 one. Hello, I am a small TV. Okay. Hello, everybody. Oh my goodness, Daniel Hacquez. Yes. Cool. Everyone. I'm going to do a brief introduction to this week's Latinx Latinx super amigos play writing hour. I'm so glad you're here for week two. This is really exciting. It's really exciting to be here again with Alvaro Sarrios, a playwright from Chicago. And you know, we're he and I are just we're just starting to get to know each other. And you joined. Yeah, we just we just we've met recently. But you know, we've we've sort of kind of mixed streams here. But I'm really excited to have a little here from Chicago and to lead this exciting workshop. And I can't wait to hear what you what you what you're gonna share with us. So gracias. Great. Thank you. Take it away, Alvaro. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all for tuning in. Thank you. Tvalok and Tia and and how round for you me opportunity to be here. And to those of you who are actually participating through zoom and those watching through Facebook landia, I say thank you very much. And actually, if you're watching through Facebook, I'd love to know where people are watching this from. So if you're you're up for it, feel free to type in the comments section, where you're appearing, where you're watching this from, I promise I'll read them later. I mean, what else am I going to do? Right? Just locked here and home just like the rest of you guys. And just like the as Tvalok did it during his presentation, I too would like to dedicate this workshop to playwright Diane Rodriguez. The work she did with the performance troupe, Latin's anonymous, and her own work as a playwright inspired me to start telling my own story. I saw characters that reminded me of my parents, and my friends, I mean, the people in my neighborhood. I mean, when I would see that I was like, I started asking myself like, we can write about this stuff. You know, I mean, when I started to see works that of people that who definitely were very similar in terms of who I was. I mean, that was the thing I was asking like, we can write about this. Which I think definitely leads me to my if there's anything I feel like if you get anything out of this, you know, I feel like it's probably the only playwriting advice I can give to anyone is tell those stories that matter to you. Right? Tell those stories that you want to tell. Don't worry about the stories, don't worry about producing in terms of who's going to produce it or when it's going to run. I mean, don't get ahead of yourself. I mean, I remember myself as a beginning playwright and think, you know, I was already thinking about my Broadway debut, right? And, you know, and and yet, I mean, I've been in this gash over 20 years, and still no Broadway, but I don't think that definitely lessons, you know, my career in terms of who I am and what I do in terms of the stories I tell. I mean, that's just not an opportunity that's happened for me. And so that's so that's basically what what I'm what I feel like. If you remember anything else, tell those stories that mattered you write those down, write those and make those into plays. The one I want you to think about actually, which is my and this is a very quick actually writing exercise if you but and this is so it's really short, tying into what I was just saying, like what are the stories that matter to you? I want you to write down, either type it down or write it down. But I want you to write down a story that matters to you. And it could be a short story. And when I'm talking about story, I'm talking about like, because I mean, today I am going to talk about adaptation. So think about, like, maybe there's a short story or or even a novel, you know, but what is that story that matters to you? So just write that down, type that down, just jot that down. And as you're doing that, I'm going to keep talking. Ultimately, what I'm trying to do is I want to be able to use this time as much as I can. Just to be able to hopefully be able to get you going and jotting some ideas down, thinking about certain things. And like I said, because I'm talking about adaptation. I wanted to kind of start with some of these exercises. So like I said, write down one story, I mean, at least one, obviously, right? So there's so there's so many others, but like, write down one story that matters to you. And for me, the story that matters to me right now, and I'm actually going to talk about this later, there's a there's a folktale that called the the ballot of Mulan, right? Those you some of you might be able to bite might be familiar with the ballot and Mulan, the story about the it's a Chinese folktale about a young woman who serves in place of her father serves in the military in place of her father, because her father's too old, right? That's actually when I was first became familiar with that folktale, I was like, Wow, this is really cool. And I always wondered, like, this is the piece that I was really connected to. And I think it took me a while to finally realize like where my connections were. And I'll talk about that later. But I definitely wanted to highlight like that's definitely a folktale that really has connected to me as a writer as a storyteller. So when Flalek pitched the idea of the Latinx Super Friends playwriting hour workshops, I immediately thought doing one on adaptation, because I felt like that's where I could be the most helpful. I mean, there's some great people as as part of this part of this group. And I felt like you know what, this is this is what I know I can do best in terms of and and it's probably because I mean, this is what I've been able to get work in doing. And what I feel comfortable with and also because I feel like I think in terms of adaptation, it's a great skill to have. I think it's a great skill for any playwright to have from those who are just starting out. But even those who have been doing this for a while, I mean, it's just definitely something to have a another tool in your pocket, right? It's a great way to learn about playwriting specifically. If you're new to playwriting, you've never written to play before. I think adaptation is a really great way to start out. I mean, when I teach playwriting, I always try to incorporate some sort of adaptation in there because I feel like it you have the model already, especially if you're using a folktale, using something that's established, you have beginning, middle and end, right? And so you already kind of have this kind of outline that you're going to go to. And it's a great way to just try it out and see like what can I do this, you know, I mean, it's more over, you know, there's a difference between, you know, saying, you know, I could do this and you read about it, but can you actually do this? I kind of relate it to, you know, I've been reading about how to make bread these last couple of weeks. And my sourdough starter is just it's it's it's not going anywhere. But I'm going to keep trying, you know, and I was like, but I read about it. And I read about all these people doing it. But when you're actually trying to do it, can you do it? And so it's all, you know, something to keep in mind. And also, I think great. One of the other reasons why I wanted to teach adaptation was because I think it's a great way to start a relationship with theater, because a lot of times, the first conversations that I've had with some theaters has been, are you, would you be interested in adapting this? Or, you know, we have some of these ideas for some of these plays. I mean, some of these books that you know, we've been interested in, would you be interested in adapting? So sometimes, I think that's been the first my first relationship. So just to give you an overview, I'm just going to talk about adaptation. I'm going to give you some quick writing assignments. And then I'm going to talk some more and then give you another quick assignment. And then I'll talk more and then I'll ask questions. And then, you know, I'll answer any questions that you that you come up with. And so we'll go from there. So to start off in terms of when I talk about adaptation, I think that's the first thing is like, let's get down to like the language of us establishing like, what is an adaptation? I never want to assume that everybody knows. I know what I'm talking about. And so a lot of times I'm always I always try to define things and I define things on how I would explain that. And so you might have a different definition and that's okay. But my definition of an adaptation is when you use established source material to tell a story. That's it. Just something like when you're using some other source material to tell a story, right? And when you think about source material, you think about like novels, poems, children's books, short stories, newspaper articles, another play. We've seen that before in terms of and it's very common, especially like an old really old plays that get adapted into newer versions or different versions. Some people even use songs as adaptations. The two types of adaptations I want to talk about today are they definitely aren't the only ways to adapt. But I feel like these are kind of the most common, the ones that I've seen the most of. And I think they're the might even when you delve in, if you decide that you ever want to adapt to play, adapt something into a play, you're going to most likely do it in one of these two forms. So I just figured I'd start with those. And the terms I'm going to use are terms that I've come up with. What I call my dooper terms, right, the terms that may not, they may not be the best terms, but they're the ones that it's going to do for now, right? So just, I just wanted you to know that. So the first one I want to talk about, as I think actually the most common and probably many of you are definitely familiar with this is the straight adaptation, right? And the straight adaptation in some circles, people do call this the page to stage. We hear this term used a lot, especially when they're talking about adapting novels or children's books in the stage plays, they use the term page to stage. So I think sometimes it's like I'm trying to clarify, like when you talk to, especially if you get, if you're fortunate to get asked about adapting something, it's good to clarify, like what exactly do you mean when you talk of adaptation? Because they're actually, they're different types of adaptations. So in terms of the straight adaptation, typically these have the same setting. And I mean, this seems very obvious, but I mean, definitely I think these are things that we should at least recognize, right? So when you're adapting something in as sort of a straight adaptation, it has the same setting as the original source material. For example, those who are familiar with like 100 years of solitary, right? If you've read that book, you're familiar. If you haven't read the book, you should read that book, put that on your homework list tonight. Those are familiar with that. I mean, you know that it takes place in Macondo, right? And so that's definitely where a lot of it is going to, that's, that's what we're going to expect when you're writing a straight adaptation. Straight adaptations tend to have the same major characters that were in the original source material. Sometimes even the same minor characters, depending on, you know, the length of the script, right? Depending on how you're going to write it, because if you're going to try and write something as a one, if you adapt something as a one person show, which is possible, you might be able to, if you want to showcase your talents as a, not just a writer, but also as a performer, you probably going to want to put a lot of different characters in there to be able to show your range. But let's say if you're working, you know, you're adapting something for a theater that says, you know what, we can only, we can only pay seven equity actors, then you got to figure out, can you be able to do all the, you might be able to have to cut some characters, combine characters, you know? But definitely when, in terms of those adaptations, you have those same major characters as you had in the source material. And then you have one other thing is definitely, the story lines are definitely similar when you're adapting, when you're doing the straight adaptation, right? And I don't want to say to exact because you're taking one medium and you're trying to put it into another one. And it doesn't work all the time. I mean, the storyline is going to be similar, but definitely not exact. And you're going to actually see that when you're actually trying to do something, especially with like a folk tale or short story, definitely with a book, right? You're going to kind of have to figure those things out, but the storyline is definitely going to be similar. Probably the most well known example of a straight adaptation is William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, right? And some people don't even know that's an adaptation, which I think is great. For me, I think that's one of the goals of adaptation, right? Is you write it well enough that people forget about the source material. This is always not, this is not always possible, especially if the source material that you use is extremely popular, right? But if you adapt something obscure out of print, a long forgotten novel, short story, a children's book, and you do it well enough, people won't even think of it as an adaptation. I'm not saying don't give credit to the source material because you always should credit the source material, right? Just think about this. So if you ever, I don't know if you've ever been to a play adaptation, if you've ever seen a play that was an adaptation of a book and after you saw it, you thought that you would have better understood it if you were more familiar with the source material. That's definitely not how I feel that adaptations should be written. I mean, audience should not have to feel that they could understand the play if they were just familiar with the original source material, right? Adaptations should stand alone. They should be its own thing, right? Because, and ultimately, that's you, the playwright, right? That's your job. Your job to tell that story and you can't just say, oh, you know what, you know, this was in the book where I decided to leave it out. But if that was somewhere hinted at in your story and if your audiences feel like they needed that, you might need to figure out another way to be able to adapt that. In terms of the adaptation that Shakespeare used to write Romeo and Juliet, which is actually a narrative poem, the tragical history of Romeus and Juliet. Some of you might be familiar with this too. Both of them set in Verona, Italy, same major characters, right? You got Juliet, Friar Lawrence, the nurse, Tybalt, Romeo, sorry, Romeus, Romeo, a little bit different, but still same major characters. And even the storylines are similar. You've got the feud, you know, the Montague, Capulet, feud, you've got Romeo slaying Tybalt, Romeo being banished, banished, as some people say. And spoiler alert, you know, Romeo dies and Juliet dies. I mean, the same thing happens in the narrative poem as in the play, right? So my question to you is that so if all those things happen, if all those things that you remember from Romeo and Juliet, and if those things happen in the narrative poem, what is Shakespeare bring? Think about that. And we'll talk about that, actually. So straight adaptations are very common in theater for young audiences, and or what we call TYA, right? And this is actually how I became familiar with adaptation is because by my work, when I was working with theaters who produce TYA work. And because we're actually talking about straight adaptations, I want to get straight into our first actually, well, actually, your kind of second exercise, right? I want to since we're talking about a straight adaptation, probably the reason why you're watching, I want to do a quick exercise and use that I use when I'm adapting when I teach adaptation. So first thing we're going to need is source material. And today, we're actually going to use a poem by a playwright. Some of you might be familiar with his name is Martinis Bader. And the playwright is called Poet in the Box. And I actually I wrote Martin to get permission. So I just want you to know I actually have permission to use this poem. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually read it. And all I actually need to do is just kind of listen. I mean, you're feel free to take notes if you want. It's kind of a short poem, but I just wanted to read it. All right. And then we'll go from there. The Poet in the Box by Martinis Bader for Brandon. We have a problem with Brandon, the assistant warden, who's a poet. At the at the juvenile detention center, demonic poetry fired Brandon's fist into the forehead of another inmate. Metaphor that cackling spirit drove him to flip another boy's cafeteria tray on the floor. The staccato chorus rhyming in his head pulled him to spit and curse at enemies bigger by 100 pounds. The knowing in his rib cage was craving for discipline. Repeatedly two guards shuffled him to the cell called the box solitary confinement, masonry of silence fingered by hallucinating drifters, rebels awaiting execution, monks in prayer. Then we figured it out, the assistant warden said. He starts fights so we would throw him in solitary where he could write the box. There poetry was a grasshopper in the bowl of his hands, pencils chiseling letters across his notebook, like the script of a Pharaoh's deeds on pyramid walls. Metaphor spilled from the light he trapped in his eyelids, lamps of incandescent words, rhyme harmonized through voices of great grandmothers and sharecropper bluesmen. Whenever sleep began to whistle in his breath. So the cold was a blanket to him. We fixed Brandon, the assistant warden said. We stopped punishing him. He knows that every violation he stays means he stays here longer. Tonight there are poets who versified vacations in Tuscany, the villa on a hill, the light of morning. Poets who stare at computer screens and imagine cockroach powder dissolved into the coffee of the committee that said no to tenure. Poets who drain whiskey bottles and urinate on the shoes of their disciples. Poets who cannot sleep as they contemplate the extinction of iambic pentameter. Poets who watch the sky waiting for a poem to plunge into a white streak through blackness. Brandon dreams of punishment, stealing the keys from a sleepy jailer to lock himself into the box where he can hear the scratching of his pencil, like fingernails on Dungeon Stone. So usually typically in my class we'll then talk about the poem for a bit. But I want you to do here's my first exercise that I want you to do. So this is something that I call facts of the world, right? And facts of the world are any lines, anything that gives you kind of like a setting, imagery, moment or character actions. Actually, you know what? I'm going to put the poem back up just so you can look at it again. But just to make sure that we understand what facts of the worlds are, we'll go back here. But in terms of facts of the world, like I said, think about Romeo and Juliet again, right? If we go back to Romeo and Juliet, a fact of the world is that like number one, it takes place in Romana Italy. Or another fact of the world, Romeo kills himself, right? Drinks poison. And then at the end, Juliet. So those are specific facts. Each world that is created in your original source material has these specific facts that aren't debatable, right? So I want you to just think about like what you read and obviously I'm going to put, I mean, I'm just going to kind of slowly scroll back through here again. Or you know what? I'll just read that. Well, now I don't want to read the poem again. You don't need to hear my voice, but I'll scroll through here again just slowly. But just think about, but I really want you to just think about what you heard in terms of what I said. What are those specific things that stuck with you? And I want you just kind of make a list of them, right? Some of the facts of the world obviously could be that this takes place in the juvenile detention center, right? That's definitely not debatable. There are other things that come up. But ultimately the reason why I do this is that each playwright, each person based on their own experiences are going to come up with their own list of what they think of facts of the world are. Obviously some of them are all going to come up with, you know, some of the same, but there are some that are going to be different and that's okay because ultimately you're the one who's adapting something like this. This is your story. What are the things that you're going to put in there, right? And so you have moments in here where Brandon, you know, starts fights. He hits another inmate with a tray. The assistant warden figures out that Brandon has been doing this. The reason why he's been doing this is so he can be locked up and write poetry, right? So like I said, you just kind of write this down. And actually, you know, when this is all over, I will definitely share this point with you. But I wanted to, like I said, do this quick exercise where you kind of write down the facts of the world and just really start, just think about like what I was actually saying in terms of what are some of the things like, you know, here's another one, Brandon dreams of punishment, right? So that's definitely just facts of the world that are established. Try to come up with 10, right? That's all one end that's as best you can, just come up with 10. All right. I'm going to give you about a minute or so just to do that. And really, I'm just, what you do is just kind of jot these down. You're not, you're not trying to just do this. This is something that I try to get people to do when eventually they start doing, taking on bigger projects or either, you know, children's books or, you know, other folktales. Create your own facts of the world. And I figure one of the best places to start with a poem because a poem is short, right? All right. And if you didn't, like I said, I will definitely share this poem with you. And, and obviously if you miss some of this, you know, this is, this is all being recorded. So you can always come back to this. So, so we got, let's say we got our 10 facts of the world, right? Whatever your facts of the world is, like I said, this is definitely very helpful when you're adapting picture books and chapter books. Once you go through this source material once, let it sit and then go back and then like write down your list of, like, what are those things that really stick with me? Those specific moments, the setting, the imagery, character actions. Character actions are really, really important. Obviously, things that we remember from, like, if we talk about Romeo and Juliet, like we're going to remember like when Romeo slays Tybald. Like that's definitely a fact of that world. So think about those facts of the world that you really remember. So thinking about that, those, those stories that you're interested, might be interested in adapting. What, even if you've read the book a week ago, two weeks ago, a year ago, just kind of come up with your list before you revisit it. Like, what are the things that you really remember, right? So then when we go from there, once you got your list, like, let's say you got 10, and if you don't have 10, if you have five, that's okay. But I want you to choose like the one that is most vivid to you right now. In terms of, like, what we, what I just read in terms of that, like, what is the, and if it's tied to a character action, even better. But if not, that's okay. But choose one of the facts of the world that is most, that you feel most connected to, most, that might be most vivid to you, right? Possibly even what is, what is most important to you. And, and frame it in the sense of, let's say if you were commissioned to write an adaptation of The Poet in the Box by Mark Dean Espada, if a, if a theater came to you and said, you know, we would love for you to adapt this into a play, like what is that one moment? Like when you read this, that one moment that sticks with you that you knew definitely has to be in a play. And the reason why, and once you do that, like circle it, underline it, whatever, put a star by it, like the one that you know definitely has to be in your adaptation, I feel like that's where you start with. That's exactly the place that you need to start. Because that's the one that you're most connected with. That might be your way into the story. If you've never written a play, one of the things I tell people is like for me sometimes is I have to find my way in. Because if I can't find my way in, it's hard for me to start. Not just looking at it and saying, okay, this is the beginning of the book, so this is where I need to start. A lot of times I don't start that way. I start in the middle, I start in the end. I have to find my way in. And a lot of times it's what am I emotionally connected to. Which then leads me to talk about one of the very necessary elements when talking about adaptation. One of the reasons why I use this as a way to teach playwriting is voice. I think it's very important that your voice as a playwright comes out when you're writing an adaptation. You have a voice. You have something to say. And even though you might be using someone else's story, your voice should definitely be present. And I want you to give you an example of this. So let's think about some story that we all know. Like maybe something like Three locks and Goldilocks. Goldilocks and Three Bears. Imagine somebody was doing an adaptation of that. And imagine that there were straight adaptations written by like Jose Rivera, Susan Laurie Parks, Lin-Manuel, and native playwright Larissa Fasthorse. Now if you're familiar with any of those four writers, you definitely, and you're familiar with the styles of how they write, each one of those playwrights definitely have a strong voice, right? And their voice is always going to come out in their work no matter what they're writing, even if it's an adaptation, right? And it's the same thing. How is your voice going to come out? And going back to like Shakespeare's and his adaptation, like if he took all those memorable moments from his poem, from that poem, like I said, like all those moments that you know, that you know from the play most of them are all in that narrative poem that he adapted it from. What did he bring? He brought his voice, right? I mean, when we think about Shakespeare, I mean, obviously one of the obvious things we talk about is, you know, the Iambic Contameter that he utilizes throughout, you know, the language. I mean, we talk about the imagery, right? And also, I mean, from time to time, you even people, you hear people talk about how, you know, Shakespeare made up some of the words that definitely use. And I mean, I think it's the same way. I mean, for, especially for people who, what do you call it, if you utilize more than one language, I mean, that's definitely part of your voice as a playwright and be able to use that and incorporate that in your stories and your adaptations because we should be able to know that that's you. I shouldn't be able to know that, you know, that you I'm going to dirt myself on it, you know, do some romper room now. You know, it's like that you Tlalak. I need to know that, like when I read it, that Tlalak wrote this or that Herbert wrote this or Daphne wrote this or I get to see some of the list. I forgot some of the other name. Laura, you know, if you wrote this, I need to know that you wrote this. And by the time I read that play, I should be able to know that your voice is all in it, you know, and that's because that's your job is the playwright. You got to put your voice in there, even if you're adapting, right? So like I said, once you pick that one that is most vivid to you, that's where you start. Do not worry about, you know, starting linearly, beginning to end. Start with what you feel that is most important to you. Now, if this is my something I'm very fortunate to be able to teach this workshop longer at the Chicago Dramatists and and this is actually when I go send my students off and be like, all right, I give you about 20 minutes to go right. They come back and then, you know, could we get you to just see what each other do? So definitely something you might want to just try, you know, if you want to, if you have time to have some homework, now you should write something like that. Or if you want to do that same with the text that you're, you might be interested in the folkbook or something, use that. This is a great way to be able to dive in, you know, find that moment, that one that you're really interested in and start flushing that out and see what you do with. So when you're, I'm just looking over my notes in terms of, okay, so you're, like I said, your adaptation might actually start different than the original source material. And that's okay. I mean, if people want the book, you know, and this because it happens all the time, right, people want the book, they can go read the book. But this is a play, a totally different monster. And as you know, and we'll discover, if you ever take on adaptation, especially something like a novel, this monster plays by its own rule. So you got to like figure out like, how are you going to be able to do that? So how you, but also how you start your adaptation and how you end it. This also adds to your voice. I'm talking about voice. I just want to tell a really quick story about, so I was hired to do an adaptation of Rapunzel, but as an opera, right? And those of you familiar with the story, a story about a woman with long hair who waits for a man to savor, I mean, that's, that's how I explain the story. But I actually initially turned it down because I thought that that's exactly what they wanted. They wanted this story about, and, but when I went in to ask and started asking questions, my first thing, my ass is like, do I have to stay like with the same narrative? Right? Because I thought about it. I mean, is this the narrative that I want to continue to perpetuate where it's this story about a woman who sits in a castle and waits, waits for somebody to savor? Ultimately, it is a man. I mean, depending on obviously the folktale you read, and so I asked, I was like, is it okay if she saves herself? And maybe even, she might even save somebody who tries to help her, you know, being the man, right? And I feel like this totally goes along with my aesthetic as a writer. When I started to see the things that I wrote about, I like writing about strong woman characters. It reflects what I grew up around. And, and thankfully, I mean, that's actually what I told him. That was my reason why I wanted to change something. And because the folktale, we had to stay in the same, I mean, it was, because it's a folktale, I mean, we got to, you know, we got to add some creativity to it. But still, it had the same elements in terms of the same characters, same setting, you know, Rapunzel still had long hair, you know, but that storyline, it was similar. But the one thing, like I told him, I was like, I'm not interested in writing the story that shows where she's just waiting for a man to savor. I mean, I think that narrative hadn't been pushed enough. Can we change that? Like I said, thankfully, I had that opportunity to be able to take that on. So you can actually start there in terms of if you wanted to do an adaptation, that's one place to start. But I want to actually share some things that it might also be helpful. One thing that definitely is helpful is you make a list of your lifts of settings and potential settings, right? So let's go back to the poem. Thinking about the poem, some of those settings could be like the juvenile detention center, right? Solitary confinement because that's definitely has been mentioned. But some of the others we have to kind of create. So we're thinking about potential settings definitely create settings that are true to the narrative that definitely live within the world of the narrative. So you're thinking maybe the assistant warden's office, the cell, the cafeteria, right? The visitor's room, the classrooms, common room. Because if you really think about in terms of characters and I think this has to do with either if you're adapting or if you're writing plays, there's only a certain places where your characters are willing to reveal certain information, right? You know? And I think it's very important to know. And but it's also great to have that list of settings because sometimes when you have to setting and knowing where it's going to take place you're going to realize like, okay, my character is not going to talk about this. But it also might already help you ideal like know like what's going to happen in your play based on I think, you know, knowing your settings definitely help way, you know, help might help in terms of how you're going to take the journey, your character's journey, right? So making a list of setting and potential setting definitely very helpful before you start. Definitely it's something that I do just to kind of like this because sometimes I realize I mean I've been in the same setting for a long time where these other places I can have this thing take place and then what are what might that add, theatrically, right? Also something I do is a list of characters. You make a list of characters in terms of so we've got like in this one you've got like a assistant warden you got Brandon you got inmates you got guards and depending on who your your protagonist is like I said if you like I said we're pretending that somebody has commissioned us the right in adaptation of this depending on who your protagonist is will depend on who your other potential characters are because maybe you decide Brandon is not your protagonist maybe you decide you want to write an adaptation that focuses on the warden or one of the inmates or maybe even you know Brandon's lawyer I mean depending on how your way into the story right or into the thing so definitely there might be a relative or a public defender who's your characters come for them you know especially if it's branded you know those are the things that you definitely have to think of I think that's very vital I think in terms of any play is who is your character's confidant who's the person that your character tells secrets to definitely and it's something always worth knowing something that might not always fit in all your plays but it's always worth knowing who if that person was around who is your character's confidant and once you do that like once you start identifying your potential characters and your potential places that also adds to your voice your voice as a character you know I mean your voice as a playwright sometimes you have to add characters sometimes you have to cut sometimes you have to combine I definitely when I I was fortunate to to write a be commissioned to write a adaptation of a book called Ghost Wings and the book is out of print and so when I was asked about it I was asked well since it's out of print and it's probably not well it's not well known I did a lot of research and I asked a lot of people and and I asked the the first thing I asked when I met with a writer was is it okay if I change the title and I wasn't sure what the title was but I felt like I needed something that might be able to tell me what the story is and so eventually this is what became my play on the wings of a Mariposa and in this piece I had to cut out the father character because I felt like this story was a story about three generations of women from the young girl who's in the play to the grandmother to the mother and I didn't feel like the father played a significant role so I cut him I mean I didn't kill him off I just didn't use him I think sometimes we sometimes I think we need to explain things and especially when it comes to like relationships and I felt like why do we even need to mention that her father's not here for a reason he's just not I mean so and I felt like it worked beautifully in the story I talked to I actually sent an email to Karen Zacarias asking her about her experience writing the adaptation to Luisa Berto Ure as into the beautiful north and she herself said that you know I mean she had to take some liberties I mean because that's that's what you have to do when you're trying to fit into it she had to combine some characters and change the order of events and I think that's something that really bogs us down sometimes it's like when you're taking this on like we have to fit all of it in there and sometimes it's not going to fit if there's anything I can tell you when you're using facts of the world right if you create these facts of the world and it's not an exact list but it's a list of those things that really have stuck to you as the playwright when you create your list the one thing you're going to learn which is one thing I try to also tell my students when I'm teaching this is do not feel obligated to use every fact of the world it will undo you sometimes you will see some adaptations where they're trying to fit everything that was in the book into there you know the 500 page book or whatever unless you're very fortunate to have a theater that might be able to adapt I mean to to pay for an eight hour production of your play that's fine but you know sometimes the story you're telling might not fit in there and I think one good example I like to bring of in terms of adaptations straight adaptation the reason why I bring this up is because it's published is there's a there's a play called let the right one in by Jack Thorn T H O R N E some of you might be familiar with Jack Thorn's work he actually wrote the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and so that play is based on a book and that book is thick and if you look at and I actually encourage you if you're actually interested in adaptation look at the read the book and then read the play and then you're going to see how it's been streamlined in terms of that and it was really streamlined and you definitely you get to see if you're familiar with Jack Thorn's work as a playwright you get to see his voice really starts to come out right the other type of adaptation I want to talk about which I think is the most popular which would not think I'm most popular I think it's the one that really excites me is one called the inspired adaptation and these are adaptations and you are familiar with it I know you are is that they're adaptations that use the original source material for inspiration so a little bit different than the straight adaptations right definitely something that I think all new writers can benefit from I mean not saying that the non new writers wouldn't benefit from this either but I think definitely new writers can benefit from this especially because if you're still trying to figure out like what a play is inspired adaptations a great thing to do when you see these type of things that inspired adaptations when they're adaptations of folktales or works that are in public domain and when I mean when I say public domain works that you don't have to pay the rights for and this is very important I think starting out because unless you already have a theater attached you know I think it's a great way to you know use use a folktale use something that's very old that's accessible so that you can be learn how to teach yourself to to write adaptations and then you obviously read other adaptations and see how the other playwrights have done it I think another one that's come to me in terms of which is I think a balance between the voice of the playwright and the voice of the author is the bluest I by Lydia Diamond when she adapted Toni Morrison's novel of the same title right that's definitely I mean those who are familiar Toni Morrison that's a voice right there and to be able to fit them as a playwright you still got to be able to do that work and hopefully put your voice in there and I think Lydia Diamond definitely had a balance and did a very good job of it so definitely something worth looking into so thinking about this inspired adaptation so same thing you need source material right so instead of going back to the poem I want to go quickly to another piece of source material which we all know which I just referenced which is Romeo and Juliet right so I want you to think of Romeo and Juliet and all its story right and this is in public domain so you can do whatever you want with it and I want you to think about the story and its elements and I want you to come up with a setting if you can come up with one cool usually if we have more time you can come up with like five but I want you to come up with a setting where you think this would take place you know something that you feel that would where it would work and I know we've possibly seen other people do this just in presenting Romeo and Juliet in different settings but this is when we're talking about adaptation we're talking about you know taking it into inspired adaptation taking it into a different setting but then also changing characters maybe even changing plot points so try and jot one down real quick like I said if you have if you already have other ideas of other ones write those down some suggestions might even I mean it always comes up as people are like oh World War II that's a really good time period you know definitely a lot of conflict in there maybe even the time period when we something like Executive 9066 those you're familiar with that with the the Japanese internment camps you know thinking about in terms of your own history and your own culture you know maybe even like like the Battle of the Alamo or you know the 50s where you had you know like something like Operation Wetback or the Cuban Revolution right definitely just you know the sense of conflict right where you have just like something that kind of possibly represents the same thing represents the same thing as that feud as the Montagues and the Capulets right I want to make sure I leave enough time for talking so I'm going to kind of zip through I have one thing so once you have your setting once you have your setting here think about this so once you have your setting and you make up your own thinking about if you have time later just kind of create your own facts of the world of Romeo and Juliet and come up with a list of 20 right and the only reason why I say 20 longer than the other one is because it's a longer play right there's so many other things there but I don't want you to go back and read it and do it but I want you to just think about what are your those facts of the world that happen there but then start thinking about once you start writing those down once you get that list down here's another thing I want you to think of and this is what I think helps bring us I think our elements of the inspired adaptation that really said to help bring out voice what are those plot points that you want to keep but what are the ones that you want to change how are you going to highlight your voice as a writer how will you illuminate what is important to you right one quick story I was trying to write an adaptation of Romeo of Romeo and Juliet it was when I first got into playwriting and I you know I created my Rogelio and Juliana and I didn't realize that what I was doing was I was actually trying to write an inspired adaptation because writing I was trying to create I started with the final scene right so Romeo comes in there and he really he thinks Juliet is dead takes the poison and then Juliet wakes up and at some point in her conversation with Romeo she realizes that she doesn't want to kill her so she's not she doesn't want to die for a man like you know the man's not we're dying for and definitely like I said I think that was the very beginning of like you know like I said when I talk about my aesthetic and the things I like to write about about strong women I think that's kind of I pin it all back to that one adaptation I was trying to deal that it was a Juliet's voice like you know that that or Juliana's voice is like no way I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do this and and she decides not to and that's that was the end of it and I think that definitely you start to see like you what is those what are those plot points of especially like certain folk tales or even the older plays like I mean it's it's it's I mean you can just put it in another setting and use the same plot points but maybe there's certain character choices that really didn't resonate with you and you could change it to fit your aesthetic you know and it's definitely a lot easier when when it is public domain stuff that isn't a public domain because then you can really freely do what you want with it and be able to create with it I mean that's how I mean those who might be familiar with my play Lucia Lora I mean I when I mentioned the ballad in Mulan I kind of related to that when I started writing Lucia Lora I wanted like how would I set this play how can I be able to adapt this that celebrates me my voice my culture but also my family like the strong women in my life and so that's that's one of the reasons why I wrote Lucia Lora which is the story about a young girl who young woman who serves in play her father is an old Lucia Lora and she serves in this place and with that you know what I'm gonna stop there just so I can leave another leave enough time for questions and stuff but hopefully that was helpful and I do plan on I have a list of all the people who have registered and if you don't have if you weren't registered you can send me an email at alvaro.sar s-a-a-r dot rios at gmail.com and I'll send you the same document that I'm going to send to everyone who registered in terms of some of the things that I mentioned and you know just that I think that might be definitely helpful so cool Valak, back to you oh thank you no and I want to leave some time for for questions and I do want to make sure that we're we don't get too bogged down on like how do we get rights to a book and and what do you find material because I think there's a lot of information out there about obtaining underlying rights you can actually go to to the Dramatist Guild website and they can actually show you how to draft up a contract in case you reach out to an author or a publisher and you know you say hey I'm interested in in adapting something right that's a whole conversation yeah that's yeah and sometimes you know that stuff isn't available because you know some film company picked up the rights to it so you know it just depends it's it's never personal if you can't get the rights to something it's usually because they sign with somebody else or they're just not interested in their material being in that case if there's someone who's resisting you have to really make the case as to why their story their poem you know why you want to tell this on the stage why you want to show this to people live and what it will you know what that will bring to a new audience I guess I don't know it's it's really that's a whole other conversation yeah well let me say something real quick like here's what I tell people here's what I tell all my students I'm like look if you're interested in adapting something I don't care what it is adapt it try and do it because you might realize you can't do it or you might realize you know what it might not be worth my time you know so I think it's also worth it at least to try it now I didn't say try and produce it that's a totally different monster but I think you should at least try I mean I always think it's I mean it's it's great obviously within the academic setting when I teach this you know it's different you know I get to let my students kind of work on it most time they'll write that once seen or but I think it's at least worth trying but yeah getting the rights and all that that's a totally different monster and a lot of times I mean for me I've been very fortunate that a lot of times I'm teamed up with a theater that already has gone through a lot of that cool cool so just do it for practice yes okay Fia do you want to like pull in some hands yeah absolutely the way that we're going to do this is if you have a question go ahead and raise your hands not physically but in zoom and the way that you do that is go down to the bottom of your screen click that participants button and either a button that says raise your hands will come up or you should see a little like dot dot dot thing you can select hand raise from there while everybody's finding that feature I'm going to look into the chat and if you can't find the feature go ahead and toss your question in the chat we're going to start with question from Danny Borba how do you know where did it go I had it a moment ago how do you know if you've adapted too much or too little I keep hello okay I think you can hear me now yes yeah how do you know if you've adapted too much or too little um I think that's uh I think that really depends on the person right I think it's one thing that helps is that once you've done it like your adaptation or I mean just anything like if you've ever written a play before you should do a reading of it you should do a reading with your friends in your small circle not a big public reading but your small circle to hear the voices and I think you'll start to realize that maybe you did and and just kind of even pull some of the people within you like you know what know the journey of your character is ultimately your character you're still applying the same elements know who your character is what does your character want what is preventing your character what what they want and sometimes that's the stuff that you actually have to put in to be able to get the story to flow because even like with the poem there I mean we start I mean if you think about Brandon that could be his inciting incident is the day that he learns that that he can't go to a solitary anymore so how is he going to be able to get there because that's what he wants so he can write how is he going to be able to do that that could definitely do the full play right there's no I can't just give you an answer and say okay you hit page 90 that's too much you know I think it depends on on really in terms of where you feel like your story is going it's you play with it you just got you really have to play what you get to discover that thank you thank you raise hand from Priya you're unmuted hi Priya sorry Priya give me one moment he's not letting me unmute you oh no yeah it's interesting can you type can Priya type question in yeah I think I saw it earlier Priya if you you want to double check your mic really fast oh I think I think I see it um how do you see yes how do you adapt how do you navigate adapting real life events right is that that's your question yes Priya um I think you know uh that's yeah that's a good one that's a good one I think it depends do you hear me yeah yes yes okay um hi um I was born in Cernum as a county South America but I was raised in Holland and in the 90s there was a poop in Cernum and they murdered the intellectual top of Cernum and I want to write the play about that because but because there's so many people involved in that so many interesting characters and I start wondering if I want if I want to write the play about that because it's a true life story where do I start I'm sorry where do you start that's a great question I would say if if I was writing about a true life event this is so you can take this advice you can go with it where you know maybe you might find another playwright give you different advice but for me where would I start I would create a fictional character that lives within that world because I think at least that is safer because then you can take some liberties in terms of because ultimately like we as playwrights are not documentarians and I get into arguments with many playwrights about this our job is not to tell exactly what happened in history our job is to be able to tell a story and we can highlight specific moments that specifically happen but we are not creating documentaries I mean obviously there is that form the docu-drama and even that gets has to get shaped I think the safer safest way to be able to do that we if you want to take on real events I learned this myself because I was trying to write about a specific real event that happened in Houston in 1978 a riot that happened there I realized that be able to write about that be able to have I should have this fictionalized character live within this world and experience it but that character still has a journey right but you can still be able to flesh out the world somehow and maybe even have them involved and I think this all obviously this protects you because you are you know you have a fictional character who's living within that world and I think that's a great way to be able to start what would that character in that world that specific environment what do they want you know what do they want and how is it whatever happened in this world preventing them from getting it and what are they going to do that's your journey that's definitely one way to be able to approach I hope that I would only add that it becomes more complicated if you start to try to tell the story of someone's life and they're still alive and if you don't obtain their rights it becomes a very complicated matter because they might wind up painting the material and rescind the rights for you to tell their story you know I always err on the side of caution whenever you want to write about true life events there are some people who have done really incredible successful productions around the world I think of Narbaya by Yael Farver which took place in India and there's a lot of there's a lot of document documentation about that particular production I myself wrote a play based on a series of articles called Joanna Facing Forward that came out of Cleveland and that became something that that that kind of had an evolution from docudrama to my own investigation with the people involved in that in that particular series of events and then it became inspired by so you know it doesn't have to be one or the other but you find yourself at least with a little more artistic freedom and flexibility in terms of crafting the narrative that you want to have or or or sort of really utilizing your own voice when you are inspired by something but not using the exact people okay yeah it just gets really tricky unless you have a lot of money you can like you do whatever they want but but most people don't have that I don't except Hollywood okay thank you I think I'm unmuted hello yes can you hear me cool hi so I loved it like one of the first things you talked about was TYA because I'm a TYA artist as well and I love to write for young audiences and I have this play that I've been like thinking about and it's about you know this young girl and she interacts with some of these like icons and history and like for example like Celia Cruz you know and just like what this conversation between this young girl and Celia Cruz would be and so this question kind of goes along the lines of what you guys were talking about you know have you worked on a character that might have been adapted from someone in real life a celebrity you know dead or alive or what is that process kind of just expanding on this conversation I guess we're talking about no I I have to admit I have not um I uh and yet I mean I that's that's a really good question and um I I mean I would I would love to be would answer I don't know if follow up might be have a better answer but I have an opinion about those things but I mean I because I've never actually written about it I don't think that I would be as helpful um because I mean for me I feel like history is one of those things especially historical characters um and when I'm talking about historical it's like the stuff that I can get away with I'm going to bend history I mean I feel like it's I mean it's been bent by the stuff by the people who write history books why can't I do it I mean that's that's my job as a storyteller and that's what I'm going to do a lot do you have any opinions that might help I don't know if I if I have any sort of like opinions they might be a little dangerous as long as it's not that you know the main character I mean I'll give an example I'm adapting a book now and there's like a brief moment and I thought it'd be cool to include it and you know it's like an appearance with with Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland and they're showing up at this political protest which they did a lot in the 60s and 70s as a matter of fact like Jane Fonda performed for El Diato Camposino and there's this whole video that I can share with you all about that um the but but it's only like a cameo moment it's and it's meant to be like you know it's just a moment where they're like oh these people kind of showed up at this at this thing and but but it's not like you know it's not about them and it's not their story they're just there and it's sort of like fun in a way so I you know in some in some cases you can take some liberty there's also the the question of satire which is like a send-up or a a you know like buffoonery of you know like people in the current White House administration or as you know when Luis Valdes was writing his actos you know he lampooned Ronald Reagan and and other you know whitewash politicians you can you are protected legally to to kind of do send-ups just like you know artists at on saturday night live you can actually do that but if it's something that's really going to be specifically about someone and I know there are people who do like somebody wrote a whole musical uh based on who's the education secretary the one that we all like hate love the tune Betsy DeVos somebody did this whole musical about Betsy DeVos in hell and and and you know because it kind of falls in the parameters of satire you can kind of get away with that but I always kind of err instead of caution that if it's something that's really going to be of dramatic retelling someone's life that it's there's there's there's all kinds of steps to certain in terms of like you know it's really tricky you have to get permission either from them themselves or the family yeah I mean I just I just want to uh I'm sorry to cut this but I want to make sure they mention like I mean Chavez ravine by culture clash I mean that's definitely I think a yeah when you're thinking about parody and I think we might actually be joined by herbacy ones here I know we kind of run out of time but definitely I mean herbacy ones might even be a good resource in terms of talking about that is uh because I mean talking about the event of how Chavez ravine was eventually destroyed to be able this neighborhood to be able to create Dodger stadium right and definitely a historical event that some people might not know about definitely some some notable characters in there and so definitely I think an example hi can you hear me Jay Herbert hey headband yeah I'm glad you brought up Chavez ravine it's true we had a lot of that play talking to la gente the people that were from Chavez ravine that wasn't the problem it was the politicians that we talked to you know that were the problem also the the Dodger management you know because these are people that are trying to protect their legacies remember you know and they have lawyers and like you said earlier you know they want to write the history they want to leave it a certain way so the minute we contradicted their legacy that's when we got into trouble and um you know they were pressuring they were even pressuring the the mark taper forum to to censor our our play you know and we were not and we weren't exaggerating we were just you know talking about the other true history you know and so it gets very interesting that way yeah and and that plays available people can actually read that so I think it's definitely a good example for those who might want to even look oh I gotta plug myself June 1st right June 1st I'm gonna be teaching here I know and not official yet but we will be sending out of an announcement soon definitely super friend super amigos oh my god it's expanding yes as it should um cool uh any other any other questions we can feel do we have time I wanted to say bye done yeah one oh four I'm gonna give us five minute call we have one more from the chat from Henry I'm gonna go ahead and unmute you Henry so that you can ask it yourself hi hello Henry we can hear you okay so there's something I would like to adapt but I don't like the book but the situation that it ends on and would it yeah that's the thing the legality or I mean would I say it's inspired or I mean ooh that's a I mean I think if you're using the same characters but uh do you is that is that the only way to be able to tell the story like do you have to use those same characters to be able to tell like exactly what you're saying because if you if you don't have to well then then go then go the other way I think this book was wasn't that great but it has a really good ending and I think that if it started with the ending it could actually be something much more exciting to watch ah okay well that story would be much more better I mean in my opinion I mean I'm exactly working and I feel like I'm trashing it but you know it's like I would like to start at the very end and maybe like not bring other characters that were not really you know I mean ultimately you're still doing an adaptation if you're using the same characters because you're gonna expect people to be you're possibly going to expect people to be familiar with those characters maybe you're not but if you feel like you have to use these same characters that are from this book you're definitely depending on you know like I said I mean either either you're gonna have to try to get rights for it if or but if it's in public domain then obviously do whatever you want to do with it but yeah I mean you can use that as a jumping off point I mean I I mean I think some people definitely get inspired by that but because you're using these characters and you might even be referencing some of the storyline it's it's uh I mean legally depending on you know I mean a lot of times it depends on the writer depends on who the publisher is I mean everybody's trying to protect their legacy especially if they're live and um and so uh there's a lot of factors I mean that's it's that's why for me I always uh it's been a little it's been a lot easier whenever I have a partnership with the theater but I'm not saying that that's the only reason that's the only time that stops me from adapting because yeah I mean I I think it just is you're right I mean I think you can use the ending of a novel as a jumping off point but you're using somebody else's material somebody you know that that's been that you know that they work to create and um and you're taking it from there and so if you're expecting audiences especially if you're really going to connect it and you're expecting audiences to to be connected to it to this material that's already been established I mean you're adapting it somehow so you should definitely be able to make sure you get the rights for that um and then you know that's and and and it's it's always there's a negotiation because that writer's going to I guarantee you that that writer will be protective depending on who they are some might some might say you know what do what you need with it but some are very protective of uh of what they've written I mean if you think about it I mean I'm depending on how many years it took to write it I mean yeah it's going to go into this thing it's not easy I try to tell people try and stay away from the new stuff you know unless you've got a theater attached because there's going to be a lot I mean the new stuff is really protected the a lot of them the right the movie rights are already been sold which means the stage rights go along with it something most contracts and so unless you have a theater that's that's going to help you go navigate that you might need to find something else I mean if it's a historical event like like for example Chevesse ravine do I do I want to write a play about Chevesse ravine? sure will it be like culture classes version of Chevesse ravine? probably not it'll be something completely different but it's based on a historical event and you can tell that particular story a different way if it's if it's from the book itself and you have to I mean I think you have to reach out to the author but if it's about an event that the author pulled from that doesn't mean that you have to follow the the book in any kind of way so you know like there's like five adaptations of the Theranos thing that happened a couple years ago I don't know if you know anything about that the whole blood testing from a drop of blood thing that oh right anyway so you know there's like three or four adaptations like out there and like it's like it's it's insane a podcast the book it's just like you know people well you know you can adapt from from one particular event but it'll be from their perspective so it just depends on like the availability of like the you know the facts that you right you choose to write from so I don't know and your particular case I'm not sure go ahead oh no yeah I didn't I was just saying like I thought it was fiction like I mean in terms of fiction yeah but like historical events like yeah then you know you can play with them but if it's actually a fiction book then you're yeah you're you're definitely yeah oh is that Herbert's hand yes yeah um you did Herbert and we are we're getting close to time yeah I just yeah I want I'm glad we're on this subject because I just wanted to caution you guys about working with authors that are alive I like to adapt from dead authors because once you get into the live authors they have you know they don't understand our process as well either you know we uh Rick and I adapted a a novel from this friend of ours close friend of ours and everything was cool right but then when we when we put it out there it said the title of the play the play by Herbert Sirwenza and Rick Salinas right adapt adapted from the book so and so right well the author got really really uh upset with us because he wanted to be he wanted to he wanted credit as a playwright and we're going no no it doesn't work that way we did the play we we streamlined it we had you know we we did a lot of rearranging we added our own stuff you know what I'm saying and you know we gave you credit as the you know author of the novel but you cannot get credit as a playwright because you did not work you didn't do one iota on the play you know what I'm saying yeah we took some talk here and there but again there's he did not realize how many hours and how much you know intellectual you know property we had to put into the into the adaptation so you got to be really careful about that and make sure that all that is laid out ahead of time and so what he did you know what he did he took it away from us so we put all this work in a whole year and it ended up with no play because it was at an after from his novel yeah I mean I've had stuff taken away from me and and some of it had to do with the person who was involved I mean I was working with a the there the people who involved they they wanted to protect the property and so they wanted to be able to rewrite some of the play and so I was like no this this isn't a collaboration yeah you know and and but yeah and that happened so I'm glad you mentioned because that's that happens and that's why yeah let's work with the dead writers they're a lot easier thank you Herbert for that I think Thea are we at time yeah I think that brings us to time thank you thank you everyone thank you and like I said if you aren't if you weren't registered I if I don't have your email just feel free to send me an email I I mean really what am I going to do I mean I would love but I thank everyone for for participating thank you thank you Thea thank you how round thank you for everyone just taking schedule and coming yeah yeah happy 420 everyone smoke him if you got it yeah anyway I love this this was awesome thank you so much I hope you keep coming back and I hope all of you keep coming back because we have some really really awesome folks coming in next week we have Christina Quintana aka CQ she her show she's writing for a show called The Baker and the Beauty she's Cuban but grew up in New Orleans now lives in New York and she's they're really awesome so I hope hope you can make it thank you all right Thea all right thank you all so much we will see you next week same time same place