeah, I can do this Thanks for asking So, um, I'm working on the play that I was telling you about Um, uh, the two women where I'm trying to figure out the time even though it does take place The the beginning takes place out of sit-in, but I didn't want to do it in 1960 So I'm I'm kind of Playing around with um I guess Maybe like his history in the sense that like I'm I'm put I didn't want to put it in a specific place in a specific time Because I feel like I wanted to kind of put it It create my own world in which it's applicable, but not Not to the T of what has happened or would happen Do you know what I mean? Um I so Okay, like, you know, I so I'm trying to do like, you know, his historical things but not like But not like, okay. This happened in 1960. So this story is going to take place in 1960 I actually wanted to take place probably Maybe in the 50s Or the 30s, but I don't know this was the issue I had last time when I when I said and you said, you know Right ignorantly and and and I and I'm doing that. I'm totally doing it But I haven't set like a, you know, I I know what state I wanted to be in but I I haven't necessarily said like Oh, it'll be in this city. Um, and I haven't said. Oh, it'll be in this year I've just been taking events the way I dreamed this story It's just it's just like a events that keep happening that cause the characters to either get closer or separate um So that's actually not even my question. Um my question is, um I'm writing out of order And and it's it's still coming along. I'm still actually like I don't know if I should be smiling when I'm writing, but I'm like, wow, this is really coming out and um But there's one scene That is especially violent And I have a very, uh strong Reaction to like writing it. I know I have to write it. Um, it's what kind of turns the play in a It it changes it changes everything that one event But it's like the one part that I'm like I don't I don't feel Brave enough to write it I don't feel brave enough to write it. Um, because it's just, um I've already written another part that was violent and I was like, oh boy, that's you know Again, I'm like it's coming and flowing but like that one part is just very, um Hard to even approach So I I know I need to get it out. I need to do it. Um Do you have any thoughts on like, you know, and I don't want it to be gratuitous or like for the sake of right Whatever it is necessary. Um, but it's just Right, right. So Great crystal and you you've been coming to this show for a long time So I've been talking about your work for a long time and you always have really cool questions and you're always working on interesting stuff um a couple things As we as we know or we should know all Most sex acts are not pornographic And uh, you could people say trauma porn and say they say they don't want to see trauma any trauma They don't want to see any violence. They don't want and I think violence porn is just violence That's violent acts in plays or that have to happen because they have to that's where the story's going But they're poorly constructed and poorly written Because we are still learning how to how to write them appropriately I would say do everything you can on the front end to take care of your characters Everything okay, so you want to make sure that they are uh human and And hitting all the all the human beats if you know that that has to happen in your story And there's no way to tell the story without showing this Unfortunate violent act do everything you can to take care of your characters show them as humans To the full extent of their humanity Okay, so make sure you're doing that so don't shortcut anything just to get to the part that's gonna make people go Oh, no. Oh my god, you know like that. I mean please because that's porn, right? That's that's ding dong pizza blowjob, right? I'm sorry, but if I don't mean to offend anybody, but that's that's porn and not that we don't like porn So that's I mean a lot of people would watch that but that's that is the With a violent act in there that would be the equivalent of violence porn or trauma porn, right? You want to really really really develop your characters and ask yourself two questions One, why won't you set it in a particular year? I I don't understand that and um two, what are you afraid of? What am I afraid of as far as the writing or I don't know seems to be Yeah, I'm smelling I'm into I'm I'm I'm feeling you know Something that is causing you great You know joy as you write it but also concern. Why don't you set it in a particular year? I could happen in the 30s. It could happen in the 50s. It could happen in the I mean What's up with that? I I don't understand that quite I I don't understand it quite myself either I I I I wanted to I wanted to write something that was like this this could happen But I don't know how to explain it like I I I don't know I don't I don't have a good answer I don't have a good answer It's just I'm just again because you are showing A violent act in a historical context and so again take care of your characters You know, yeah, you have to for lack of better earn it. That's horrible But you need to really they need to be human. They need to be authentic human few humans for that to really You know You need to be able to write that So Does that go for the person who is doing the yep Yes, oh, yes, and that's the hard part about it. Yeah, everybody has to be a human And Yeah Yeah, we can only make the the victims the humans, you know what I mean and the and the person doing the the crime whatever They're a ha, you know, no everybody has to be a human That's what I'm talking about And and and they might draw some of their humanity from a particular historic context if it's 1957 That's very different from 1964 And I said write what write ignorantly just sure get it out there But last week you're I mean last time your question was more concerned with the the voice of the Language the vernacular used and that's what I was referring to and I said right just don't worry about getting the vernacular correct You're right. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't say, you know the other points. I you know Yeah Choose a year choose it choose a year. You already chosen a city and a But here's 558. Oh, okay. No, no, I'm just looking at I'm just going. Oh, it's 558 Okay, but check in check in next week. Let's let's check in again. Oh for sure. Thank you Last question. I batarian, please go ahead and unmute yourself. Hey Hi, um, I like to say I'm a smith college alum. So it's nice to see other western mass people here Um, but my question is two years ago I wrote this 10 minute play for this 24 hour festival and decides just to revisit it and My theme the theme was like check out. So I wrote about uncle Vanya and and I shared this play with someone and I wrote about like it kind of had brought it up like Stennis Lopsky was a character kind of touched upon uncle Vanya, but also not And I realized I actually like that Draft I wanted to work on it. But because someone said I can I totally see Stennis Lopsky like this. I This is how he would behave. I'm like, oh, I wasn't trying to be so reality-based and now I'm just like Afraid that if I work on it and change things that It I don't know. I feel like because it's like Stennis Lopsky uncle Vanya. You can't my mind's like you can't um Make it too out there, I guess you have to follow like reality, I guess and I'm just like, how do I get out of that space and just Work on this your fix this draft and make it what I want without having to stick to what I think Yeah, yeah what they think or what somebody's thinking. Yeah. So how do we yeah, um, do you have it doesn't have to be Stennis Lopsky Kind of yes But also because Why So it's like it's my first time using real people. It just needed to be people who were in that first production of uncle Vanya So it's someone we never met That's true. Stennis Lopsky is like assistant Oh You know, you know, you know, you know, they never heard of him He's like, you know, he was like carrying Stennis Lopsky's coat. Yeah, he didn't you know They wrote the history. They didn't mention him He's kind of bitter I would be wouldn't you be yeah This whole movement happened and they don't even mention his name That's true You know, there are there are so many ways to get around around these Around these rules people Haha, right So, so, you know, you could you know, try that Yeah, okay. Let me just see what happens if I swap that character Yeah, just make him the guy who wasn't his name wasn't written down in the you know, when they wrote the history of the He could even be like a poc shit Right, I mean, whatever you want That's the thing, you know, we're free And we will continually remind each other what that means Thank you Thank you. I'm gonna put this thing in the chat again To remind you guys I have a test kitchen and it's a meaning I'm gonna be hanging around town playing music as I work on a new show Uh, and so, uh, if you want to get on the website, I mean on the mailing list Join the bands called Sula and the joyful noises to the nickname that my dad gave me years ago So Sula and the joyful noise. I have a brand new six piece band. We're having fun I love hanging out with you guys you guys you all you people um Thank you, uh public theater. Thank you howl round for hosting us and embracing us And making this just a wonderful wonderful experience every week. Will we be back next week? Please tell us. Yes So yeah, let me just say yes. We'll see you. Thank you so much. See you next week everyone Bye