Writerly Advice from Lia Romeo

As we get ready to kick off the 32nd Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest & Festival, we reached out to our adult, professional playwrights to give us tidbits of information, insight, stories and ideas that we could share with our young playwrights who are currently working on a play or writing a play for the first time.

We're kicking off our series with a blog post from playwright, novelist and comic writer, Lia Romeo. To learn more about Lia, visit her website 


Writerly advice from Lia...

A couple of years ago, I was commissioned by HotCity Theatre (in St. Louis, MO) to write a play that had to do with social media in some way.  I ended up writing a play called Connected, which consists of several interrelated vignettes that focus on various types of social media: Facebook, YouTube, online dating sites, and role-playing games.  The play was developed at Playwrights Theatre in the Forum Reading Series in 2012, and ended up in HotCity’s 2013 season. 

Because of the social media theme, they came up with a marketing campaign which uses social media to expand the world of the play and (hopefully) get the audience interested before opening.  The director, Chuck Harper, and I worked together to choose five characters from the play, and then the actors who play those characters created Facebook profiles for them and began posting and interacting with one another as their characters.  The theatre sent out some marketing blasts explaining the project and telling audience members to friend the characters, and I acted as a sort of “show runner” for the project, sending out emails each week telling the characters the major events that would be “happening” in their lives that week.

The Facebook project existed independently of the world of the play, and wasn’t necessary in order to understand anything in it … some of the characters that were created on Facebook were fairly minor in the world of the play (one was actually an off-stage character who got mentioned but never appeared), while others were more significant.  One reporter who wrote a story about the project pointed out that it was a great acting exercise for the actors … they had to come up with a backstory, likes and dislikes, sometimes even last names for their characters, and it seemed like they had a lot of fun with it. 

For me, it was totally surreal the first morning I signed on to Facebook and, in between the usual baby pictures and reports of what my friends had eaten for breakfast, I saw a status update from a character I’d invented.  It really literalized the whole idea of having your characters “talk to you” – and it was  fun seeing the ways that the actors “fleshed out” (in a virtual sense) the characters I created. It reminded me of what I love most about theater, which is the collaborative aspect – the fact that we’re all working together to bring something to life. 

It also made me wonder whether this is a style of marketing that’s going to become more popular.  It’s already standard for theaters to have a social media presence, and for authors and playwrights to have blogs, websites, and so on.  It seems like it could be a natural extension for fictional characters to begin appearing on social media – and maybe it’s already happening more than I realize (just did a search for Katniss Everdeen on Facebook and she’s totally on there, three times).  As a writer, I’m naturally intrigued by the blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality, and I think those lines already get blurred by the ways that all of us present ourselves on the internet.  So it’s interesting to think about how far that blurring of lines might ultimately go.

Thoughts from the Artistic Director

As I type this, in the next room rehearsals on going on for the Madison Young Playwrights Festival which will be held this Saturday, March 17, 2012 from 1-4 pm. Reservations can be made by calling 973-514-1787 X34 and more information can be found at our website.

As promised, here are the program notes from John Pietrowski, Artistic Director.

If we have learned nothing else from these difficult times, I think we have remembered the need for, and value of, collaboration, compassion, listening, and creativity. So much of what we thought was true, so many of our assumptions about how the “world works,” have been altered, perhaps even torn apart. It has not been easy for many, and has sent many of us back to examine some basic values to see what we can find there.

For those who do ongoing work in the creative arts, or in any creative field for that matter, humbly questioning assumptions, lovingly tearing things apart, and lovingly putting them back together is an almost daily task that moves towards an unspoken goal of a connection with a spiritual self, a “better angel of our being” (to crib from Abraham Lincoln) that is almost always in a state of transcendence or renewal. What is happening in the world right now reflects what we are constantly doing with ourselves every time we create, unfortunately in the world there seems to be, in certain very loud and visible quarters, a lot less humility and a lot less love.

None of this process is mystical in the stereotypical sense of the word, and when you are working with the arts, there is that tangible product that must be made that grounds you. But it also tests you, and changes you, and ultimately becomes a reflection of who you are, who you were, and who you will be. It is life writ small and large all at once, and that magical moment on the stage, which Martin Esslin called the “Eternal Present,” wraps up all of the contradictions of being human into a package that we can study and admire. It is what we imagine existence to be, and if our imaginations are truly healthy, our daily lives, which are manifestations of our beliefs and imagined thoughts, will reflect that, and follow suit.

The theatre requires us to build a community of people who strive to really listen to each other, to compassionately collaborate to make a new world every time we set a piece of action into motion in a space. It is what we need right now. And this is why we need to honor these young writers who have taken a run at this and set yet one more positive and irreversible action into motion.

Thoughts from the Education Director of Playwrights Theatre

With the 26th Annual Madison Young Playwrights Festival just a few short days away, we are buzzing about with rehearsals, revisions and program printing. Here is what our Director of Education and Festival Director, Jim DeVivo, had to say in the program.

As I have listened to discussions about the state of education at home and across the nation, I have become aware of the great number of new (and “new”) concepts and programs that proclaim their potential success because they “put students first.” In my fifteen years in education, I have come to find that measuring success in student learning can be as varied as each individual student. While some of these programs have potential, rarely do they reference specific student needs, nor do they involve any student input. I am not certain that any one approach can be the great panacea for which we seem to be so desperately searching, especially if it does not truly put students in a primary position.

We have found through our creative arts programs that placing students at the center of the creative process can influence them in ways that provide for successful individual student learning in the present and beyond. In the role of playwright, students have the opportunity to exercise initiative, to make decisions, and to collaborate with professionals to create a piece of theatre. The act of collaboration alone is an essential skill for a students’ learning, but additional skills and knowledge and personal characteristics learned can be as varied as the students themselves can.

Over the years, some of our past young playwrights have shared their experiences with us immediately after the program’s conclusion and after having a few years to reflect on the program’s impact. Here is just a sampling of what some former young playwrights have to say:

· “(The actors) dedication to my work and their intellect with the piece brought my confidence back in a heartbeat… that's what this experience was all about: real actors taking my real work very seriously. This was invaluable to a young artist like myself. It made me feel like I wasn't just some kid who wrote some play about moody teenagers and their moody rings -- it made me feel like I was a real dramatic force that had something to say and they were there to cultivate that.”

· “But ultimately this wasn't an exercise in flattering a writer's ego. The experience truly helped me learn more about my script. After only one read-through, I was able to hear a myriad of new things: rhythm that didn't work and rhythm that did, lines that needed to be cut or added, plot points that remained unclear. Sometimes someone asked me a question, and I realized I couldn't answer because I had never thought about that aspect of the story before. After the performance, I began rewriting the script based on information I had gleaned from this process.”

Although these statements are from older students (one who was a young playwright both in elementary and high school), they are indicative of what we hear from students and parents regarding the impact that participation in this program can have on their personal and academic lives. Many students come away with a newfound confidence, critical inquiry skills, and curiosity that can prompt future learning. By putting their words, their voices, and their imaginations first, we create an opportunity for students to skills for life-long learning.

We congratulate each of the young playwrights who participated in the Madison Young Playwrights Program on their creative work and look forward to all the benefits that this experience will bring.

Check back tomorrow for Artistic Director, John Pietrowki's thoughts.

Calling All Young Writers

If you are a young writer, be sure to check out Script Frenzy's Young Writers Program. The adventure is writing pages of scripted material (screenplay, stage play, TV Script or comic book) between April 1 - 30, 2010. There is no cost to participate and every writer that reaches their page-count goal can celebrate knowing they completed the amazing journey of writing.

To find out more, visit their "How Script Frenzy Works for Young Scriptwriters in Ten Easy Steps" page.

More Fun Than Bowling

What could be more fun that bowling? Find out in 12 Miles West Production by Steven Dietz through June 7. 12 Miles West is in residence at Playwrights Theatre, 33 Green Village Road, Madison, NJ.

NJYP in the news

The New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival will be held at Kean University on Monday and Tuesday, May 19-20. Elizabeth Martin of The Neighbor News just did an article on two of the young playwrights, Salonee Shah and Lindsay Wang. Check it out!

Check out PlayPenn

Do you love seeing how a new play unfolds? Then check out PlayPenn in Philadelphia. This annual two-week conference hosts playwrights from around the nation to develop their plays in a collaborative workshop environment with directors, writers, dramaturgs and writers.

26th Annual NJ Young Playwrights Festival Winners Announced

Playwrights Theatre is pleased to announce the winners of the 26th Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest. From the nearly 370 plays submitted by young writers throughout the state, a panel of theatre professionals has selected four High School plays, four Junior High School plays and four Elementary Schools plays. The 26th Annual New Jersey Young Playwrights Contest Festival will be held on May 18 and May 19 as part of a partnership between Playwrights Theatre and Premiere Stages at Kean University.

The plays will be presented at the University Center's Little Theatre at Kean University on Monday, May 18 at 10am for the Elementary and Junior High Division winners and on Tuesday, May 19 at 10 am for the High School Division winners' plays. The readings will feature professional actors and directors and reservations can be made by calling Jim DeVivo at 973-514-1787 X14. Admission to the readings is free, but reservations are required, as seating is limited.