New plays: the thing
By Michael Graca
"I think that one of the things that makes a university great is the same thing that makes a city great," says New York City director and dramaturg Julie Balzer, "a dedication to promoting the arts and supporting artists."
Students enrolled in Assistant Professor Charlotte Meehan's advanced playwriting seminar at Wheaton this year are working on scripts with guidance from Balzer, who began a five-month engagement as an Evelyn Danzig Haas '39 Visiting Artist in November. She will follow the plays through into casting and rehearsals, working with the directors and actors as well as the playwrights. Her work will culminate in March with the debut of the students' plays at the college's New Plays Festival, a collaboration with the Theatre and English departments.
"It's incredibly rare to find this kind of dedication to new plays in New York City and at the big regional houses, let alone at a college specializing in undergraduate education," says Balzer, who is the artistic director of the new Milk Can Theatre Company in New York. "I'm thrilled that Wheaton is putting its money and resources behind the New Plays Festival."
Balzer's experience in staging plays includes the founding of Brown University's Shakespeare on the Green festival, which continues to grow in prominence. She also knows a few things about evaluating new plays. During a stint in the literary office of the acclaimed Trinity Repertory Theatre in Providence, R.I., Balzer's job was to read scripts submitted to the company--about 20 to 30 each week.
The New York City dramaturge sums up her approach to working with playwrights in three questions that she asks of students and professionals alike.
- What is this play about?
- "This first question seeks not a plot summary, but rather a sentence or two describing the essence (the theme) of the play. For example, Hamlet (to my mind) is about a young man struggling to reconcile who he wants to be with who he is.
- "You'd be amazed how difficult a question this is. Many playwrights -- even professionals -- have difficulty boiling their play down to one sentence or idea when it is in the early stages of development. They're too caught up in the details. Usually, it takes me about an hour on the telephone to help the student whittle their answer down to one sentence that gets at the heart of the play.
"Interestingly, playwrights often think they have written a play about one thing, when in fact it turns out the play is about something else entirely. It's like setting out to paint a picture of some cliffs and when you step back from the canvas, you realize that the ocean has taken over the painting. The cliffs are only there to complement the ocean. At that point, you have two choices. You can either work to bring the cliffs out, or you can go with the flow and focus on the ocean.
- "Playwriting is the same thing. Until the playwright knows what the play is about, it can't be edited. All rewrites and edits must buttress the play's central theme."
- What is the strongest part of your play and why?
- "This question can be answered in two ways. The playwright can either refer to an actual section (i.e., the ending) or an element (i.e., well-drawn characters, the concept, etc.).
- "This is an important question for several reasons. First of all, people can get very negative about their work. 'It's just a big mess.' It's important for each playwright to recognize what he/she did well.
- "Secondly, being able to judge one's own work is an important skill. If a playwright can't stand up for his/her own work, no one else will. When the play reaches later stages of production, an aggressive director/actor/producer/dramaturge will change the play and possibly dilute the power of the central theme that the playwright worked so hard to illuminate.
- "Finally, focusing on the strongest part of a play provides a means of engaging the playwright in a conversation.
- "Working on a play with a dramaturge can be a humbling experience. A dramaturge's job is to ask hard questions and pick apart the details. I want to make sure that each playwright has a strong 'thing' to grab hold of in order to center him/herself. There's always something good about a play, and it's important not to lose sight of that in the minutiae of editing."
- What are you having difficulty with and why? This question can be answered in the two ways suggested above.
- "Again, the playwright needs to be able to judge his/her own work. Moreover, it's where we begin the edits. We talk about why the playwright is having difficulty and trace the stated problem down to its root. For example, a playwright may hate the ending of his/her play. However, the root of the problem is in act one. In order for the ending to work, we have to go back and fix act one. A play is a chain of connected events. All decisions create ripples that must be addressed. Audiences will not accept plays that do not chase down the ripples and deal with them."
The objective, Balzer tells students, is to "match the play on the page with the play in your head."
The New Plays Festival at Wheaton will be staged in the Dorothy Littlefield Weber Theatre and run March 1 - 6.