 Some of you I know very well, some of you I've never met before. I know these are really important and trying times for all of us and I really appreciate you being here today. I kind of dreamed up this crazy idea of getting a bunch of folks together to offer at least some kind of solace in this time. At the same time, offer what what might be very useful to all of you, which is how do I begin to write, especially in a time like this. And then I will say that for me, from my perspective, I've always gotten a particular solace from writing just taking the time to whether it's just 10 minutes or 20 minutes to jot down a few things, you know, on a tabletail napkin or on a piece of paper or just type of my computer, whatever. And in a way it's sort of a bit of a meditation a way to kind of clear my thoughts or set thoughts down that are bothering me. And so I'm glad you're all here today because it's not just, I didn't want to do something that was just me offering some kind of like series of playwriting tips I wanted to bring in. I wanted to bring in people who have their own particular journey and experiences of writing. Some of them are currently working in TV others have worked in TV on stage on film, and I'm really excited by the group of people I was able to And I hope that this is something that might continue beyond like these five weeks so if you haven't signed up for the other other writers. Those are Alvarosa Rios, Christina Quintana, Georgina Escobar, and of course Jose Rivera. You know, and it's just so glad that all of them said yes. I'm hoping that we can do, we can expand a party even further to include actors, dramaturgs, directors, designers. But for today, I just wanted to, I'm really happy that you're here. All right, I hope you're ready to write. But before we do that. I want to talk a little bit about our community. And in particular someone that we lost this weekend someone who was very dear to us her name was Diane Rodriguez. In the attachment I sent. And certainly you can look up many of the various articles about her life. I won't go into too much detail about that. But I'm dedicating this to her as well as our group. Someone that I looked up to someone I knew through at the Atrocampesino all the way up to her participation with the Latinx Theater Commons. And so I'm hoping that the series and our commemoration to her is part of this work. She set the table for us to succeed. Let us be inspired by the gifts that she gave while she walked among us. Let us give back to the world what she gave so many of us, which was a place at the table for us to create our own work, our art. And today I'd like for all of us to raise our pens or the fingers that we'll use to type with and really think of her fondly as we work together. We honor her tenacity, her love for artists, her passion for the work itself, through what we do collectively today. And after we're through, feel free that tonight light a candle raise a glass or just breathe a few breaths in her honor. And let us give thanks to the legacy that was Diane. So thank you for for allowing me to speak on on her in her life. All right. So let me set the table for what's going to happen today. Basically, I'm going to lead you through a couple of what I call writing prompts. And these are designed to get you get the juices flowing in terms of like, setting down what might be like you might be on your mind or might be thinking about in terms of starting a play or just starting a screenplay, whatever you're interested in. These are helpful for me. And then at the end of the at the end of the session. We'll talk a little bit about, you know, what that was like for the process, what the process was like for you. Each writer that you'll see every week will have a very different process. So I hope that that, you know, what I'm offering is is just one particular perspective. It's mainly something that I've shared with young playwrights in terms of just getting started. So let's just go with it. How about that. But for someone to tell a little story about how this will, you know, in terms of thinking about this. I don't know if you remember when you were a little kid and you had to cross the, you had to cross a sidewalk. You had to cross a road or a street by yourself and I don't mean like, like in your neighborhood, I was talking about like the four late intersections where you where you live or you visited that feeling of pushing the crosswalk, walk button remembering that you had to wait for the light to change but to look around to see if all the cars have stopped will the light change that push the button hard enough with my weekly hands. The light finally changes you take shallow breaths as you step onto the asphalt still looking around to make sure your tiny self can still be seen by the drivers. Making sure that some crazy bicyclists or skateboarders that skateboarder doesn't hit you or a wacky dog wasn't going to knock you down. And then when you finally reach the other side that feeling of accomplishment and relief. The series is designed and curated to get us to write to turn over the soil before we plan to ask questions of yourself in order to dream up your own play. This quote Jose Rivera, who I'm sure will be embarrassed by this quote. One of the things he says about writing is to write from your organs right from your eyes, your heart, your liver, your ass right from your brain last of all. So this is all about giving yourself permission to write, because it's such a physical and emotional and spiritual practice. You can delve into style or necessarily structure because I think there are a lot of other writers who can do that better than me so, but I will also be able to answer questions about that if you're if you're so interested. Turn that off. Okay, you guys are ready. You are ready thumbs up. Okay, so each of these will take a few minutes. Let's see here. Can you all see the screen. Make sure you're not seeing it yet. Okay, hold on. Here we go. Share screen. I have to do this every time. Ha ha. Okay. All right, for the first five minutes. This is called what didn't break you made you stronger. Write down a list of moments, accomplishments and milestones that have impacted you the most. Focus on what you've personally experienced from your perspective on right from the birth from your birth to the present. So I'm going to start a timer and we're going to write for five minutes and it's basically you're just making a list it could be a couple of words it can be a sentence. I'm going to write that story I told, I got hit by a car once, because I tried to cross the road without looking both ways. Anyway, I'll tell you about that later. But for now, begin making your list, starting now. Okay, that's been five minutes. You can finish your, your last list item or your last thought. All right. The next thing we're going to do is go ahead and take a look at your first list of moments. And I'd like you to choose your top three. If you had something in mind that you weren't able to include in the first prompt the first list that you made you can add it here. So I'm going to give you three minutes to decide which three. Go ahead. Okay, about 15 seconds before we move on. All right. Okay, you have your top three. We're going to keep going. Choose one of your top three moments and write about it. And I'd like you to include any important details that matter to you. Trust your impulses and keep writing without pausing. So this is an opportunity for you to go into more detail like, you know, what happened that people that were involved places you were things you noticed. Go ahead and get that started. So I'll give you four minutes for this. Go ahead. 30 seconds. Okay, here we go. Hope you're feeling good. Maybe shake that hand out or your fingers. Take a deep breath. All right. This one gets a little trickier from your top moment you've just written about choose a character could be you could be someone else. Someone else part of this moment could be a thing. Maybe you're writing about an ice cream truck. I don't know. But describe them. What makes them them it not necessarily who they are but what they do how they operate in the world. What makes them tick. So this is an opportunity for you to really go into detail like describing someone or something. All right. Let's take another five and go. We're about halfway through our fourth writing exercise if you just joining us we're on also on how around TV. Okay, we're about 30 seconds away. Finish strong just write as much details you can. Okay, this is the last one. This one's a little bit more fun. So you're going to write something called an Abba Cedarian. It's a series of lines that your character the character you just created. That you're going to imagine them saying like, you know, lines of dialogue but each line of dialogue has to start in order of the alphabet. It's very simple, as you can see on the screen, like another day another dollar. Before I met your father I was happy, go to go take a shower. So start your Abba Cedarian. And just if you don't get to see that's okay but let's start writing as much as you can go. You know, it could also just be one word or could be, you know, big, big old paragraph go. Okay, about another minute. So if you're almost there. Going about 10 seconds and pens down. All right. Congratulations, you have just completed 25 minutes of writing. That's what I call a Pomodoro. Let me tell you what a Pomodoro is. And this actually leads to my first tip. A Pomodoro is like, you know, those kitchen timers with the with the tomato, you know that that you have in the kitchen. A Pomodoro is 25 minutes of writing followed by five minutes of five minute break. I actually don't have a Pomodoro. I actually have a timer that's in the shape of a death star, which is really awesome if you ever want one of those. But one of the things that I have found to be really helpful is to have a timer that's not associated with your smartphone. I actually have a stopwatch here. This is like my running watch. I've been able to just go if I if I know that I have half an hour. I can go to my kitchen table or I can go to a cafe, at least, you know, pre pre COVID-19. And I can write for 25 minutes. Or if you're on the bus or in the subway, hopefully. And that counts as one Pomodoro. In a way of keeping track of this. You can keep a journal or market on your calendar that you wrote a Pomodoro or two Pomodoro's you can write one in the morning you can write one in the evening. You are really a time based kind of person you really are someone that really adheres to a schedule or a calendar. This is a super effective way to to begin up writing practice to just free right to start writing script pages to start writing dialogue, whatever it might be based on some of the stuff you just did today. There's an advanced version of this. I've heard of people who blindfold themselves as they're writing so they don't look at their screen or they just turn off the screen. As they're writing, you just turn it all the way down till it's like blank. And then you can, you know, just write for 25 minutes and the whole goal is to just write until the timer goes off. You can fix everything later. There's a little bit about one of my favorite things to talk about which is the magic three, the magic three for me is if you're a beginning writer that I usually try to set a, you know, as a beginner I started with a goal of like writing a page. You know, three days a week. So, for beginners it was like I write like a page on Monday page on Wednesday and page on Friday. And then I slowly work myself up to like two pages a day three times a week. As I started to get more advanced, I started to write three days a week, three pages a day. And I want to kind of illustrate this because I think if you're not into the whole like if you don't like the pressure of time, having like a certain amount of pages to write is really super helpful. And I'll sort of go through the next page because ironic illustrate something that makes sense for those of you who are math nerds. If you write a page a day for three days a week. You know you can pick any day you want. You can write a 10 minute play in three weeks a festival play, six to 10 weeks a full length, 10 to 14 weeks, fully played 15 to 20 weeks. So you could write one of each in a year. As you can, as you go along, you can see that the more pages you write in each of those three days and I'm really only talking about working like, depending on how fast or how slow you write, if you just complete a few pages. It takes you an hour. That's really just three hours of your week in order to to be productive. As you get higher into like three pages, three days a day, you can see that you can actually write four to five fully plays a year. And then, as you get more, the whole thing is really about building a habit and building repetition. Some days, I know that I'll be able to crank out nine pages. Some days, I can barely get through one page. That's totally fine. If it all balances out in some way, whatever level you set and I suggest that you start at the level that's comfortable for you. Then that's great. Even if it's just a paragraph to begin with on your first day. That is perfectly fine. And if this sounds really intimidating all of a sudden I just want to illustrate like when you're writing a play script or when you're writing a screenplay. There's a great deal of white space. The number of pages sounds intimidating but don't worry about it. So here's a lot, you know, oftentimes dialogue is separated by a lot of white space around what you're writing. So here's a, here's a, here's a play inspired by one of our participants Herbert. You know, I heard you were talking about me. I wasn't talking about you. That's not what I heard. Well, you heard wrong, Baboso. And so it allows you to space it out so you could have stage directions and dialogue. Another example, which I, you know, I've included hyperlinks to the scripts of these plays, you know, take the time to, there are a lot of places online where you can read screenplays. So here's a little, a little snippet from Jojo Rabbit, which won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. You can see that a page isn't necessarily stacked like line by line by line. There's a lot of great. There's a lot of room to to include description include dialogue. So, as you learn how to format, and I don't have a fancy writing program like final draft or anything I just use word. That it's something that you can begin to look at. So now before we get into Q&A, I do want to talk about what do I do with all the stuff that I just wrote. So take, I want you to take your lists, the as a Baderian, the character you just created. And I want you to really focus on and I will share this with you. I'll share this PowerPoint with you all in a separate email. I want to answer these questions just in a, you know, in a few lines or a few sentences or a paragraph, ask the question, what does this character want? What is in their way? And what will they have to sacrifice or give up in order to get what they want. And I think if you start to have the have that conversation on the page. You know, you really start to investigate your character, then you'll be able to find out what makes them tick, you'll be able to kind of find out who are the who they are and what what do they want in life. And then, I don't think a play is ever really interesting if they get the thing that they want, but they didn't lose something in order to get it. I think that's something that's often very missing from, from, from plays, but the whole point is to write that first draft. I think getting that first draft done, no matter how messed up it is no matter how many grammar and spelling mistakes you make. The whole point is to get it all on the page and the real gift and the goal that you're giving yourself is that you can go back and you can rewrite and edit. You can't fix, you can't fix a thing that's incomplete, if that makes any sense. I learned that kind of the hard way, just when I was writing my first play, and it was just like, I kept trying to change it as I went along and it just was like, you know, I kept losing at Jenga. So I hope this is super helpful for you all. I just want to conclude by talking about what is a play script and what it, what it serves for you, because I think from my perspective. Writing a play is, is, it operates on three levels. One is that, and this is really important is that it's an object of literary creation. This is something that will last forever. Once you have it, it's yours. It's yours to share with the world. It's yours that there's a bit of a permanence. It's a gift that you're sending to your friends, your inner circle, your colleagues, your family. It's something that you needed to say in this moment. The second thing it is, is that, of course, any script is a blueprint. It's only a blueprint for a performance. It's like architectural drawings. And the whole point of theater and also working in television and film is that the blueprint is really like the beginning of like the collaboration. And what you're providing is like your own series of prompts to share with an array of potential collaborators in order to stage or film a performance. And the last thing that it is, it's that it's a cultural document. I can't tell you how much it meant to me that when I was coming up in theater, I didn't know where to find inspiration until I found this book called Shattering the Myth. And it was a book of Latino, Latina playwrights, that I found finally like where, you know, sort of looking for like place to read and to perform in and to act and to direct. And now, in 2020, we have a plethora of plays to to pull from the library or we can download or order and it's just been like this explosion of work. And to me, it's like these are like what the ancestor, you know, I sort of look at a play by like Miguel Pinheiro or Dolores Prida or Maria Irene Fornes and I go, this is like their legacy. This is their cultural document. It's like take it and use it to inspire you. So I hope that, you know, that you'll take the opportunity to look at some of the links which actually link directly to the plays and you get a chance to read, not only for just how to format a play but also just to be inspired by it. Okay, I'm going to exit out of this PowerPoint. There we go. I think you should be able to see me again. Awesome. Alright, I'm like, I hope this was helpful for you. I, if there's anything you want to talk about at all. I'm here for the next, you know, 15 minutes to talk about anything and everything you want. I hope you'll come back and see you'll you'll check out some of the other offerings that the other writers are coming in with and, you know, all of them will be different, it won't be all writing it could be just a Q&A. So just, you know, let me know. We have one question from the chat maybe want to start there. But the way that we will be taking questions in person is go ahead and raise your hand in zoom you can do that down at the bottom. Hit that participant button, you'll be able to see where you can raise your hand if you have a question go ahead and raise your hand, and I will unmute you and it is time and while all y'all are figuring that out. We're going to start with a question from Armando Latista. How do you build a play from one scene. So you have a scene and to share or talk to you about stories that you would like to share. And then also I can, I can It's not like I can talk. Thank you for this. It's such a gift. So yeah, so I have a scene that I wrote actually from like a pump similar to what you have been offering here, and it came out with the scene and it feels like a juicy scene. And but I'm like, okay, what do I do with the scene now and and it's sort of using other resources like a Shakespearean play. And I'm trying to kind of do a play within the play a bit but I'm sort of stuck on. Okay, there's this thing kind of like what you're talking about what does the character want. There's a sacrifice that they have to make and they're sort of dealing with this other character and they're sort of stuck there. But I don't know how to expand. I don't know where that scene lives beginning middle and some sort of like, it wants to grow, but I don't know how to give it the water needs. Yeah, it's just something that is something that you're interested in expanding into a full length, like a 10 minute, 10 minute play, at least characters that you love and definitely want to continue their journey. Yeah, I mean, so far, you know, so far they're they're they're sexy to me I still got to we still got to date a little more we still got to get to know each other. But it seems like it wants to be something more full length. I mean, I think I'm revolving around themes of what is it to be a Latin X, like Afro Latino artists a performer, a performer like an actor. You know, I came from that world. And what is it to deal with that and how we still deal with like the discrimination, the micro aggression, things like that but then what is it to deal with like old works like a, you know, Shakespeare, which, you know, is respected and lauded and I do to an extent but it's ambivalent for me because he also wrote racist stuff. He also messagenistic work. And how do you sort of tackle some of that work as you're trying to like, make your way through this characters trying to make his way through, make his break, right, but then has to deal with this work as well and sort of like, is it growing by doing this work or is it just sort of like being a menstrual show like a modern menstrual show. So there's some of the things I'm revolving with with with this. So to answer your question, I like them. And I'm sort of like attracted to them. And I just don't know what. Yeah, I don't I don't know yet from that point. You know, a couple of things that I like to, I like to do is to use sometimes I'll take a character that I, you know, I've been, you know, I've been writing and and I'll give them, I'll just give them sort of like an inner monologue like just having a conversation with themselves, like am I doing the right thing. And, you know, what does this mean to me or, you know, in the strongest terms possible. And if it's not an inner monologue. You can take, you know, but sometimes you can take inspiration from Shakespeare, you can write a soliloquy where you're actually having a dialogue with the audience so it's sort of like, Hey man, I have a question for you all. You know, I've been thinking about this but I'm not sure if this is like the right thing I'm doing, you know, so another way is to just actually open it up to like, you know, having a conversation to who you see your potential audience member being. The third thing is that, you know, nobody's perfect. And I certainly know that that that that it. But for me, I don't think any characters that all that interesting if there isn't something that is like annoying about them. You know, I know that there are a lot of writers out there that that, you know, write a little bit of themselves in their plays. I don't think I could stand to write like a character that was like me on the page. So, you know, it's just, you know, I have, but I think about that in terms of like, Okay, what what is something that is that that, you know, that that gets under people's skin. You know, when when with whatever they're doing or whatever they're saying, what is it that, you know, because not everybody's going to like like everything that that this person is saying or doing. So I think setting up setting up sending yourself up to begin either an exercise where you're writing about their inner thoughts, or they're having a conversation with the audience, or they're just in another like seeing in themselves with another person or that same person. But something has changed. It's super useful to just keep writing, you know ways is like put them in different situations, put them in different like, I don't know, there's that you want to try to build stakes, wherever them, you know, might be where they have to make a decision. I don't know if that's helpful but you know, and I want to give folks the opportunity to, to ask questions but I, you know, anything you want to ask me you can also just reach out to me via my website and I'm happy to talk to you about, you know, other ideas. That's just, thank you. Next we have. Yeah. Can you hear me. Yes. Hi, how are you doing. Hi, I see you. Um, what's up. I'm good, I'm good. Say hi to Megan and so true me. My question is, most of the plays I've written have been anywhere between three to six characters. And now most of my ideas are now anywhere between 10 to 15 characters. And I'm kind of struggling with how to write that big scope play with that many people and that many stories, or that many intersecting things so I'm curious as to how, and you've done this this before so I'm curious as to how you approached big plays, big cast plays. Yeah. You know, because we really don't know like what the circumstances will be after, you know, we find a vaccine or, you know, at least some kind of clarity after this pandemic is over. You know, one of the, one of the questions that we're asking ourselves is like, oh, like what are going to be the resources available to have in terms of having like a large cast. I, in a way, I've sort of had the opposite problem, which is, I started like huge. And then I've kind of like started to trim down the thing, you know, like, eliminate characters. I, I find what's really great about, at least from my perspective, having done a lot of Shakespeare, I mean, sort of like taking inspiration and cues from Shakespeare but also at the same time. From the other compass, you know, it's like, you had actors who could play multiple roles at any given time now if you have like 15 characters all on stage at the same time that's a whole different thing. Finding opportunities where you can double or you can, you know, at least give yourself a fighting chance to, to break down your cast, your, your character list in such a way where doubling and tripling is possible. I always say that when, when you're first writing, write the big epic play, write as many characters as you need to, and then, you know, go back and really do a breakdown. Just, you know, whether it's like cue cards or through even Excel and just go, okay, this is what it looks like right now or have someone that I don't know if you have an assistant or maybe one day you will have an assistant. Where you can have them look at it and go, okay, if you know you can look at some of the disparities of like, okay, we can't have this actor be in this scene because of this or whatever. Yeah, just do the thing. And sometimes you can solve itself in that way. Sometimes it's just a rearrangement of scenes that that kind of solved that problem. But I think primarily it's like to really think about like, you might want to just keep in mind that it may be super difficult to have anything more than 10 characters these days, except if you're going to do a zoom reading, which we can do like any time. But at least having the reading and doing that can actually help solve those problems too. Yeah, because like most it's not that like, it's not really about the actors is just about like the writing part of it is like I have a 15 character play that can be eight actors, but it's more of like, how do I actually write a 15 character play. Like, I've never done that before. So I'm like, I have no concept of how to write it itself. And like, keep everyone like, and keep all the story points intact. So that's the thing I'm kind of struggling with. Yeah, so you have an idea for like 16 characters. Yeah. Okay, that that's, that's for me. So this is not about this is I'm not talking about structure but I'm going to talk about structure now, because, because of you. No, it's okay. I like to like to, I like to storyboard actually so I actually take a bunch of like index cards and I outline, or I put up like, these are my characters and I need the 16. I start to structure the scenes that they're in, in such a way, I think having a structure before you start writing, in terms of like where those characters are it's going to be super helpful. I think that's the best way to do that. I did that with an adaptation of a book that I that I'm working on now called the Revolution of Evelyn Serrano. And there's, there's like over 25 characters. But it the way that it happened sequentially was super important to outline before I even started writing it down. So I think struck like creating like an outline through index cards through characters is going to be the most helpful thing. Yeah. You're welcome. Who else I see her. We have another next question is from Julia so that you are unneeded. Hi, I'd like. Oh my gosh, hi. Okay, so my question is because I mainly have been writing a lot in Spanish. My question has been a lot. I've been adding a lot of regional slang and regional things from from the border or from like specific very specific location wise. And I'm wondering how does that translate when the place getting a little bit more tight, or when you're working with actors that are not from same community or your workshopping, the, the fact that I'm adding too much slang maybe. Oh, I don't know if there's ever such a thing as too much slang. I mean, you want to be as true and authentic to, to the language as possible. Yeah, I see what you mean, are you talking maybe specifically about where you are now and, and like, not having like the right. Like Puerto Rican's play Mexicans. Yes, and especially because I'm writing a lot from like, from my background in Ciudad Juarez. So there's very like, that's that border, border language, that pocho, pocho talk that sometimes it may not translate well when you're working with different communities. And then, and then, I don't know, that's, that's my question, I think, I think it's a figurating out as you go but also how to stay true to what, what do you want the characters to talk about talking about that cultural. You put it really well in words cultural documentation of, of the region that you're from or that you're writing from. Yeah, this is really a, like a super important issue. And I, and I, and I really, I mean, you know, like we're watching like Netflix or, you know, like we're watching a show and, and, and, you know, when somebody you like it's sort of like, you know, like when they got the dialogue wrong or they're, they're saying something weird and Spanglish and it's just like, oh my God, where was the dialogue coach or, you know, who wrote this. That being said, I really strive on the, on the side of like, stay true to your vision and authenticity in the writing. And, and if you want that, then you have to take the steps and I know that sounds like a lot of work on your part. But you have to take the steps in order to make sure that that whenever you're having a reading or a workshop or even a production that that you're very clear about what the dialect is and how it sounds and providing those resources are having a dramatic, provide those resources for that production. I remember doing El Paso Blue many years ago in Philadelphia and I had a Puerto Rican cast. And I literally just had to like sit down and say like, this is how you say it. This is how this is the inflection. This is the, you know, this is what that means. It's not a lot of work. But if you can take as, if you're just trying to figure out what the dialect is in the, in the, if you're just trying to find out like, this the sound right. Trying to get, you know, and this is a great time to just get a bunch of people on zoom and just have them read your script out loud to you and just hear it out loud and see, you know, see what it, you know, see how it sounds in your ear. In terms of like, is there too much slang. I like to quote Juno Diaz when he says, you know, there's a, you know, people freak out if there's a span, you know, some Spanglish in my play and, and, you know, you know, everybody, you know, people can don't care if there's like, elvish in Lord of the Rings, like nobody's complaining about the elvish in that movie. You know, I want you to just think about just that to hell with like the voices or the insecurity of like if it's too much. Just write the thing that that matters to you, right in the most authentic voice possible, if it matters to them in terms of like what they're saying then write it because if it if they need to say it in that dialect in that language, for God's sake, put have them say it in that language. If they can't say it in any other way, then, you know, put it down on the page, the rest will take care of itself. And, you know, hopefully you'll find like really good collaborators, you have a whole bunch of people on the screen here who are listening to you, and they're all nodding, and they're all raising their fists and they're going like, yeah, girl, just write, like, just do it. So, I encourage you to to follow your heart in that. Thank you. You're welcome. Time check is one oh two, we can absolutely go over a little bit if you want to take a couple more questions. Yeah. So, wrap this up. Yeah. Yeah, if you if you can't hang that's okay but we'll you know we'll go a little bit further. That's fine. Absolutely. The next question is from Andrew Valdez you are unmuted and if you'd like to turn your video on we would love to hear. To bear to bear with the hat. Hello. There you are. There you are. So, my question is, I've been reading Edward Albee's seascape, and I'm really interested in writing from the perspective of like hyper magical realism, but I haven't found anything that has been written by like a Latinx artist that goes into like hyper magical realism. And I'd like to know if you know if there are any like sources that I should look into or writers that I can find for some of that inspiration, because I know there's a lot of magical realism. I'm looking more so like real like, I don't know, this couple fight amongst each other, and then all of a sudden a lizard men come in and teach them more about their relationship. Yeah, tell me why what what is what what fascinates you about like magical realism and and and what do you what is it that that that intrigues you about writing in that particular style. I'm just curious. I just am fascinated with telling stories through like alternate realities and alternate characters. Things that you that leave a lot to be desired would have like a lot of undertone underneath them. Like, I'm a huge fan of like sci fi and a huge fan of like the dragons and the mythical stories and like stories from way back when how they're applicable to today, but they use this fantasy element that kind of gives us just enough space between us and what has happened before. Yeah, you know, I think a little bit about, you know, well, clearly, you know, I'm a big fan of Yermo del Toro and and some of his early work and really kind of does that. I wouldn't necessarily call it magical realism but there's a there's definitely like different spiritual planes that take place in his work. There's this isn't necessarily Latin X where there's like a, I think it's on Amazon Prime it's called undone and it's like it's a it's it's rotoscoped animation and it's, you know, the lead is a is a Latina actress. I can't remember her name off the top of my head but she was she was in a lead a battle angel like you can. I don't know if that name rings bell but yeah, regardless of that. That particular that particular series was all about like a mixed Latin X and Anglo family and an accident in which she she has an accident in which afterwards she's able to communicate. You know, on a different spiritual plane with her, her deceased father. And, you know, there's all kinds of mystery involving that that might be like a really interesting thing to look at. The thing I do want to say about magical realism is that in a way it's not really magical at all to me. The, the idea, as it came from literary fiction is the idea that that the, that the, that the mundane was magical and that the magical was mundane. But you know, like in a way it's like, for me it's like, oh yeah there's a fairy like hanging out on the tree. And you know it's it's for you're creating a world world of speculative fiction where you're just you're you're kind of embodying that this this world is a little bit different and a little bit off in a way that is normal. Yes, to the world, the characters that you're creating so that you're not kind of imposing anything that's like, it's got to be, you know, this or whatever. Yeah, there's no reason to explain why the fairies are fairies. Yeah, right. Explain is like what their problem is, or like how they are living in this world now. Yeah, I really think you should be reading Jose Rivera's plays. And I, you know, like clap tectonics or the promise or, or even Marisol, which is like, yeah, I was just in Marisol. And you know what I'm talking about so it's like, it's that idea that this world is just a little bit different, a little bit skewed. It's almost like you're writing 2050, you're writing about like the year 2050 and what what is that going to be like. Yeah, and I'm more concerned about like, it may be the way you were saying it may be the year 2050. But all of that is like the backdrop to what the story is right now. It's like an asset, more so than like the central focus of the story. Yeah. Interesting. I don't, you know, I don't know it's just, it's, I'm intrigued by what you're, what you're, what you're attempting to do. And then maybe take a look at those things and be inspired by that. I also included a link in the thing that I sent out called lessons from the screenplay, which is love that YouTube channel. And in some of those, some of those YouTube like excerpts really tell you like how filmmakers really kind of explore that in terms of like how they structure the play and what what it takes to really guide the audience to like that kind of world versus something that's like more realistic. Yeah. And I think some of those might be really instructive. Thank you so much. You're welcome. All right, thank you. I have a few more. So I've got Larissa, you are unmuted. Hi. Hi. So my question is, I am an actor and I'm starting to, well, I'm trying to write and something that I've always struggled with is that I plan too much. So I don't know at what point, if it's procrastination, I don't know at what point it turns into procrastination for writing, or when the planning is actually helpful to the planning because most of the workshops that I've taken on writing, just say to write and just write, just write, just write and I do that. And yet I feel like I lack structure but then I start thinking about the structure and it's too much structure and then I get stuck. So is there a sweet spot in there. Yeah, you're in the feedback loop. That is really, that is fascinating. You know, I'll go back to, well, I haven't really talked about it, but I've experienced both of what you're, you're going through now, which is, I have written something that had absolutely no structure. I just kept writing until it finished and I had no idea how it was going to end. I've also been in this situation where I've like planned the whole thing and I've, you know, written the thing and it's not exactly what, you know, what I wanted. It's always tricky to find the balance. I think what always helps me and maybe helpful for you is that I try to give myself like, like I try to give myself like a beginning, a middle and an end. And, and what's key about that is that you have to commit to the end. I think the hardest thing for all writers to do is to commit to the ending that you've like decided on. This is going to end with the, I don't know. This is going to end with the couple eloping in the back of a bus. But, but, but they're not sure, you know, what the future holds. And I'm describing the end of the graduate, which is like one of the best endings ever. But because that the ending feels, you know, usually the end of a play is like the beginning of another thing. And it's found when I've written a draft of something that I find like the first half of my play is actually just me trying to like, Oh, that that the first half of this play is just all exhibition. Yeah, one of the things that someone told me was like, and I think this was Steven Deets was a playwright and I took a workshop with him and he said, Alright, write your first draft or write the thing that you need to write. Cut it in half and start in the middle. The whole idea I know that sounds like insane. The idea was, or at least that the lesson he was trying to impart was that everything usually starts in the middle of something. Oh, right. And the middle is actually the thing that you want to get to like all that other stuff, like you were just trying to figure out like who these people are what kind of like what information we needed to know about them. But like sometimes writing the thing and then like shopping it off. What we're doing with our like Corona haircuts. It's just like, just, it's just like, just cut it. And, you know, like start again, you still have it doesn't mean like throw it away. You just start a new document and you just start from there and see what happens. So I hope that's helpful having an ending, and then like throwing away like the beginning of where it feels like, Oh, I'm just talking about like who they are and what they're doing. Yeah, you don't need that. Everybody just wants to get to the heart of like, what's happening right it's like the beginning of train spotting where it's just like Iggy Pop. And they're like running it's like, okay, they're running but where are they going. Clearly it's like, you know, the play the movie itself goes back to what they're running from eventually. At that moment you're just like where the hell are they going. Um, so it's just a great, you know, it's a great way to start a movie or start to play it's just like your middle of an argument and it's like what like we're, you know, what's going on. Yeah, hope that's helpful. And just really quick to kind of on the ending part of the question. I know what the ending what I want the ending to have thematically or kind of like the idea but I don't know how to create an event from that idea how to distill an actual event from the theme or the. Yeah, the idea of what I want to reach if that makes sense. Can I ask you a follow up question to that. Yeah, it's just like, what, what's the feeling you want the audience to have at the end. Like what do you want them to, to like, do you want it to be hopeful, do you want it to be like, do you want it to be, do you want like a single tier from every audience member when the lights. Yes, yes, yes, yes, more on the hopeful side of the one tier but yes. Yeah, but you know that's um, whatever I think it's really important to really visualize what that mood is rather than theme like what the mood is and try to as best as you can encapsulate that on the page. I didn't include this in the in the in the PDF but it was like I just watched like this little short Pixar movie called bow. You know the mom with the dumpling. Yeah, and, and I was like, damn it they made me cry again in seven minutes. How did they do that, but they're like super good at like encapsulating a feeling that they want the audience to feel at the end of that, which was incredible like poignant sadness but at least like, like there's hope right to it's like the families reunited again in some way. I hope I'm not spoiling them, but if you get to see like bow it's really good. It's probably online you can probably see it but anyway, go for the go for what you want the audience to feel and then try to encapsulate that. Thank you so much. One more. Yes, so you are unmuted. Hi. Hey, I'm happy to be here. I, my question was a little more about collaborating than about the actual writing process. Great. Hold on one second. Oh, you're muted. There's another room. There's all kinds of excitement happening. Look out folks. So this is going to be our last question we are about to wrap up we will be back next week with another playwright. I believe you have everybody's contact information. So if there are any further questions conversations. Any, any more questions that people have. Is it all right if people reach out to you. Absolutely. And just to give you just to give you a little bit of a preview. So, is going to talk. He, he is just a brilliant playwright who's worked mostly primarily through theater for young audiences and adaptation but I think he's focusing on adaptation. So if there's a particular story or work that you're like dying to like translate for the page. I've done this before I've learned how to like reach out to authors to get permission and underlying rights and I can talk a little bit about that. But if you really want to like also get that extra like tool set of tools to like how do I adapt. Like an existing story, then I would definitely sign up for a lot of things. Yes, I'm ready. Sorry about that. I wanted to know I guess sort of I'm in a place right now where I'm not sure how to pick the people that I collaborate with. How do you build a team, especially like, I guess, to me it seems like every team has to be kind of specific to the project. It's the best team for a project, whether you're self producing or whether it's just like a table read or whether it's like creating a playwright group of friends that give each other feedback like how, what's the best way to sort of like start finding your people and knowing when they are your people and knowing when they're not. That's a super good question. And, in a way, cultivating that is a really important skill as a as a theater maker and as an artist. You know, sometimes it takes a it takes a lot of it takes it just takes a lot of like experiences to in order for for you to feel comfortable with particular people or or particular companies, whatever that may be. Because part of what you're looking for is, is this is the is the vision I'm trying to create for either a script or a collaboration going to be supported in a very particular way. The only way to really do that to find the right collaborators to be very specific about what you want in a collaboration and in the vision you're trying to tell. So a lot of it is on you to be as as clear and concise as possible. I would I would I would ask my directing students or even directing students to, to tell me exactly what the story was, and what they hoped they would essentially what what they, I hope that the message, you know what the message was exactly that they wanted to convey to an audience. And, and you almost have to find, you know, the one of the great things about directing and playwriting is that it is that you really want to come to the table with the very strong idea where as many strong ideas as you can. So that you're not putting upon your potential collaborators like an expectation of like, Oh, well what do you think because it's their job as collaborators to support your vision. You find collaborators that also have like exciting ideas that they can bring to the table. That's really great for any and all collaboration. For me, it's, I also try to go like a basic baseline for a finite collaborator is like kindness. Life is too short to find to work with with jerks in and if someone is not being supportive or isn't offering constructive criticism that's that's in a way is helpful to you. Then then then then you just, you know, you know, it's okay for you to say, you know, you rather move on with someone else. I firmly believe that you'll find the right people and some certain projects may not be right for certain people but look to your particular circle that you have now whether it's like your your your fiercest fans, the ones who will like do anything for you. And then the ones like beyond that circle is like, Oh, these are people are really interested in working with because I like their work or what their style is. Maybe I can talk to them about my piece and see what kind of conversation I can have about working with them so it's a little tricky. But it takes a little bit of time and keeping that that sort of Rolodex in your head about like, you know, who you really enjoy being in the room with, you got to like them. Basically, you just have to like them. Okay, there's a thumbs up from someone that's awesome. Thank you so much that was super helpful. I appreciate it. Oh, you're welcome. All right. That was that was like an hour and 20 minutes that was awesome. Thank you all for joining us. I hope you'll be joining us for the other for the other upcoming sessions. All right, thank you all so much. Thank you. Gracias everyone. This was really awesome. It was so lovely to meet you and feel free to reach out. If you if you'd like via my website or my email that I sent out.