 Hey, all right, all right, all right, all right. Are we, are we back? We are. Fantastic. Welcome to watch we work with me and the title is you I'm SLP we are here again to talk with you about your work and your creative process. Welcome everybody we've been doing this show for like forever forever. You all know it because I recognize all your faces. Oh, look, there's Barbara. I feel like the romper. And what we're going to do is we're going to work for 20 minutes together by this timer. And then we're going to talk about your work and your creative process where you'll ask me questions about your work and your creative process and so that's basically all we're going to be doing. Holly will tell you how to get in touch with us if you have a question. Yeah, so if you have a question if you're in the zoom with us you can ask questions by raising your hand which is in the reactions tab at the bottom of your screen if you have any trouble finding that tab. You can just message me in the chat and I will help you out. If you are streaming on howl round feel free to send us your questions via the public theaters Twitter or Instagram accounts, or the watch me work Twitter account which is at watch me work SLP with the hashtag howl around that's hashtag h o w l r o u n d. So that's how you'll ask a question. All right, all right. So, um, no, hold on my, my, I put the wrong timer on there. That's better. Okay, and here we go. That's 20 minutes. Other questions. People have questions. Was that 20 minutes for you lolly. Yeah, 20 minutes for me. It looks like we've got a question from a Larry. All right. Larry, how you doing. I'm okay. How are you good to see you. Good to see you too. I, you know, I think I've shared before I've got this project that I've, I've made perhaps ambitious beyond my abilities. You know, between teaching and directing and, you know, it just my, my writing goes in waves. And so I, I got some advice I've gotten some premonitions, things like that and I'm digging about starting over. And I'm wondering if you have any, like it's just cluttered it's like a hoarder's script. And part of that is appropriate because that's partially what it's about. So I'm just wondering if you have any feedback for like, have you ever just started over what is the value of just starting over. When you feel like you've painted yourself in a corner or it's cluttered or congested or whatever the metaphor is. Ever started over before with a project. No. What do you usually have you ever painted yourself into a corner before. As you said, painted yourself into girls are your words I'm just, you know, yes, I have and usually, like, you know, I, I edit, I edit. But I'm finding myself just like overly inundated and also a little. There's this thematic relevance to this in the story. But like I'm, I'm too attached to what I wanted it to be to. Like, I don't want to get rid of anything. I'm literally like an episode of hoarders about it. Everything, you know, it's like what is what's this old wet box doing in here. Oh, I might need that, you know, someone might come and ask me if they need a wet pops. Um, so, you know, like I just have a reason to keep everything. And I'm just wondering about. So, so how are you going to start over if you want to keep everything. I know. One of my thoughts was, well, one of it was not that I expected to remember, but some of this process was I started this whole devising thing and worked with a million people on it and tried to honor all their stories. And so, you know, it was again I was sort of four parts of my many years working on this. Some of it was using my directing process to write and things like that. So what I notice is the things that I most don't want to get rid of are the things that are about me. And so I thought what if I got rid of honoring all the other people that contributed to this thing. And what if it was just me. And what's that about that. Yeah, I just miss, you know, I miss the, the, the what, the what I thought I wanted. Yeah, that's like life, right. Yes. You can make it about you, because it's yours. Yeah. You can make it about you and that I would say that sounds like editing to me instead of starting over. You're not starting over you're just editing, and you're making it you're getting more and more specific about what you, what you thought it was and now what it is and what you want it to be. So there's what you thought it was back there, you know, and what you wanted to be, oh, that's back there. And now you're like, well, here's what I wanted to be now. Okay. Yeah, and you're like, and I'm going to edit. I'm going to cut it out according to what I'd like it to be now. Okay. That's okay. And you can, and you don't have to like cut all the other stuff and then like burn it, you know, on a bonfire in the middle of Central Park I mean you don't have to be that you can just cut it and put it aside. Put it in another folder on your computer desktop or in an actual folder in a, what a shoebox or whatever, you know, you wherever you put. Put it aside and it might well bloom into something else, maybe, maybe not. You know, yeah. Yeah, that's helpful. I think you're editing. Okay. That's okay. I'm going with that. I'm going to say I'm going to, I'm going to make it your fault. You can I am a, I'll be real with you. I'm a black woman. I'm used to it. I know you said that as a loving funny thing. So, but real deal is yeah, we've been there. But sweetheart, you're cool. You can you can you can make it my fault you can make it your fault, you know, it's, it sounds like the right thing to do sounds like what you're doing. We're going to honor what you're doing. Okay, I appreciate you. Thank you. I appreciate you Larry. Good question. Great question. Great. Does anyone else have a question feel free to raise your hand using the reactions tab. Oh, okay, it looks like we got one from Jennifer, you can unmute now. Hey, how are you. Hi, how are you. Good, good. So I'm writing a dissertation. I just started a PhD program. Congratulations. Well, thank you. And I, you know, it's a it's a PhD in creativity. It's kind of a new thing. Yeah. And it has elements of theater, and I'm really examining how theater can really help refugees who are coming here, looking at English language learning civic engagement. My big question is, I want to be respectful of their stories, and I'm trying to go to all these like ethic workshops and you know ethic engagement reading all these books I have a great team of like advisors but they're still a part of me that's like it's not my story. And I'm a white American woman and I want to be true to it and it's still like sitting in me and just trying to figure out how to do that authentically though I do plan to interview get what their needs are all of that but I just wonder if you have any thoughts or motivational advice for you know someone who's trying to be authentic and really wants to be and doesn't really want to screw this up I actually want this to be like an informative helpful document not just something you would say like an academic conference but something that could be used and be. So, what character are you in the story, myself, almost as like, that's a great question. I think of myself almost as a, as a, I don't know like a guide, like someone who, you know like someone else is trying to think of like someone who's like pulling someone's hand, you know like they're, they're, they're like telling me where to go but I'm just sort of like a guide, if that makes sense. Are you being guided. Yeah, I'd like to be guided as well, like a mutual guide. Right. Yeah, you have some things to say and they have some things to say. Yeah, yeah, right so you have to be clear about what your character is, I mean, like, you're not, I mean, from what you said which is great you're not the know it all. You're not the know it all. And you're not the, you're not the refugee. I mean I'm just, you know, right. Right. The one who's already, we could say in whatever the word that word is the one who's not the referee, you know, you're not the one who has come from a land other you're not the one to find a new life right so you're the one who's already been, we could say to some extent let into the circle, someone who already has a seat at the table. That's your character, and your role is, if it were play you'd be trying to host these other folks. Learning from them they're learning from you and you're trying to give them seats at the table. And also finding out places where you can't do that. You're going to fail. That's going to be part of it. I hope, because they will see that you don't know everything. Right, you're going to you're going to fuck up. That's part of it. You know, yeah. Jennifer will say, Ah, Jennifer, isn't the know it all, you know, she's not the white savior she's the person who is sometimes saving sometimes not. You know, sometimes thinking she knows everything sometimes realizing she doesn't know anything. You know you have to. You know dissertation is hard I mean I've never written one but well there you go. Just try to as much as you can work to define your role, like who are you. And then you'll see that out of defining who are who you are in the story, you'll figure out who story you're telling you see what I'm saying. Right. I'm going to be very, very clear every second, like, who am I, right now. I'm the person listening, I'm the person talking I'm the person learning I'm the person teaching. I'm the pretty soon I'm saying. Yeah, and I think of it as like a play and a character I do also right plays and I'm sort of thinking about the framework for this dissertation in that way so I think that's really helpful is thinking about my in this. You know, the other play it's now it's a different kind of thing but in terms of, you know, motifs and metaphors helpful. Right, right, right. Okay, is that is that yeah. Yeah, no it really is I really appreciate it thank you so much. Great question great question. Next time I come on you can call me doctor if you want if I'm if I get it. If that's how you identify that's what I'll call you. I'll give you some credit. I don't identify like that although I have several of them but so pretentious, but you work so hard for it tonight's title but it does seem a little pretentious at the same time. You want to be called doctor I'll call you doctor I'll call you if you want. I love it thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you Jennifer. Awesome we have Matthew up next you can unmute. Good to see you. Hey good to see you too and everyone else as well thank you so much so glad to see you back here in the chair. Have a question specifically about a screenplay that I just wrote short short film about 20 minutes and I have action and dialogue kind of working pretty smoothly through most of it but find that little end area there there's what feels like a little bit of a lull where there's a lot more dialogue and I feel like some more action would be a helpful thing and I know that in screenplays one shows more than one tells anyway so that's the other thing that I had heard. In terms of just looking at integrating action that feels organic, just looking for some insights maybe some direction on that. Yeah, cool. So, you're saying the middle of the end like page. How many pages to the end. Five, seven, one. Oh, I can't hear you muted yourself. Yeah, I didn't. I need the permission to unmute so sorry that was my bad. Okay, it's about 35 pages although it reads about 20 minutes give or take and say around 14 to 16 minutes and there's this period there's it's very confrontational between various characters but it's all verbal, and there isn't any specific action you just basically have seven or eight characters who are standing around currently. And you'd like would you like to see them do something. Well I'm wondering if it's going to feel too talky if it's just people one person talking and then another person talking and the like, and then if there's something that anybody is doing. I was wondering, make it more engaging. Yeah, especially if it's a, I mean for me, personally, especially if it's a movie. You know you want to open it up I like to see, especially when you have the ability in a film to go different places. You know. So you can. I mean what would you what just off the top of your head. What could you see them doing. There are definitely conflicts in there where there's some question is whether a character is going to be attacking somebody and ends up not being an attack but there are several of those moments throughout this but but there is a period where they're they're basically talking at each other. And it's increasing in tension between the characters is is they're doing it to the degree that there are two characters who will walk off, but everyone else is still there and just talking through to the point at which there is this this conflagration you have one person is rushing at the other person and the other person is trying to keep them from. When the characters walk off where do they go off out into the world that's either there are there's a couple that is not going to make it there's a couple that's just coming together and there are two friends who are being potentially split apart permanently because of a family secret that was going to be shared. It's a way to change change, like, you know, show another. It all takes place in one place. It's all well yeah and in a hopefully New York City park to be shot sometime in April or May when it's warmer and days are longer. It's all continuous action it will start a few blocks into the city and then montage into the park and then the rest of it is on the park. So maybe it could move around a little bit and we could we could get them near some specific space that architecturally can be integrated into into the action. It's an interesting. There's a lot going on the park. I mean, I mean, good. That is a great question. And it'll either be Central Park if that is possible I've got to work through permitting issues if Central Park costs something. Okay, don't even think about it. Yeah. So the park in your mind we're not talking about permits we're not talking about weather we're not talking about anything. I'm talking about what do you see in your in your imagination. What do you see, which he said work will go with Central Park because we're writing when you're writing. Anything goes, you know what I mean. When you're producing and all that then you guys talking about permits okay so just one thing at a time. Central Park. Specifically, I see a T with a path so there's one path it's going this way another offshoot that's going this way. You have the main two characters that are nearing that T you have two characters that are about 10 yards behind walking in the same direction. You have somebody I've kind of got it mapped out you have one person who's sitting at the park bench here where everything's happening, and two people who are on this offshoot, who are walking towards that T and ultimately everybody will end up. Watch you go, you know, go in the park go in any park any New York park, right. It's been like, yeah I don't know how you know if you're dressed warmly, walk around for like 30 minutes and watch what people are doing. You know, they're not all talking about the point. A lot of other shit going on. You know their kids writing their scooters, their people riding bicycles, their people, you know, selling weed, their people asking you for money. They get interpretive dance because they go to fill in the blank college or university. They're selling their clothing. You know, like their fashions. There's a lot going on. So you got to open up your imagination to include people in the park. And those people in your in your movie main characters going through specific things that you very detail you're very focused on are going to interact with the people in the park. Otherwise, why have it in the park. Right. So you have it in the park a specific place because there are specific things going on, which are going to enter into the world of these people on these very specific. You know, dramatic journeys, but you have it set in the park for a reason. You know, a tree could fall. Shit, you know, a cop could run by after somebody as dog, you know, that lady who called cops on the birdwatcher could be calling cops on some other birdwatcher. You know, there's a lot going on. That is a great call that is exactly what I need to do. You know, I have fun in the park outside. I will do that. I really appreciate it. That's perfect advice. Write down stuff on your phone or take notes. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Nothing works like a field trip. Great call. Thanks. Question. Thanks Matthew. Any other questions feel free to raise your hand. Anybody. Hi, Jim. Hi, how are you? Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Yeah, because I'm at a new station in my place. I like it. I like the books. That's part of the reason I was here. I had to run in to get your book last week. So I said, go buy the books. I recently have been engaged to work on a project that's a revival of the devised piece that I was involved in. In the mid 70s. But my question is. And it actually was a group I would become the playwright with, but I was not at the time. And so. I will be involved over the next few years. In reviving this piece by making it the work of a group of students at the University of North Texas. And with a director who is using it over two years in a physical theater class, she takes. Sorry for all the backstory, but my question is. I have in the last five years been so intensively working on my own work, which is stuff that I was very invested in. For 10 years, I was collecting the material for the primarily the three plays I wrote. So you are someone who works intensively on your plays, but you also do outside stuff. This is not so outside for me because I had had an involvement with the troop that originally devised it. But I wonder how you keep the passion going. For it, because I want to do my very best and most committed work for this material, particularly since it will be involving a group of students that we would really love for them to make the material theirs as well. Is that, and I know a lot, some of the projects that you have worked on outside of your own writing have taken a few years. And so I wonder how you keep for a long period of time and with what might be a lot of breaks, how you keep that focus and commitment to that material, when it's not really stuff that you came up with at the beginning, does that make any sense. That's a great question, Jim. It's a great question. What I'm getting out what I'm hearing correct me if I'm wrong, is that this project is exciting to you. It's something that you'd enjoy. Is that correct. Go ahead and keep yourself unmuted. That's, I'm sorry. I got a lolly got to help him. Yeah, you should be able to unmute yourself. I'll keep it off until I go. And it was a group that was run by a director that I became very close to was almost the assistant director to while I was the playwright for three years with this troop. So, in that sense, it is and in some sense, I'll probably be dealing with different ghosts as as we go, as we go along. I've right now been reconstructing the script, the original script that I didn't work on for many different pages that we have some of them photocopied and hard to read and all that. We just for example came up with two pages that had been missing the wife of the original director sent them. So it's that kind of thing. But so yes it does mean a good deal to me, because some of the actors who were originally realized that I then worked with later when I was the playwright with the troop, and I was very close with the, with the director, who since has died. So, yeah. So you're excited about working on it. That's key. How about is your role clear. You're going to be correct. You're going to be the playwright or you're going to be the facilitator of other people's stories what's what are you going to be. So I'm going to be co writer with the people who originally devised it, plus the, the group of students in this, you know, two year journey who are going to be taking this material on. Maybe I should add part of the reason the director wanted to revive this is because the central question, the central theme of the original project was manifest destiny. You know, the whole idea that white people, Europeans came landed on this sure and by God they bulldozed their way across the continent, and then the cost of that for everybody. And to a group of students in Texas in 2023 and four they will be working on it. It, that will mean very different from what it meant to people in the mid 70s, but still that overarching idea of that idea in America that my God, it is our destiny to colonize this land that that is something central that they will be working on and trying to make it theirs, and realize what manifestations. Today, they want to work with I, I don't know if I'm being at all clear I didn't I don't want to, you know, talk a lot about the original plot because I'm, I think that's external to the question. I'm just asking is like, you're excited about the project. Yes. I'm just clear about what the process is going to be. Yeah. And you'll end you should my suggestions do other things at the same time. Yes, this is just one of the several things that you're going to be doing. You're going to be working on this with the students. Yes, you're going to be, and you know, just be mindful as you said, those questions resonate very differently these days. So it, you know, it might be better for them just to do their own thing, because, you know, it's a little it's a, I wouldn't want you to get in the center of conversations that are going to make you the quote unquote bad person in the in the, you know, just to be mindful. I think you raise a very good point. I think it is more important that the group working now makes the material that's presented their own, then that they are faithful to anything that went on 45 years ago, maybe more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, I so just to answer the question. I mean, I think if you're excited about the project, you're clear about what the process is going to be then it's going to be easy to to stay interested. I just have a little asterisk, a word of like be mindful about how they want to involve you, and how, in my experience, people aren't as my as knowledgeable about what that's going to mean to involve you. I am sort of concerned about you getting involved in a whole Hornets nest of bullshit, to be honest, with those topics, and, and, and students in, in, you know, Texas, it's it's it could be kind of unnecessarily the drama might not stay on the stage. Just to be, you know, because I want you to have a great experience. So I say go for go for it and see what it what it is, and just keep you know your eye on the fact that they might not have the ability to have nuanced conversations about these very thorny issues with you. You know, we, you know when you were coming up we would we would sit around and really hash this shit out. Now not so much. There's a lot of hot takes going on, a lot of quick decisions, a lot of canceling. Just be mindful that's part of the culture these days and if they can have these conversations and great more power to them. They're going to get that out. You know, and their professor hopefully will facilitate those conversations, where there are conversations instead of just like, you're, you're the evil one I'm canceling you, you know, know, and perhaps I should say I will be more the drama slash co author with them. So I mean I will be doing the script, but the director is the person that I think would be more the target of or the person who would be deciding how this stuff beyond me certainly would be above me in the pecking order of making final decisions. You know, just just go go into it with your eyes open. And it's exciting, keeping the passion up is not going to be the problem. Keeping the excitement level up and your commitment to it is going to be, I think relatively easy. So don't don't sweat about that it's just that other shit. So when I think you were all I had already told myself, because I had just started writing working on the idea for a new play that's important to me. So that that I know is going to be work the thing, the lifeline that will keep me committed that will be the other project that you yourself alluded to a few minutes ago. And, and so I knew going into this I would need that kind of thing as well to keep my personal juices going, which, you know, it's been fun to come back to these last five years. And so I certainly do not want to let go of that. Exactly. Thank you very much. Question. Thank you Jim we have about four minutes left. So time for a quick last question or SLP if you have anything you want to share with or address the group with. I'm okay with silence. Cool. I think I think you should be able to unmute. My question is SLP. You're since it's just two or three minutes left. Your play about the pandemic. Is it my understanding that it's going to come again be put up again in the spring at Joe's pub. Yes, yes, I'll talk about myself. Yes place for the players coming back. We'll be back. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for asking. It's fun. It's a fun show to do great group of people to do it with and we're having a wonderful time so we've been invited back. She's great. Okay. Thanks. It's fun. It's fun to do new things. So all of you thinking about like, oh, I could try some new things, you know, it's really exciting to try things that you've never tried before and work with people in ways that you've never worked with. It's really it's very energizing and thrilling to sort of throw yourself out there. So, you know, be here next week. We will. We'll be here next week. Yeah. Hope to see you all next week. Same time same place. Thank you.