Is it just me, or are these sessions getting to be more fun as we go along? Session #10 featured Jay Asher's script, "First Date." Asher's script portrays a first date between Christine, a transgendered woman, and Ralph, her suitor from an online dating site. It is witty and precise and poignant. It made me laugh, and think, and sit back in realization. It shows a directness that is rare between two people, and it was a wonderful script to workshop.
John Byrne and Cate Vincent read the script, and then we had a workshop session that went ten minutes long (!) but was a session where we got to talk about action on-stage, introducing some alleviation from the seriousness of the setting and discussion, and if there is value in keeping the cast to two characters or introducing a third (the waiter) on-stage to punch a point at the end.
The workshop session followed the format I have been using (see Session 5's blog entry) and I find myself struggling to come up with new angles for the workshop itself. If you have some new ideas for the workshopping, please post a comment back to this entry.
The session truly was a hoot, and I am finding myself falling in love with these sessions. There is something about the community that is building that keeps me coming back, wanting to hear new scripts and learning how to workshop them more clearly along the way.
Today at a conference, I heard Steven Covey speak about trust. It immediately hit me that workshopping ten-minute plays is all about trust. First, the authors trust the readers by sharing their characters and themes in a script. Next, we have to trust each other enough to read and workshop a script in a meaningful way. And lastly, we have to be willing to trust that the critique of the script is solid and worthy of the script's weight. If that isn't a trusting environment, I don't know what is!
Oh, and the ingredients are all coming together! Cate and Jay ended the session by talking about a potential production opportunity for Jay's script in Cate's production company in Devon, England. Now that's what this community is all about. Write. Workshop. Write Some More. Produce. Isn't it all about getting these works on stage?
My thanks to Jay, John and Cate for a great session. You can listen to the audio recording of the session.