 I have to say, I'm a member of AT&T, and she's got a son out there. It was very helpful. It was fun. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jonathan Abarbenal, and I'm chairperson of the American Theater Critics Association. It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Perspectives in Criticism, a public talk presented as part of the annual conference of the American Theater Critics Association and its companion, Charitable Foundation. Over many years, we've had some of the nation's most eloquent and passionate theater critics speak to us about many aspects of theater and our profession. But we've never before asked a playwright to deliver her perspectives on what we do. So today is a first, as we invite Lauren Gunderson to sound off on the relationship between playwrights and critics. It's singularly appropriate that we do this not only as a part of the Critics Conference, but as part of a great national celebration of authorship, the Humana Festival at the Actors Theater of Louisville. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in the South, Lauren Gunderson quickly has established herself as a prolific and accomplished dramatist and screenwriter, though I suspect it was not as quick as she might have liked. Her work has been produced from coast to coast and back again quite literally. Her play, I and You, is a finalist for the 2014 Steinberg American Theater Critics Association New Play Award and also was named a finalist for the 2014 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. It was an NNPN, that's National New Play Network, an NNPN rolling world premiere last year and will roll to three more cities this year. In 2011, her comedy exit, pursued by a mayor, also was a rolling world premiere and now has been staged in more than 20 U.S. cities. Her very newest play, Bauer, recently completed its world premiere at the San Francisco Playhouse which commissioned it and it will be staged this summer in New York City at the 59 East 59 theaters. But it's not only Ms. Gunderson's success as a playwright, which brought her to our attention. She writes in a variety of media on a variety of topics as befits someone who also holds a seat as a Reynolds fellow in social entrepreneurship at New York University and she could probably give a whole talk on that alone. Among Ms. Gunderson's topics has been commentary on theater criticism and critics especially as posted on her own Tumblr site and in several interesting interviews she's granted. It's the intelligence of her own critical writing and commentary which caught our attention and convinced us she was the right person to represent the voice of the playwright. It is my honor to present Lauren Gunderson. I'm a playwright, you are a room full of critics and this is not going to be awkward at all. We're all going to be just fine, we're going to make it through great. I do not speak for all playwrights of course as we are like dogs in many and varied species but I do understand as Jonathan mentioned that I'm the first playwright who's had the honor of speaking to you and it is quite an honor. Also an addiction as I'm sure if you're like me and can manage to talk about theater all day somebody would pay you or let you or both or neither because we're going to do it anyway. So we meet today as a support group for those compelled to find each other in the dark, turn off their mobile devices and watch people live in front of us for hours. We are an odd bunch but here we are. Pretty revolutionary France actors and executioners weren't allowed to be full citizens because of their morally questionable professions. I don't know where playwrights and critics fit on that morality scale but I'm sure wherever it is we'll write next to each other. So once again, here we are. Together, hoping that the next show we write or the next show we review just knocks our socks off. Here we are together thrilled at the leap of an athletic actor into a role we've never encountered before. Here we are together going to the theater, caring about the theater, believing that the theater can do good work in the world, knowing that this ancient practice belongs in the present. Here we are being full theater idealists in the way that Todd London showed us we could be in his last stroke, the ideal theater. Indeed, we are together in this craft and in this art. We are all together in the vitality and accessibility and coherence of the American theater. We are not just practitioners. We are not just individuals. We are collective advocates. This is our ecology because we all love theater. We all want it to be assessed. We all have high standards and work our asses off and don't get paid enough and have or have enough time and sometimes we have to make imperfect compromises and we all know it when we do, but we get up not at the crack of dawn because we're theater people, but we do get up and when we do we support, make, and make people talk about art. And most of us, I hope all of us cannot wait to see what someone comes up with next to shake us out of our patterns or surprise us or move us. So, what can I tell you about criticism that you don't already know, at which you aren't already professionals and I would have had any right or knowledge to explain to this esteemed body, I'm still not exactly sure, but I'm still honored to have a stage and I'm also still talking. So, we're just going to go for it and be honest and fluid and generous of heart. And last week I read a ton about theater criticism so I am super qualified now. I can tell you how to make a play. It takes a damn long time usually. And when you get to the end and write blackouts on the first draft, which could take untold numbers of days and months and tantrums, that's actually when the real work starts. Readings, rewrites, pitches, rewrites, workshops, rewrites, take a shower, have a life, no time, rewrites. Or committed procrastination, either way, it's very taxing. So, the pattern that I recognize after doing this for a decade or so is that I usually get to draft 16 before the play is done-ish. Draft 14 is usually the draft that goes into first production if I'm so lucky to have one. You will note the number differential between first production and done-ish. After the first production, I continue to rewrite to take in all that we've learned. Audiences, of course, tell us so much. So do trusted friends and dramaturgically minded confidants. So does my mother, who always have two notes that make all the difference, always do. All of this teaches and inspires and reminds and propels our capable actors to apply by the time our few previews are over in the regional theater and we open and we all come in. This is also where the speech could get awkward again, but we won't let it. Honesty and fluidity and generosity of heart. Here we go. This is where I can tell you what it's like to read reviews of your brand new play while it is currently in production, just starting out, hoping your artistic intentions were seen and manifested if they roll the coaster right every time. Good reviews are, surprisingly, amazing. Good reviews feel like a relief. Like there's hope for more plays in the future. Like maybe they'll invite me back, like maybe theater is not the most insane profession of all the liberal arts. Like maybe this play will go beyond this production. Maybe it'll see other cities of their iterations. Maybe it will last. Maybe it will grow. Maybe this play will actually get the chance to find its audience. Which is the real point, isn't it? Not praise or more commissions or pull quotes, although those are lovely. Audience. Theater doesn't really work without it and we want them coming back. We want them engaged. So any review that encourages audiences to see the play for themselves is a good review to make. That's a healthy American theater. Hey, everyone. Go see plays. Go see more plays. Even if the review says that I hated it like completely hated it because of this and this but you should check it out anyway. Because of this and this. That's totally fine. I would take that. I didn't like it as different from it's not worth seeing. I would actually love much more of that than I ever would. So I can tell you that more than being disliked playwrights fear being misunderstood. That's the worst. The review for your play is not the play you write and no one really learns from that. I can tell you that reviews of new plays are powerful forces in that play's future. I can tell you that people outside of our towns re-reviews to decide whether or not they're going to read the play. Not everyone does this, of course, but a lot of people do. It's sad and unproductive and does not trust the new play process very much. I can tell you that new plays need to grow and to mature some distance plus another rehearsal process for the second production before it's done-ish. I can tell you that sometimes new plays die too early because of poor critical reception. We all know this happens. I hate it. I'm sure many of you do too. I can also tell you that I'm not going to accept that there's an inherent antagonism between critics and theater makers because we're all theater makers. We're all audience builders and art advocates and theater champions. Of course we are. Our relationship is complicated and as much as I have the right to build a play as I see fit, you all have the right and duty to convey your opinion of it and sometimes that opinion is painfully powerful and stunts a new play before it starts. This might have been the case for the very play that you are so generously honoring as a Steinberg nominee in my play IMU. For its first production at the wonderful theater company Marin Theater last year we were reworking up until opening as we often are. We got really close to that artistic intention. But there was of course room for growth as I've mentioned before, there always is. There's always things to learn from that last preview that you wish you could just push, pause, go back and rehearsal for a week, rewrite the whole scene, but alas we open tomorrow. The audience taught us a ton including that this play draws young people. The best compliment the show got as far as I'm concerned was when teenagers who came to see the school matinee with their high schools and teenagers brought their parents to the theater. Our salvation has come and you're safe. Amen. But two major papers reviewed it and thought that it was annoying and boring. Our terrible and brief appraisal of art in the Bay, the hard version of those stars is called The Jumping Man and we can have another whole discussion about the aggravating insufficiency of stars and jumping men and all of those thumbs up and thumbs down that I don't think really helps our endeavor very much. That was the last one. Our version of stars as I mentioned is that jumping man whose excitement and position in his chair tells you how good the play is. He was not a happy little jumping man. The little man was not jumping. He was sitting still. He was not even clapping. That is very bad. Even though we got glowing reviews from so many other playpapers and theater blogs in town, this was still very bad. Ticket sales weren't great because of that because there was an algorithm that for every decrease in position of that straight little jumping man their revenue shrinks by tens of thousands of dollars. The show was not getting an audience even though I got emails saying thank god I didn't listen and brought my granddaughter anyway. So that could have been the end of that play with those prominent reviews it could have suddenly shrunk and sunk to the bottom of everyone's to be pile. So that was the beginning of a part of a national new play network rolling world premiere. So before we opened up our theaters I'm sure you guys are already much aware of this program. We had three more productions lined up before we started rehearsals for the first one. So there was a built-in safety net for me and the interested parties to continue the work on the play in our own way to implement the larger discoveries we saw during that run which were large to let the production teach us we have a new cast, design, director and a whole new city continue the premiere by a new, oldy theater where it's gotten some of the best reviews in my life and became a Susan Smith black renaissance and a nominee for the Oracle State Disward. So what did we make of this? Well, I carefully and with great hesitation wrote a blog post called On Rolling World Premieres and Only Reading Good Reviews which I think is in part why I'm here today. So, yes, I learned a long time ago that when you're going to glance at a review as a playwright of your own work only read the good ones. It's not a denialist. It's certainly not trying to be. It's just trying to be self-protective. So I have my husband scan them and tell me which one seemed fair, which one seemed to have understood what we were going for. I should have put this duty in our vows. It's very important. Now, of course, the good reviews don't need to be raves. That's not what I'm looking for either. It seems to be a believer in the play like I am. A person who thinks it's worth their time like I do. That's the person I can have a conversation with. Because neither plays nor views are actual conversations. They are catalysts of conversations but they are not dialogue unless we make them. We are offering things to each other kind of in the dark throwing halves of conversations over a fence and hoping someone catches it. But that's not actually talking about diversity. So conversational criticism. Let's put that on our bullet points list. Let's invent it. It'll take more time and it'll take some extra bravery on everyone's account, but I think we can do it. I don't even know what it means, but I think we should try. Especially if it means that Peter is presented in an ever fuller and more authentically complex way around discussion of intention and not just judgment. I think that will serve us all. I'm loving the projects by Mark Blankenship at TDF Stages which is his online theatre magazine which includes video profiles of theatres across the country. It's shareable, it's communal, it's brief conversational, celebratory, and it's a platform for the artist to declare that important artistic intent. I really like that. That may be a start. So as I mentioned, I did not read the bad views of IMU. I could tell by their titles and the fact that no one was posting them anywhere on my Facebook. But they were less than supportive. They may have been snarky or kindly and gently dismissive, but either way, I don't know. I only say this that I didn't read it to explain that whatever was in those reviews, whatever bad things they said did not prompt rewrites. It was the natural process of playwriting that prompted those rewrites. They may have said the exact same thing that I actually ended up doing, but that's how theatre actually goes. In production, the organic flow of the play's growth. So two productions. For me, it always does. Literally always. Even when the play gets radius on its first outing, I still go through the same natural process and rewrite before anyone is allowed to touch it again. So does this mean that the play wasn't ready for production in its first outing? Or that plays need ever more development? No. It means that productions are development. I said it before, I will say it again, rolling world to mayors save lives. So this isn't a new idea in American theatre, of course, that plays need to learn and grow through production, not just through reading some workshops. Not all plays needed, but most plays do. Every playwright I ask said that it takes at least two full productions to get it to that done-ish state. Even the ones who already got rewrites, like my mentor Robert Schenkin, who's wonderful play all the way down Broadway right now and got your incredible award last year, while they were rehearsing at the Neil Simon Fensus, August Wilson's amazing play got totally slammed in its initial production and eventually, of course, became a ferment in our American canon. So over and over again this happens. Those are the plays that actually made it out of that process. But how many of them didn't? The playwright wasn't big enough, or didn't have another committed production to continue to make it more perfect. We lost those plays, they're gone. Now I'm not saying be nice to new plays always. Okay, maybe they are. They are hardest at the right and they take a lot of time. And it is always the play itself that usually suffers more at the bad review than anyone else involved. So, okay, wait, no. I don't know how to do your job any more than you don't have to do mine. So that's not what I exactly mean. I don't know what the answer is. I just know that awareness of the new play ecology that we are all in is perfect. And maybe we don't change anything and we keep it simple and we all just do what we're already doing. Maybe we just come and see them. Sure, we can keep it that way, that's fine. Or we might think of what else serves all of us the most. And that is the health and vibrancy of theater as a cultural force in America. Can we iterate on that with respect to playwright criticism relations? Can we invent conversational criticism? Can we say screw the old format, let's find something else, let's let others in, let's admit that there is more to theater than just tell me what you think. What can we do? Producers, playwrights, critics, reviewers, everyone to help American theater beside what we're already doing. I'll tell you what Hertz Theater, bad press and bad plays. Once again, it seems that we are in this ecology together. So why don't I follow the advice of if you believe the good ones you have to believe the bad reviews? Because an opinion is not a universal fact. Because art and reactions to it are fickle. Because my job means that I have to have my aesthetic forefront, or else I can't do it. I do, just like them. Because it doesn't feel good, because it makes me angry, that some potential audiences will be turned away before they get a chance for the play to speak its own language to them. Because we worked usually, as I mentioned, damn hard on it. Because there's a point to that story, because bad reviews don't often help writers write. It's this writer. But we're still friends, right? So why don't bad reviews help me write? The same reason novice theatergoers who are just trying to figure out what theater is might not be helped by bad reviews either. Because we don't know you. Some reviewers, I do know, and I do trust them. They have made connections in my play that I didn't even see, and that is amazing when it happens. But many of you, I just don't have that history. I don't know your point of view. I don't know if you're a formalist, or an advocate of absurdism, PhD, and Cobia and tragedy, political theater I don't know if you'd rather see Beckett or Wasserstein and why, and that means that I have no idea how to place your opinion next to mine in a productive way. So neither do novice theatergoers giving our art form a try, and they're the ones I really care about. They can take your word for it. Sure. You write for fancy papers and blogs. Awesome. But no one just takes someone's word for it these days. Certainly not young people. Who are you, and why do you think the way you do? What are your patterns? Your interests? The last five plays you adore? The last five you did, that's data, that's context, and that's really helpful. So with every review, or at least putting this online, I know space is limited in papers, why not tell us? Remind us who you are. Why you love theater, and I know you do. Why you, what you look for in a play. There's really no such thing as objectiveism. So why not define your subjective for us? From lauded critic Julius Novick to write as yourself to keep the reader aware that it's one individual writing who may or may not be coming from where the reader is coming from, that's honesty. To own up to your subjective, your subjectivity is to give the reader what she needs to truly make up the visitor's mind. So there's always context. For playwrights it is artistic intent. For critics it's your point of view. You'll know this of course, but with all my reading I'm just putting this together now. So why don't we continue to explain to all of us who we are. I'll do it too. I started keeping a tumbler for each new play that I write as I'm writing it. INDUplay.tumbler.com is one example. So it explains why I'm telling the story in this way. What sources and histories I'm tapping into. What is my artistic intent? Who the hell I am and why and how we're going about manifesting that intent. And because I will practice what I am quite literally preaching to you right now after this weekend I'll go home and write a super clear post called Who I Am and Why I'm Writing This. Now, what would that look like for critics? Declaring intent and subjectivity. I'm sure some of you already do this of course. But, here's an example. His abiding interest in theatrical gibbons like themes, story, dramatic construction and character could make him seem old fashioned and set him in direct opposition to the auteur school that was Stanley Kaufman's New York Times obituary. Another one. As a dramatic critic he typically championed the iconic plastic and the cryptic and he constantly dismissed the more naturalistic commercial fare found on Broadway. That's Richard Gilman's New York Times obituary. I don't think we need to wait to obituaries. To declare this very informative taste our trends so that new audiences can learn which critics speak for them. So how do we serve our audiences best? We get personal. We put our tastes and our biases and our hopes for theater upfront for all to see. What is your mission statement? What is your context? Knowing what you usually like helps me decide how to read your review which is nothing but helpful, open and encouraging to an accessible theater. Everything else is getting more and more personalized. Why not theater and its criticism? You can't write a review from everyone's perspective but you can let them personalize based on our honesty. We personalize to the area of biases and tastes. So what if you tell each of your communities why you goddamn love theater? You don't just love it. You gotta damn love it. Why? Why do you want... How do you think when you sit down and see a new play? I actually would love to know that. What's in your mind when the lights go down? What's the play that moved you most through all time? What made you laugh? What stuck in your brain weeks after you saw it and why? Why do you think theater matters to America today? We know it does. Why? Not only that catalyze and interest in theater I think it would reintroduce your perspective to new audiences. Why should new and potential theater goers trust your review? Where does your taste come from? Does it match theirs? I don't know. The new American is tailored to and is used to on-demand entertainment that is curated just for them. Not saying that's a good thing. I'm saying that's what it is. So, how do we make that happen for theater criticism? So the selfish part on behalf of playwrights is the option for theater goers to read a review, not as a fact, but as a personal opinion, which helps if it's a bad one. I don't want someone to be turned away based on someone else's personal taste when that play could have changed them into a life-long theater patron. Again, I didn't like it as different than it's not worth seeing. So how do we encourage theater goers to find their own taste? To find the critics that helped them do that. That's a theater devotee in the making. And again, that's what I care about. Because the real point is not my show, your review the next best thing out of New York. It's not about objectivity and prominence on the critic's voice or whether you read reviews or don't you're a playwright. It's, of course, about theater as a whole. And I think we need more cheerleaders. Who doesn't need more cheerleaders? Loud and proud, an example I like is Howard Sherman who writes about great theater from community all the way up. Or of course, Halloran, hello, Halloran. But is there something that we can get to people who aren't already theater fans? How can we even more omnicomunal? So with every project or play we do we are ambassadors for this art. Of course we are. We are own advocates. And we can all make theater sound awesome even more awesome than we actually feel it is when we're working on a deadline or not getting paid enough or why did we've got major in this trade. How do we make theater matter more and more Americans? I think we both have the keys to that. How do we make sure that theater occurs to them to seek out at all? That's actually a big deal especially in my city in San Francisco. We know theater achieves different storytelling than TV and film. How do we make it happen over and over and over again? We tell them how theater works for and in America. We tell them often. I know many of you already do but in this fast paced retweeting what's next world we need to be pumping at full of further examples of theater kicking ass and changing hearts. Cats get way more attention than theater does online. So much attention. And I think although this is debatable theater does better work for the world than to cats. Again everyone's critic. Todd London's book The Ideal Theaters I mentioned earlier is a real inspiration to be reading all of those charged up women and men who said we can do theater differently. We can do it locally. We can have other options. So I am one of his cohort. Complete with and this is his quote a roaring in patients crashing idealism, compelling fanaticism and over the top belief against all odds and reasons that theater matters and can help us change the world. We can't just be that and know it we have to keep saying it. We have to keep projecting it. A long time editor of the Village Voice, Ross Wexman says, I don't mean the kind of parietal they've all worked so hard encouragement that doesn't do anyone any good, but simply a sense of mutual commitment to enhancing the theater, a sense of alliance however uneasy and a common cause. Far from being incompatible with high standards this attitude provides their very basis. Hell yes to Ross. My stint as an essayist on the Huffington Post insert your laughter here is as a cheerleader for a theater more than a reviewer. The post I wrote called How Theater for Young People Could Save the World is not a complicated article and it's not very long, but it ties together the way young people can practice learning and empathizing and being curious through theater. How theater can do all of that with craft and wit and activism. It's a big high five to theater for young people which I really do believe in and it has encouraged parents to take their kids to play. And not that this is the great moral beacon of our age, but that article has been liked on Facebook 47,000 times as of last week so somebody out there wants to re-cheer our cheer if we give it to them. So I'll take articles, posters, memes, instagram videos of anything that keeps theater in the forefront of the people's minds especially young ones. Want to do something different that might change how you think go see a play. Want to remember what being a moment is like? Go see a play. Want to laugh your ass off and feel super smart? Please go see a play. We need a theater is America campaign. Theater is life changing. Theater is epic. Theater is you. We have to got ill with this thing. Not me. Because this isn't about sneak ads of course. This is about our honesty. What we know theater can be. And theater needs to be re-introduced as a force for human connection, for artistic innovation, for mind-bending ideas, empathy, intellectual revolution, boutique, community building and life affirmation. We have to think global, but you have to see to play local. So now my colleagues need to hold up our end of the promise and create some really amazing theater. But knowing the writers working today that are at Humana this weekend included I can promise you that we will. But y'all are on the front lines of this re-introduction. Your ilk. Your papers, your blogs, your reputations, your outlets can do a lot more than a playhouse or a playwright can for speaking on behalf of theater. So we're all creating the culture that we want. And we're also allowing the culture in that we don't, if we don't do anything. We're creating how theater lives in a modern society. We're offering that tone of theater's success or failure as a medium of meaning. We're doing that together. As David Bohm says, the observer and the observed affect each other. We are all of us affecting who comes to the theater, who discovers it, who comes back, who sees it as a hobby, who sees it as a profession, who comes for the first time, who thinks they aren't allowed in, who doesn't understand what to do, and who doesn't feel they have the context to feel welcome. I want theater to do work in America, not just entertain it. I want it to thrive and provoke and challenge and inspire and bring together and revel and participate in the issues of the time and just reflect on it. And yes, it's about excellence. Of course it is, but we have to move past the idea that that word isn't inherently relative and can be combined to two or three opinions of it. If we don't admit this, we are relegating our collective field to the further echelon of elitist cultural esotericism, which is not the way to welcome in a new and diverse audience. This does not be lowering our standards or a rogue and peasant populism, but excellence cannot be one thing. And as I've mentioned before, we've got to deal with biases. We are all responsible for the vitality and excellences of American theater. We are all responsible for making sure a new audience can find what's going to change them into theatergoers. We are all responsible for making the theater occur to theater. That's never occurred to before. We're responsible for helping people find plays that fit them and not just satisfy us. We're responsible for the fact that female characters are fewer than male characters on most seasons, not to mention female writers and directors. We are all connected to the lack of diversity on stage, behind stage, in the audience and in our cohort of critics. We are all connected to those things that theater needs to be doing better. We're in the arts for God's sake. We're making this up. Because if it's all failure, so if it doesn't. So there is, yes, a simple way to do our work together. And it's the way we've always done it. But as I tell my students and I just mentioned, this is fiction. We're making this crap up. We can make it up differently. So as I said in the beginning, ours is not an antagonistic relationship. Ours is also not an esoteric, private, dramaturgical conversation. We are together and we are in public. And that public co-presence is responsible for public coherence for theater. Thank you for trusting me to talk to you in all honesty and community. And may we all advocate for excellence and open and urgently valuable theater. And may we also ask what we can do that we're not already doing. So I think it's worth closing this speech with the point of our community because we are all in fact writers and thus share the grand presumption that anyone should give a crap about what we think anyway. We are all wanted in that. So thank you again. And I hope we meet as friends theater ecologists and compatriots in the future. And I really sincerely look forward to hearing what you have to say now. And next, thank you. I've been here a few weeks ago in San Francisco at the playhouse. I wondered what your process for script development Thanks, Lauren. Your new playbower premiered a few weeks ago in San Francisco at the playhouse. And I wondered what your script development process was for that play and how did the artistic team in the theater how did they engage with you in that script development process? Yeah, it was really active. That play was a commission and it was a commission to write about a specific person. So it wasn't the kind of what do you have next commission. It was specific. So there was a lot of co-research that went as all of us were trying to figure out how to tell the story. Exactly like I described in here there's a ton of rewriting and as soon as we opened that wonderful first night, which was really great performance we learned a thousand things that I wanted to do to change it. It's always continually growing and luckily we have time before we go to New York to continue adjusting and say that was a great version but I feel like it might be better more subtly and more loudly and more this and that. But in that play specifically Bill was very involved throughout the whole process and it was actually the first time for me to be involved in his process. So he was like, I make a lot of notes on the play you make notes on my directing. I kind of took him up on that which was real. So you were talking about how critics could help write to theater newbies and children perhaps. How did you get involved with theater? I wanted to be an actor as a kid I think a lot of us probably started there. That was the only way I knew into the storytelling world and then I did some professional shows in Atlanta which is where I grew up as a kiddo. I always played the kind of spunky daughter of the main character. That was my stock character for a while which continues to hold to this day very much. And then I realized that people still wrote plays which is something I didn't really consider before. It was a play actors express that was written by Tina Howe. Tina Howe is still alive, very alive. She keeps writing plays, this is a great idea. So I kind of clicked in that and thought I would like to be the person who defines who the hero is and what the point is and what the ending is and that seemed like the playwright's job as opposed to the actor. So I switched to an actor. Besides the yelp style thumbs up thumbs down like to hate it and kind of review, what are some other things that critics write and reviews that you feel are counterproductive to playwrights? Yeah, I mean, again it's the idea of being misunderstood as opposed to being disliked. You can absolutely dislike what I do. You didn't enjoy the play, you didn't think it was funny. But that's different than feeling the most frustrating reviews are the ones where I look at what play did this person see? Because that's definitely not the one that I wrote. It's like if the reviewer thinks it's a love story and I didn't write a love story it's probably going to be a crappy love story. And that's just the way it's going to go. That really doesn't serve either of us. So I'm really interested and this may be a little edgy for y'all but, or for me, I don't know but I'm really interested and I did quite have a way to articulate it in the speech that I just did but how do we without poisoning your what objectivity you come into the theater with and letting the play do the work on its own how do we incorporate the spirit of what the playwright intended? And this is part of why it started doing the tumblers so I can articulate it really clearly here's what we're going for here's the point of this play it is a love story, it isn't it's a combination, it's intending to do this it's supposed to be funny but really dark because that's how I think we can get to the heart of real issues or whatever it is and one of half their say should put the whole thing in context so there was a great article in the American theater reader that came out a couple years ago I can't remember who wrote it but he was about context and how a group of Westchester socialized two groups one was taken to see a Worcester group show without any context and they hated it and wanted to leave and fell totally abandoned by theater and then one with context and compelling how they did this and that and oh I get it, it's about this and that and I think that's actually really part of what I mean that I don't exactly know how to do but I think it makes all the worlds of the difference to be able to say here's how to watch this play not just here's what plays or if you should go but here's how to let it do its work best on you Thank you Lauren for such a thoughtful speech I hope you get a copy of it because it's full of ideas I have two questions for you your Worcester group example I'm notwithstanding what, can you elaborate on why you feel a need to blog your intent when your intent traditionally should be on stage in front of us and my second question is you told us a lot about what you don't want to see in your views it would be really helpful to know what you look for in an interview yeah those are great, thanks the first one is again all about if there's always context in a play and yes the play you can come in and some are really easy to just sit down watch and go but I think some of the more complex stuff why not have an introduction to it you know it's I think that helps the play do more and to new things if we don't have to spend you know the time kind of introducing it I mean yes there's absolutely room and need for that kind of exposition and I use an example of like a Tarella the McCranny play I think it's really interesting to know why he read stage directions that way why the language is so poetic and energetic I want to hear why so that when I go see it I can go oh it is poetic and energetic look at that, that's great as opposed to why are they talking in verbs or whatever playwrights are inventing the ways to do so for IEU it was one of the interesting things that we found initially was a hesitation to a play about teenagers that wasn't a play for teenagers and being able to say the intention is for my intention for that play was we never leave high school really so the cells that we are at age are our nascent cells but are our true cells too and looking at all of humanity through the lens of teenagers lets us go back into that kind of safe room-like space of a teenager's bedroom but really explore all the things that will come from those kids I think that's important to know that we don't want the characters to say on stage, you know what I mean my mom says, I was going to be a teenager like no I want to be able to have that in the air but without having to say it and your next, the other question was what to see in reducer I would love for that to be a part of it to kind of even look at if I and some playwrights don't want to share the artistic intent, they don't want anything to do with what I'm talking about and that's of course completely valid but some of us take a lot of time figuring out not that the other one is down but articulating why why I wrote it, why I wrote it this way and I think sharing that next to a review might be a really interesting way to attempt that conversational criticism the artistic intent here, the review here so they can bounce off of each other it might be an interesting idea what else again, I love like ideas of I hate musicals this isn't me, this is a fictional person I actually like musicals I usually don't like classic musicals that's my bias but in the review I actually really love this production of Carousel you know what I mean? that would actually air the bias and if you hated the production of Carousel the poor writer can be, or not the writer but the actors can go, well he didn't like musicals anyway or if you did like it it's an even better review to go I hate musicals and I love this musical so there's something about the honesty of that that I think will serve again not entirely to protect artists from reviews that's not what I'm intending and it's always going to sound like that since I am one but yeah, I think that's maybe the beginning of that conversation I may have to think some more but we'll continue having it you said that you were commissioned to write a play about a person that makes you kind of a theater critic in a sense because you have to decide what's going to go on stage and let's say the Republican National Committee asked you to write a play about Hillary Clinton what would you do? I would not take that commission or I would actually I would take it and I would write my play about Hillary Clinton and they would probably hate it and celebrate the person I mean you have this question no, it's actually a more complicated question yeah you know that play it's all about finding the humanity that everyone has even in the hardest characters so what was interesting about this character is his name is Rudolf Fowler he's a real person and an artist and part of what's interesting is he's a prickly guy and he was not liked in the New York art world for a long time and that's part of why we don't know his name because he was kind of erased from the history books by powerful people but that's what the play is about so how do I show this prickly guy that I don't want to have a dinner party with but I'm writing about it I have to find this humanity in his heart so it took some interesting research and some real aha moments of saying there you are that's the soft guy that still has some hope I don't know if that exactly answers your question but it's always for me finding that humanity that's the soft person inside the exterior thank you it's very interesting to hear you refer to us as theater and colleges and cheerleaders because I think there's not one person in this room who isn't a cheerleader who doesn't want to maintain theater as it is perhaps to continue some of the vein that it has been to make sure that it exists for all of our future projects it's sort of like our relationship as you mentioned is not antagonistic but we do have the inevitable position of having to come to a feast being prepared by a chef who's constantly changing the recipe and I wonder there's a point at which you have to let it go we have to say this is our baby and here it is where you have to say to yourself this is the finished product even though some people like Tennessee Williams might have rewritten the play he'd written before as the way he would have had can you tell us a little bit about that and how we can help you do a better job in manufacturing this place yeah the chef's metaphor was lovely by the way thank you for that yeah I think part of why part of what I was excited about explaining in this speech and now is that sense of it's because it's always changing because playwrights aren't done when you get that right when even with raves just being aware of the fact that the plays are still in progress and being the only thing I care about in terms of bad reviews is bad reviews are brand new plays because those are the ones that can really be head to play before it has a chance to even grow up and so that's what I really care about there's a lot of plays some even at this weekends like this in the past here at Humana have just gotten slammed and are never seen from again and not only does that take away a play but it just it didn't have to be taken away who knows what they learned from this production so I think having a little bit and again it's hard to not sound like I'm saying use kid gloves and be super nice to new plays but there's something with the awareness of where is this play going next how is it, it has potential what is the potential in it that may be a better version of here's what I didn't like about that new play but the potential I saw in it is this and this even if it may have not delivered in this way or that way I think that allows the writer to escape the guillotine for the moment in the French Revolution references actually dropping so I didn't play about it right now so it's all right here again just that awareness of the process a new play takes and because we all love theater and can't wait for that next new play that's going to be the thing we keep going for years that's part of it being understanding and again that's the hardest thing for players is not having that understanding and yeah I hear you sounds to me like you're making a distinction between a review and a critique I consider a review I saw this play I didn't like end of story as opposed to all this play I didn't like it for this reason this work that didn't work if you look at that piece over there that's the way it was done there it worked better than it worked here and I'm wondering if that's really the distinction you keep referring to review review review are you really saying review versus critique yeah probably you would know better than I but I do know that when people read them they're probably the same thing I figure out which show to go to and especially new audience members are going to say I mean it's like me with ballet you tell me what's good I don't have my own taste yet so I think part of that distinction is moot on a certain theater goer and some who again I think this is where having people find the critics who speak their language I trust your reviews I want to know everything that you like because we seem to like the same things that you like and I'm great okay I can trust you but it's the kind of again I'm just trying to and there's a difference between it is bad yes there are plays that are just bad and the acting is bad and directing is boring yes okay but again I think that's different then I really didn't get it or like it or enjoy it and no one will get this or like this or enjoy it and I think that's what is harmful to new plays to new audiences start losing they start slipping when that happens because we really want plays to do the speaking as wonderful speakers as you all are and cheerleaders for American theater we want to have people go to the theater and want to come back because they know how to find the plays that they like yeah I think I'd like to hear your comment about a problem you've given us on the very things you're talking about your beautiful play I and you has a surprise ending which we don't dare say anything about except it's a surprise ending because no one wants to ruin it thank you for that but just for end of play you put in the playwright's tent on how you feel about it and what has happened which I think is lovelier and more poetic and more informative than we get in the plays like the George Bernard Shaw's Canada is the famous last line that one ever hears because he wrote it and no one says it and in fact I don't know if you're going to be at Giva the Night Theater where it plays next but if you were I was going to ask you if you would treat the opening night audience who stayed to talk to you afterwards by reading them that note before answering questions because I think it would be a special treat the question is how to deal with when the playwright has actually put something in the script that is not in the play that's an amazing question and thank you for your support and for reading that statement which I did spend a lot of time on my intent for that last page of the script is for every audience member to get it as they walk out or there's a secret special link that you can get so that it's not you know you don't spoil the ending but my intent is for that to be shared as much as possible and we haven't found a way to do that quite yet because it's easy to spoil it and that is an important thing to do but you can't put it in the script no, no you can't because people will read it and they'll walk out because they're done with the surprise yeah it's a good question and I didn't know what other way except for during the rehearsals for the first production I kept getting these questions and these actually that's why he says that there and they go oh that's great so I just kind of started making a note of it and again that play plays with naturalism and then it's popped kind of towards the end and I didn't want to mess with that and I didn't want to make it more hyper theatrical before it needed to be and all those choices so the only way I knew was to define it at the end and kind of figure out how do we let people have that I don't know exactly but I know that my intention is to have it be shared in a way that people can benefit from it and I hope that you may want to come see it again after you read it just to see kind of in that icy good people way that you're like oh it matched up, it worked or if there is another way to continue that conversation so you continue to think about the play after it happens I'm interested in the leadership between yourself as an artist and the critics who cover you during the lecture by Frank British he talked about the fact that he didn't know anyone in the theatre world that he only wanted to go to the show see what was on stage form a judgment of that experience he had one exception Steven Sondland which was remarkable I feel very strongly that the artist is the primary source I want the information from the artist so in my case that entails often reading the wrong drafts of plays trying to do rehearsals having dialogues with the playwright, with the actors seeing something in development of course it gets very tough on opening night because how do you recuse yourself from all that information so could you kind of comment on that process we have two points of view that you don't know you don't know the critic the critic doesn't know you and that's the way it should be ethically and then there's another point of view that you know you're the source and that dialogue may or may not be productive I'm super in the second camp I think theatre is an ethically ambiguous side form no, I actually think what you're talking about going to development being in conversation, I think that's incredible and I wish more critics felt comfortable doing that I understand that there's not going to have an objectivity when you sit down but as I mentioned, where is that really you're not objective, of course you're not the theatre, you've seen other plays by this writer you've seen an actor do this and that what you had for brunch that today is affecting the opinion, I'm not exactly meaning that so I think that there's something and I don't know why you have to recuse yourself from it, again I'm not a critic I'm totally obvious, I'm sure right now but I think that being able to say I saw this in development and here's what's changed I know what the conversations were I bet audiences would love that in fact every time a fact that I ever do that's the questions from the audience immediately how did you write it, what were the changes what was the last thing you did that's the stuff they want to know so that may be a place to start another further example I know it's hard, I know it takes a lot more time than a lot of us have than to go and really read all those drafts and do that good work you're doing I'd also like to add that a big question when you start that kind of relationship an ongoing relationship with a particular actor, particular director a particular playwright I think the primary question an issue becomes trust and oftentimes it's very difficult to earn on both sides what is the intention why are we doing this what is the end result I think that's why it doesn't happen very much but that's conversational criticism to me you are actually in dialogue with the entire process and I think sharing it again people want to see that, they want to know every talk back has that same question so that maybe you may be on to something there and that's part of what I'm interested in some of the relationships I have with critics in the Bay Chad Jones is a great blogger for theater dogs and he just gets my work and it's a way that we can really talk about how this play is conversing with this play and it's not to say that he likes everything that I do, it's in different degrees he always gets it so I trust him Lauren, thanks for the great talk you mentioned how easy it is for new plays to have their heads cut off or whatever body part you mentioned and I wonder what responsibility do you think theaters had in this you mentioned the National New Play Network which is trying to avoid the problem of the world premiere and theaters I'm going to a world premiere next week they put so much emphasis on the debut but the idea I think in my head is always been and I think a lot of audience members is that a world premiere is here's the new next big thing and never until the last couple of years thought of it as the first step so I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that part of the theaters yeah that's a great point I actually hadn't thought about that before but of course there's responsibility in this you know here it comes a big thing and of course there's various degrees in which it is ready to be the big thing but I mean I don't know exactly I know they're doing that for marketing reasons and audience development and things that you know we don't consume on time but of course we do so I don't know I mean maybe it's educating an audience to understand what a new play really is and that is what the film do I know incredible boards who are more excited to that it is in progress than that it is done I don't know I think that's a great conversation to have and maybe it's a great article that I hope someone writes about you about that because it's true getting over the world premiere is one of the big things National New Play Network does but Jason Loewith who was the artistic director the only and used to be the artistic director of the National New Play Network has a way of the rolling from years as like here's the play you just hand it off but that you're working on it you're in conversations with those theaters which certainly is the case for IMU we did a lot of work and a lot of great ideas and conversations came out of that that makes the play what it is that's a great question Hi you spoke about helping an audience find the critic that speaks to them and I think that's great there are markets where there are multiple critics part of the problem we're seeing around the country is the shrinking number of markets that allow for reviews up in Indianapolis where IMU is at the at the Phoenix Theater at best you might get a one paragraph plus scars reviewed from the all weekly there's no critic at all at the newspaper of record and I was out of town last week so the chance of getting over as a playwright are there benefits to not being reviewed at all or barely being reviewed and in an ideal world at this stage of the process would you honestly prefer that nobody write about forget the marketing side just as a playwright no at this stage in the process review it I feel great about it now it's really all the hard stuff feel good enjoy it or not I'm done it's great it's that first one and I know that must be so hard to not have anybody speaking on behalf of theater and I think that's its own issue and problem that I don't know how to deal with except for encouraging another generation of reviewers and it's gonna be online it always is that's what's shared on Facebook and Tweeted and those are the reviews that get the most reads because I think people are like read it tell us says we're good as opposed to the bad ones which everyone's like don't post it don't even read it don't I'm a fan of reviews once it's the play that we want it to be and I feel good about it then yeah let's have that conversation so following on his question do you give any more credence to a reviewer a critic who has been writing for a number of years as opposed to a first time blogger or someone who you've never heard of before you've referenced a lot today about reading the good reviews versus the bad reviews and it seems to me that your playwright we aren't to tell you how to write your play so why would you want to get information from us about how to do your job and so if you're looking only for praise then following on his comment maybe we don't serve a purpose other than it is a point of record to talk about the kinds of theater that new playwrights are presenting and telling us what is going on in our society because of what you're writing but I'm wondering do you only want to read anybody or do you want to read people that you think have some knowledge about theater I will read anyone but I usually don't I think the misconception is that I don't actually want to read good reviews either I feel more safe doing that and my agent likes it to pull out quotes and things to help the play's life yeah I mean I it's a complicated thing I think every playwright deals with reviews in a different way my great colleague Steve Yawke is like bring him along I want to read everything and I can't do it so no that's a complicated question of course you serve a purpose of course absolutely and I would never say that the world would be better without this kind of conversation it's just a different thing for the playwright I think to read and the perspective of how I interpret a review has to go through all the many filters including my husband to figure out if that's something I need in my mind because again if I don't know your voice which is part of my main point I would love to have another person who can speak intelligibly about the history of my work and I know where they're coming from it's like in every review whether it's from the artistic director or an audience member there's some truth behind it it doesn't mean that you tell me you should change this line or the title's weird or something like that but it means that there's a point there but it's my job to figure out how to to use it or not or how to go with it but um yeah I don't get it y'all's job is so hard I don't know how to do it so yeah I'm not sure exactly how to answer that completely but that's another question I know, following the lead let me ask you two questions that I made the first is do you suppose that your objective of discovering the reviewer's biases is realized by an audience member after about a dozen reviews anyway I mean is it really necessary for me to write down all the things that I hate when my readers already know it? yeah I think your readers definitely know it but a new person who's just looking at some review they're not going to go read everything you've written and compare it to the play with the knowledge of American theater what the plays were about so I think it's something of declaring it makes it easier for people who have never been to a play or are really excited about it have been to a lot to be able to go yeah we got it would I declare it to the same degree of complexity as those bits where we said would the reader understand those things? I don't know exactly I mean I think and some of us it's always hard to see our own trends so I'm sure that there's reviewers that I've read that I go he hates anything emotional with an emotional ending he always does in every play that has a big squishy ending he thinks it sucks so I know that he may not know it but a lot of the colleagues do so it may be something of however you can self-diagnose looking at self-diagnose sounds like you're all ill but just the idea of looking at what you like and your way to declare it yourself as opposed to having to read all the reviews which a lot of young people are not going to do that alright let me ask you one other question that if you consider the the playwrights have a dialogue is there not a pattern in finding out whether somebody has misunderstood your play or lost your context and being able to assess why that happened it might be that the critics of moron but at least you know that you've lost the moron just great lost the moron it's awesome this is part of where it's complex because it is actually really helpful for somebody to say that's awesome but I didn't get that from what I saw and that's always helpful but it's also I think because I think the role of the critic is to help an audience figure out how to see that show because I can't change the show by the time you review it but we can especially in new plays again this is not all the plays and all the revivals but it's the new brand new baby world premiere plays that may need your help and there's a great help to be able to say when I first saw it I didn't understand this but if you think about it as a metaphor of then you'll probably really have a great time but that's what I missed on the first time like that's super helpful and also does the job of informing the playwright but also informing the audience so that production isn't lost I know where it's super late in the interest of time I need to ask you all to thank Lauren Gunderson I know that some of you still have some additional questions and Lauren will be around for the next few days I urge you to make her acquaintance buy her a meal take her out for a drink whatever and continue the conversation we have to move and we're due to start our panel on social media at 3.30 in one of the rehearsal rooms and I'm going to ask Christy Gopel to help give us directions to that I know she's giving some of you those directions but I don't have it so I need to ask can you act