Another interview!

Although scriptwriting month is in it’s final day, we still have an amazing One-Act contest running as well as a few lose ends to tie up and complete the month. One of these is an insightful interview with *ninja-librarian, a deviant very much involved in the theatre arts.





Could you tell me a little bit about yourself?

I started writing fiction when I was 13. I'm 43 now, so you do the math. At 15 I was bitten by the acting bug and performed in plays all through high school. I got a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre at Eastern New Mexico University. I lived briefly in Los Angeles and Santa Fe in pursuit of my acting career, which can be described as being a tiny, blurry object in the background of some scenes in seven movies. Glamorous, isn’t it? I got a Master of Fine Arts in theatre at Texas Tech University and had hoped to become a university professor, but much time went by and no jobs were forthcoming. And the next thing you know, I had been working in libraries for six years and had another masters degree, this time in library and information sciences. That, in a meandering nutshell, is my artistic and educational life to date.


You state yourself on DA that you are a theatre nerd, could you perhaps elaborate?

I've read all 44 extant Greek plays. You can't get much nerdier than that.


What got you into writing plays?

I don't know. I had always written fictional prose. Then one day, 15 years ago, an idea for a play popped into my head. I didn't pursue it, but a couple of years later the local college where I was living at the time had a playwriting class, and I thought that would be something fun to pursue. The script ideas have been coming ever since.


What do you consider to be your biggest influences in scriptwriting?

While I have some playwrights whose work I love, I'm definitely not influenced by them as a writer. I would say that my influences are my work as an actor and director. I know what I want to see in a script as an actor and as a director, so that greatly influences my writing style. And of course, life influences me. You can't make up stuff like that!


Do you have a definitive approach to scriptwriting? If so what is it and how do you go about writing a script?

In some ways it depends on the type of script I'm writing. For instance, with my Tennessee Williams parodies I re-read the Williams’ plays and jotted down notes of what I specifically wanted to parody and what I wanted to keep of the original plotline. That gave me a basic outline which is how I like to write anyway. I like to have a general outline of the entire play and then start filling in details until I have at least an idea of what happens from scene to scene. Then I just start writing, trying to get from point A to point B of my outline. Help Wanted was a bit different because it was a collection of skits. With that one I kept writing down ideas for skits (always keep a notebook on you, kids!) and fleshed out the ones I thought were best. I kept doing that until I had enough for a full-length play.




Do you read other scripts at all? Which scriptwriters/playwrights do you enjoy reading the most?

I usually don't read plays for pure pleasure. That is, I don't pick up a play to read the way I pick up a paperback. I usually have some reason for reading the play, be it an audition for it or (in the past) for a class. But the playwrights I like the most are Christopher Durang, a great warped sense of humor. I love Arthur Miller. Neil Simon gets a lot of flak, but he knows how to write good, solid, funny plays. And of course Shakespeare. I'm about halfway through reading all of his. Besides great characterization, I love the way he uses language and meter to stage and direct the play.


Do you visit the theatre? What was the last thing you saw?

I love to go to the theatre! I'm usually only limited by finances when it comes to trying to see all local productions. The last thing I saw -- and how appropriate in the context of this theme -- was the world premiere of a brand new play called "Desert Devils" by Edward Crosby Wells. I saw a staged reading of this back in February, and it was a real pleasure to see it given a full production.


Do you have a personal favourite script that you have written? If it is online, could you link us to it?

No favorites. I like different ones for different reasons. All of my completed plays are in my gallery, but y'all might give some extra love to Ode To Tennessee and Home To Tennessee because they haven't had very many reads. < / end self-promotion >




You’ve had a few of your plays used in performance. Can you describe how it feels seeing your work performed?

As a comedy writer, I am rewarded with one of the greatest indicators of success that exists: laughter. To hear an audience laugh in all the right places is better than a million rave reviews because that laughter is immediate, it's visceral, uncensored, unfiltered. To give an example, I took on a lot of clichés about job interviews in "Help Wanted," and when I was sitting in the audience watching it, I could hear people giggle before the punch line or whisper the words before the actor said them, and that told me that I had hit on those universal themes that I was aiming for. That I had engaged those people watching on an emotional level. And that is very gratifying. In fact, "gratify" doesn't even begin to cover the feeling. There isn't a word that exists for how great that feels.


I know you also write in other forms aside from scriptwriting, what kind of things do you write?

Mostly fictional prose. Short stories. The ever popular unfinished novel. I have recently been writing more comedic first-person essays. I used to have more of that in my gallery, but I quit dA for a while and cleared out my gallery. I should probably finish putting all that stuff back in.


What advice would you give to anyone wanting to start scriptwriting?

First, learn about format. There are very specific things that you must do for a stage play and for a screenplay. If you don't properly format, your submissions will get rejected. So get a book that gives you the proper format or find a website or take a class. That said, the following has only to do with writing plays for the stage. I don't write screenplays; that's a whole other animal. But for stage plays, write the way people talk. We all have bad habits in conversation and that should be on the page. If the dialogue is all grammatically correct, it will not sound like natural conversation. Another thing, actors and directors pretty much hate specific stage directions and line readings. "Said angrily." When you read published plays, you get a lot of stage directions because usually they are publishing what was done in the world premiere. That's not realistic of what plays look like when they are submitted to a contest or a theatre. Sure, if you've got a scene that revolves around something that the actors must physically do, then include that. But in stage plays you shouldn't have big paragraphs describing the setting or what the character is thinking. You should have pretty much just dialogue. The rest should be left to the other artists' interpretation. And lastly, but certainly not least, get a copy of the Dramatists Sourcebook from the Theatre Communications Group. It is to playwrights what the Writer's Market is to poets and prose writers.


Is there anyone on DeviantArt whose scriptwriting has impressed you?

He doesn't seem to be active anymore, which is a shame, but ~barnabus is the best playwright that I've read here on dA.


Finally, do you have any future scripts planned?

I have a possible 10-minute play that I've started some writing on. And I have two other plays in the early outlining stage. I would like to complete at least ONE of these things by the end of the year, but we'll see how it goes. And as always, I'm continually trying to get previous plays produced. It's an ongoing process.


I’d like to thank *ninja-librarian for giving her time to do this interview. Don’t forget if you’re interested in writing a script to check out the One-Act contest.

Thank you

`Beccalicious