 Okay, all right. It's five o'clock. There's a rainbow across my screen, this going this way. I'm SLP, this is Watch Me Work, where we get together on as often as we can, which means most Mondays, and we work together, even though we're working separately on different things. I believe in a deep togetherness of this community and we work together and we encourage each other, even sometimes it's not vocal. And we work together and then we talk about your work and your creative process. And I just, I love this community. And yeah, so if you guys have a question, I'm looking at this rainbow going, whoo! If you guys have a question about your work and your creative process, New Work Development folks are gonna tell you how to get in touch. Oh, but first we have to thank the New Work Development Department at the Public Theater, and we have to think how around all these years of supporting and encouraging this mission, this program, this community, we are so grateful. And so, okay, so tell us how to get in touch if we have a question, please. Yeah, when the 20 minutes of working session is over, please go ahead and use your raise the hand function under your reactions button, and it will get a nice queue of questions going and then we will call in you and ask you to please unmute. Awesome, beautiful, I'm chewing ice. And let's get started, all right. That was 20 minutes. That was 20 minutes, I'm gonna fix this lighting here. Look at this, exciting, the lighting is exciting. We're ready to take questions about your work and your creative process and happy like daylight savings time, everybody. Yeah, so Crystal, would you like to start us off on meeting yourself? Hey, how are you doing, darling? I'm hanging in there, I'm doing good, no complaints. Are you back home? Yes, yes, I'm back home. Back to the grind, making dinner and everything. Yeah, I'm gonna come visit you, dinner. Oh, yeah, we're making enchiladas today. Did you go down to North Carolina for research? No, I went to visit friends and family, it just happened to work out that I was there and one of my friends said that she's gonna introduce me to a couple of natives and hopefully that'll help with the next draft. Cool. Yeah, so I finished the first draft. Congratulations. Thank you. The second, it's a little shorter than I wanted it to be. It's very charged, but I realized the whole play is charged. So I started writing, well, not started, I almost finished the second draft of the second act. Wow. And thank you. I, but as I was writing that, I realized that it's a lot more team. And so they're kind of two extremes and I was kind of wondering, if I am, which we've talked about this a long time ago, but like if I am allowing the circumstances and the story to unfold within itself or if I am trying to drive, because now I have like these two very different acts, the second acts and I'm not happy with both, but I don't know what the right answer is. I did the list, you told me write a list one time for another play, write 10 stupid things. And I did like 15 and I was like, wow, these are all pretty dumb, but I was able to find something that I could kind of play with. And so now it's just, while I definitely still have like research things to work on, I'm still trying to write the humanity of and the story, the elements of the story. So I guess my question comes back to, now there are kind of like choices, but not really choices I'm very thrilled about. Am I on my way to writing a third second act or just do I need to, I don't know if I need to stop and listen? This process was so much easier when I just didn't think about so many things. But now it's become more complicated and I feel also that it's gotten so heavy and so dark that I'm still trying to find the hope. And I think in trying to find the hope, I'm trying to force a happy ending, but it's not going to let me do that. I'm having trouble finding the light in the story because instead of two protagonists, I wanted the protagonist to be the friendship and can it survive in these times? And it's showing that it's just not, it's not. Is that, can you live with that that if the friendship doesn't survive? I think my problem is that I'm a romantic. I want things to work out all the time. I want good things to happen. I want things to work out, but I know like in life that's not always the case. Right, I know. I'm a romantic too, and so I cry a lot, you know? Yeah, I mean, sometimes things don't work out. And I think sometimes when we're, sometimes what we do is writers, if we show it how it is, instead of how we're forcing it to be because we just don't want to deal with something that I'm not saying this is you, Crystal, but we just don't want to deal with the bad thing, you know? And we want to show a happy thing because happy things, I don't know, sell, you know? I mean, this is not what you're saying, but I'm saying in the marketplace that upbeat, happy cells and we're encouraged to write upbeat stories, but people need to know that you can go on after something devastating happens too. I mean, what is tragedy for, you know? I mean, back in the olden days, in the olden days, you know? Mm-hmm. You know, they had plays, you know, like, I don't know, like King Lear, you know? You know, King Lear, poor guy, you know? Or Hamlet or the Scottish husband and wife team, you know? But King Lear is a wonderful example because he thought, you know, this is how to do it. I'm gonna divide in my kingdom and then I, you know? And sometimes those plays, we need to as a culture, I think, learn how to talk about the difficult things, learn how to endure the difficult things. You know, we, in this culture, especially in American culture, we're taught that winning is everything. And if you don't win, you're a loser. And if you're a loser, yeah! You know, I mean, sometimes there is loss and sometimes there's hardship and sometimes there's heartbreak and we need to know that we can keep going. You know? We don't have to have it all be a Hollywood happy ending. Yay, you know? I think that creates a certain expectation for ourselves, for, I mean, speaking for our kids, you know? The wonderful, there's a wonderful, either she's a psychiatrist or a psychologist. I'm not sure, she's a professional, a mental health specialist named Dr. Ruth. Have you, anybody ever heard of this woman named Dr. Ruth? Yeah, she's amazing. She's in her 90s, I believe. And she said, when she said, you know, people, especially Americans, they have to really understand what it means to lose things. We just wanna pretend it doesn't happen. We button, you know? Which creates things like a great dissonance, like just after, like the Vietnam War, people hated on the service people who came back after that war, hated them. Men and women who had been drafted, you know? They didn't go because they wanted to go, you know? They went because they're, for anyway, there was such hatred on them, spewed on them by a lot of peace and love activists. Anyway, so blah, blah, blah. I'm just talking blah, blah, blah, but there might be heartbreak in your play, Crystal. I'm not saying force it toward heartbreak. I'm also not saying, you know, don't force it toward heartbreak. Don't force toward a happy ending. Just let it be what it is, you know? Like you have kids, you know? You can't force them to be, you just gotta see what they are and kind of love them for what they are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I get it. It's okay to like have sadness at the end of a play. I mean, is that, you know? I'm a romantic too, just because you're a romantic doesn't mean, you know, I mean. So just, I'll just cry it out. Yeah, sometimes you gotta cry. We need to be okay, you know, hey. Sometimes it's sad and we cry and we comfort each other in our tears. You know? Yeah. You know, sometimes it's sad. Sometimes things are sad and difficult and we shouldn't be afraid of the, you know, like Pima Trojan has this great book, The Places That Scare You, you know? Again, someone who says, you know, we have to face those difficult things. Yeah. Got it. Thank you. Thanks. Congratulations on finishing your draft. Thank you. Press, press, all. Thank you. Rocky, if you could please unmute. Hi Rocky, how you doing, bro? Hey, good. How are you? Good. Okay, so this week I'm writing and I'm seeking your advice basically on keeping momentum going through like that middle act one, early act two sort of era. And so this is my concept. It's like an, or it's like an updated exploration of no exit except you'll kind of see what happens. So this is like, I'll just give you like a little paragraph overview. Really? Rocky, let me tell you before you tell, we say it. Water boils best when the lid is kept on. I'm really serious. So I'm just telling you that and now you can do what you want, but I'm just saying it's actually easier to write if we talk about your process and not your play. Trust me on that one. I just want to, you talk to me about you're having, if it were a piece of fabric on a clothesline, right? Sounds like it's having some tricky, it's like you're having difficulty getting through. Is that correct? Yeah. It's like basically I have these four strangers meeting. Okay. On Zoom. Okay. And something big happens, like after the midpoint, that changes everyone's life. Okay. But before the midpoint, I'm trying to get them to, it's like in the middle of the pandemic. So they're all just like getting to know each other. They're going deeper with each other. And like, I'm like trying, I want to seek your advice on like how to like get people to connect and go deeper with each other without it seeming like I'm trying to like do that. And also just like keeping momentum going. Cool, cool, cool. Okay. So we're going to, we can talk about geometry. Has anybody taken a geometry class? Yes. Good. Okay. In geometry, there's a, there's I think it's about the truth or whatever. It's a reality of geometry truth that says two points make a line. Has anybody ever heard that? Two points make a line. So if you have a point here and you have a point here, you can, those, the existence of those two points will make a line. Right? Okay. What does this have to do with writing? Who knows? I'm just making this shit up. But hey, it's true. The point where your character starts and the point where your character, you want your character to end up, that knowing those two points, right? Creates lines of dialogue. Two points make a line. So when you're wondering, what is my character going to say right here? Right? Reignite, remember where they want to go. Right? So you're saying, tell yourself again and again, what do they want? Right? Okay. Like to, you know, Hamlet. Hamlet wants to, well, he just wants to come home. Then he wants to find out who killed my dad. Then he wants to avenge his father's death. He wants, he wants, he wants. That drives pretty much everything that we see him do and say. He's reaching, I wanna know, I wanna know, I wanna know. I wanna do something about it. I wanna do something about it, right? I'm simplifying that play, but just as a way to, do you see what I'm saying? So get really clear. And what happens is when our characters stall out a lot of times, we're not, we haven't thoroughly excavated what it is that they want. Okay? When the lines of dialogue dry up, we haven't articulated that point. Where are they going? Where are they heading? Okay? Maybe if you don't, if you're not sure where they're heading, you can make up where they end up at the end of the play. And if you're not sure about what they want, you can make up stuff. You know, maybe, you know, one of them wants to meet offline. One of them wants to read all the books on the other one's bookshelf. You know, I don't know, you know, but you see, does that help? Is that helpful? Yeah, a lot. Yeah, thank you. And just get them to talk to you, the writer about what they want. This is what they want. This is what they want. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you, Rocky. Does anyone else have a question? Yes. Laurie? Yes, Laurie, please unmute yourself. Thank you. Hi, SLP. Hi, everybody. Hi, Laurie. Hi there. Good to see you. My question and process is, I've been working on the full-length play called Sex Workers Revenge. It's based on the true story about the serial killer. I took your advice there. All these sex workers are now in there as ghosts. They're doing outrageous things. And I finished writing the first act. My question on my process of the second act, and this is something I've really been having trouble with, is there's scenes where this, some things that happened to them was pretty violent. It was all very violent. And I want to be, I think some of the reason people don't understand how horrific these things are is because we don't see it anymore. A lot of times in the media, we just don't see if children get killed and all that stuff. But these women died of horrible death and I feel like we need at least some essence of that. My question is, if I put some of that in as we move into act two, because now they're going to start to terrorize him while he's in jail, and people see that. Yeah, we're having some fun with poker games and tea parties and all kinds of cool stuff. So, but as they're doing that, one of the things I don't know is, where do I stop like writing the stage directions of what I want to show and see and what I kind of hand over to trusting the director? You know, like, because I feel like I'm getting, like I'm describing every little thing, even from what the violent stuff is to what, you know, what's happening at the poker game and the tea party. And I don't want to overdo the stage directions, I guess is my question. Do you know your director? I do not. No, I'm just writing it. Understood. So we, I mean, collaboration is great. And, you know, to anticipate a collaboration with someone you haven't identified yet is slightly tricky. So I would say, number one, write everything down that you think needs to be written down. Because you've done the research, you know more about this than anybody right now. So you should take the lead and write down the things that you want to see on stage or that you want to hear about on stage. I have a question though about, you're wanting to show or talk about, you know, some very, sounds like violent acts. Did I hear you right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they died these horrible deaths. All right. And yet here they are, you know. Right, right, right. Yeah, so how do we show that or include that and embrace that in a way that is mindful that we could veer into what would be called, you know, I don't know what trauma porn. Right, exactly. So for example, and I should probably give like a trigger warning here, but you know, there's one woman who was pretty brutally mutilated. So what I've done is I write this scene where this guy was a big hunter, right? And he hunted with a knife. So they're sort of acting this out where she actually becomes the animal being hunted. But I don't really show the actual violence, but you kind of get the idea of what's gonna happen through this scene that's describing it to the reporter. He's being interviewed to a reporter, but you know, her ghost is there and acting out this hunted scene. So that's kind of how I'm dealing with something. That was one, that's one example. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, no, no, no. I just want you to really expand your imagination and all your resources so that, I feel like this is not your intent, but so that you're very mindful that, you know, you don't wanna just reenact violent acts, even involving animals, you know what I mean? You sort of, you have to, as you continue to work on it, I think you'll find strategies in which you can talk about what happened or frame what happened, but not in a way that you're just recreating some act. Right. A series of violent acts, which is not what you wanna do. I know that, I know that. So, you know, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. And again, it's been good to have it go through the staged readings because I'm getting feedback, you know, from the audience. So I can quickly ask, I guess, in the talkbats, you know, what people are feeling and if they're feeling that. Yeah, sure. That's a great way to, you can, yeah, yeah. There's, you know, I also don't have to tell everything, you know, or show everything. Right. It's a very powerful place and you can, you know, just with three words, you can, because it's, in a way, is it really about the violence that he did or is it about what they, how they endured or have come back to spend some time with him? Yeah, it's a lot about what they endured and why they're coming back. Right. They're each coming back for a different reason. I mean, I'm trying to get that out. Right, so yeah, we don't, you know, you might not have to imp, because, you know, revisiting the violent act might empower the wrong character. Okay, yeah. Just, I mean, just, you know, I don't know, and you're doing stage readings and your audiences will give you feedback, but just think, you know. No, that's good, that's good advice to hear. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, it's tricky, but congratulations for working on it, it's a big job and you sound like you're doing really great. Thanks, thanks, it's hard, it's hard, but it's, yeah, I do think it's important. Right, definitely, thank you, Lori. Thank you. Thank you. Louise, if you could unmute yourself. Hello. Hi. Hi, how are you? It's great to see you, Louise. Oh, so I just want to piggyback on what she said and then also what you said, because it brought to mind, this is just a comment. I think your keyword, and you always, I tell my friends when I talk about watching me work, I say, what I love about it is that how you hone in individually to each person, which is, I think, so great. It's not like everybody gets kind of the same kind of answer. Really, I think you really focus in on what the person is saying, and which is, of course, a great gift, but your word, the whole thing of endurance, because as we know, people experience horrible things, horrible things, and talking about her work with the sex workers and what she intends to do with that, brought to mind, and maybe some people might be familiar with this film, it's based on a true story. They made a movie of it, it was made in India, and it was called The Bandit Queen. And many years ago, it was showing Edmoma, the series that they have new directors in films, and there was this woman, she was, well, you know how in different parts of the world, girls, boys, or just the parents sell them off, which is what happened to her. And they showed scenes where she get passed around, passed around, she get raped, this one would rape her, that group of men, but what she would do, what empowered her is, she would get raped, and then she'd go on the war path, and then she'd kill a bunch of men, and then she was in it, she actually, this woman actually lived, she'd get up, she'd get her guns, her machete or whatever, and she'd go on a kill screen, and eventually she was so empowered that she got elected to office in India. I have to go back and do the research, look up her name, but a film was made on her, she was a real character, The Bandit Queen. Ultimately, I think she was assassinated, but when you said the whole thing of endurance, because a lot of people suffer a lot, but it's like how you endure, how you come through, not so much in the reliving, but you never really get past certain things, but I think listening to what you said, what struck me is your work with endurance, because I think that that's key. So I just want to thank you. Thank you, Louise. And that's something, that's an offering that we can make to our audiences, because Lori and Louise and, you know, there are people in our audience who are going through difficult things, and sometimes, I mean, to go back to what Crystal was talking about, sometimes that happy ending just ain't gonna cut it. They need to see people who have made it through. And yeah, thank you, thank you so much. What a beautiful conversation. Thank you, Louise. We still have time for a few more questions. Does anyone have a question? I'm gonna butcher your name, please unmute. Hello, Susan, Lori. My name is Jingqiu. So I have a question for new writers. So I just started writing my first play, and my background is in choreography and dance filmmaking. So my question, I'd love to hear advice about, for someone who just started writing, how would you prioritize reading and watching as many plays as possible to really understand how the structure works, or would you prioritize just start writing and then join from my experiences in other artistic forms and really explore how that could bring maybe more innovation or new ways of thinking about playwriting? Oh, what a great question. Congratulations. Welcome to the world of dramatic writing. We're so happy to have you. I would say both. I mean, what's great about reading plays is you can get plays from, you know, the library or the bookstore, and it doesn't cost a lot, except it costs your time to sit and read plays. And you get a great sense of, you know, so many great plays are available, and you can read them. That really helps. Also going to plays, which is more of a cost point, but, you know, if you can go in and get some rush tickets, it's wonderful to see plays. And writing, both, both, both. You know, how is your, you're already a choreographer, so you've probably got a really strong artistic practice. You can use that. You can embrace your artistic practice as a choreographer and have it help you create a writing practice. You know, do you have a writing practice already? Yes, normally in the morning, I try to read first and then write for like half an hour. Yeah, that's, you're amazing. Look at you. Okay, then you're all set. I would say just keep the writing practice going and maybe start asking yourself, or maybe you have this answer already, who are my characters? It's their story. Think of two points, make a line. Where did they start? Where do I see them ending? And then you'll start, what do they want? Start asking questions. Maybe you can even talk to them, interview them, get them talking to you, you know? And, oh, I can't wait to see your play. Thank you. I think that's two points, one line idea. It's really- Two points. Yeah, it's geometry. So, you know, it's helpful. But that's where in your choreography practice, you can use that to help your writing practice, right? Like we use geometry to help us in play writing or dramatic writing. It's, everything is connected. And so once we see and accept the interconnectivity of all things, we're like, oh, great. I know one thing. I can use it to help me understand another thing. Yes. Thank you so much. Great question. Great, thank you so much. I wanna also make sure I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Is it Sean? Yes, Sean, please unmute yourself. Hi, kind of bouncing off of that last question. I'm also new to play writing. And something I'm working on right now is a 10 minute play. And I know where I'm starting and ending up. And I guess what I'm struggling with is finding ways to extend the conversation where I'm not kind of just immediately jumping to the end. Right. How do I, and to do that in a natural way, like how do I come up with twists and turns that would make a story natural? Sure, sure. Yeah, it's great. It's like what we were talking about with Rocky, right? You know where they're starting. You know where they're ending. So you've got your two points and you're gonna create lines of dialogue. And to extend the conversation, let's see if we have any, like we'll probably, so you know, here's somebody and they wanna go like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. They wanna go across the screen, right? Ne, ne, ne, ne, ne, ne, ne, ne, ne. What's gonna stop them? Well, it went so fast, but obstacles. Obstacles, right? Obstacles. So if two people wanna, I don't know, they meet and they wanna listen to get married, right? It might take a little longer if one of them is already married. Obstacle. If one of them is scared of commitment, obstacle. If one of them, you see what I mean? Just start making up. What you can do is make lists of, okay, this character wants, again, what do your characters want? This character wants this. This character wants this. What are their obstacles to getting it? And what are they gonna do to get the obstacles out of the way so they can get to their goal line? Does that make sense? Yes. And you can just make up stuff. It doesn't have to be like the best obstacle ever. Just make up crazy shit. Oh, look, there's a pothole. They're trying to get across. Oh, there's a pothole. I have to crawl out of the pothole. Ne, ne, ne, ne, and I just crawled out of the pothole. Okay, now I continue on. You see, now I'm being picked up by a crane. All kinds of stuff. Now my library book is late. Oh my God, I ran out of money. I know it sounds silly, but when you see it in really cool plays, I mean, he comes home for his parents, his step-parents, step-father's wedding, and then he sees the ghost of his father, obstacle. You can also make lists of your obstacles for your favorite plays. He gives away his kingdom. He thinks he's gonna enjoy retirement obstacles. His daughters are highly problematic. King Lear. You know what I mean? And they're really problematic. And White Winnie, and then he thinks, oh, she's problematic. So I'll go to the other one and enjoy retirement. She's problematic too, obstacle. Yeah, see, you just pick up shit. Okay, yeah. Welcome to the world of dramatic writing where we make up shit. Yay. Thanks for joining us today, Sean. Thank you, Sean. Hi, Lisa. Hey, Lisa. Hey. Hey, we're good. Good. Hi, everybody. I've been meaning to ask this question for a couple of weeks. I just couldn't really figure out how to really ask it, so it made sense. So I'm just gonna blurt it out, I guess. I've asked you or we've discussed the process of revision a couple of times. And it's still an absolutely fascinating answer in any area, and as a writer, I don't think I've 100% wrapped my head around it yet, which is kind of okay, I guess, because it's a process. But I don't wanna get to the point where you just hate your writing. It's like, okay, I'm done, because I don't wanna look at you anymore. And I know sometimes there are deadlines or people are expecting something. So you have this artificial, well, I guess I better finish it by Tuesday because I have a play reading or whatever it is. So I'm guessing, and I know you've said before, and this has been really helpful, stand up, walk around with your material, read it out loud. And that's awesome advice, and it really works really well. But how do you stay in the process of revision and, A, feel like you're moving forward and, B, keep it fresh, so you're not just spinning. Spinning. Right. So how was your self-talk, Lisa? Do I always ask you this question? No, you don't, but I'm laughing because I don't think I'm a good self-talker. Ah, what do you mean? You mean you don't say anything, there's no sound of your own voice going on in your head or you say weird things to yourself? I think I say weird things to myself. Oh, okay. Oh, that's okay. Well, good. I mean, good, because we have something to work with. So, regulate, be mindful of your self-talk. That's something that helps. So if you want to keep it fresh, you know, I'm working on this and it's getting better every day. I know how to do this rewrite. This is a beautiful story. You know, things like that, things along those lines, positive, encouraging things that you're gonna say to yourself a lot. Like so much that, you know, like, do you have, have you ever seen anybody like with a puppy or with a, you know, like a puppy dog? Like that, you're gonna be your own puppy. Like, good job, good job. Why not? No one's gonna hear you. You're not gonna be saying it out loud, like on the corner in front of my building and I'm gonna go, oh, there she goes, you know. No, you're just gonna say loving, kind things to yourself. You're gonna hypnotize yourself because you're the one thinking in your head. So that with actually sitting down every day and doing the work, that's one way to get it done. I tell myself, I do this all the time. Okay, you can do this, you can do this, you got this. You know? And when I catch myself going, oh, damn it. I bring myself, yes you do. My husband can see into the future. Surround yourself with people who can see into the future and see your bright future. My husband can see into the future. He's invariably saying, wow, I really love that new song you wrote. I'm like, what new song? He's like, the one you're working on. I'm like, I'm not done yet. He's like, yeah, but you know, it's done in my head and it sounds great. So the rewrite, it's done in your head. It sounds great. You're on the right path. Starts, and invariably, you start saying those things and you stand a better chance of having a successful rewrite by the deadline. And it's gonna be good enough for the deadline and you'll have a chance to rewrite it some more later because it's a play, right? Or a screenplay and these things are works in progress until they're like in the can or frozen on Broadway, you know, and I mean, not the musical frozen, but the show is locked on Broadway, you know? You have a chance. Give yourself a chance. Serious. And I'm gonna let you, you're hard on yourself. I'm guessing. No, because the things you've told me about your writing community, people really like, give you like, yeah, tough love notes. Yeah, we're gonna punch her. And then she'll, you know, then work that way. No, it doesn't, I mean, it might, but it's awfully painful and the world is difficult enough. And so we can give ourselves some positive encouragement and seek communities that are encouraging, not, you know, not without teeth, not without, come on, you know, this kind of encouragement, come on, you can do it, okay? So find three things, three supportive things to say to yourself about your writing and say them constantly. I come back here and we'll see you soon. Okay. You know, really, it's, and it's real, and it really, really works. And I do it all the time, all the time, really. And it's the call. The call. I have one little thing, the Watch Me Work suggestion of the week, a suggestion for your digestion. You know, someone who, one of a vocal, a brilliant vocal coach, whose name is Martine, he told me the other day, because I'm practicing, you know how to sing and stuff. And he said, you know, you should remember that every time you take a breath in, it offers you a chance to reset. I said, that is such a cool thing to keep in mind. Every time, every time you inhale, you're giving yourself a chance to reset. Yeah, so, love you guys. We will see you not next week, but the week after. Is that correct? Team Dramaturgy, Team New Work Development. Yes. Next week, but then on the 25th. Correct. Yes. The meeting is the 25th. Okay. Bye. Thank you, y'all. Bye. Have a good one. Bye.