Re: RAT Response Desired

[ <cgr9456@garnet.acns.fsu.edu>]

Independent Eye,

You stand on the scariest precipice, but I say jump off.  To trust complete
strangers, possibly big idiots, with your work and have faith that they
will examine, experiment and involve themselves with the same committment
you have given is terrifying.

I wish more people would take the same risk you are about to in this second
volume.  And if more of us take this risk and listen to those who ride
along, think how far we could get.  So go to print, baby.

Cara Rosson
formerly of Annex Theatre, Seattle
currently at Florida State Univ.

>Friends-
>	I'd very much like some response to an idea that's involved in a
>new publication we're doing.  Briefly, it's a companion volume to our
>paperback RASH ACTS, which is a collection of 18 of our sketches over the
>years.  It's had good sales and a fair bit of production, especially in
>high schools, and so the new volume will be comprised of plays and sketches
>we've created specificially for performance by and for high school
>students.
>	Normally, when our plays are done by other companies, we're as
>sticky as anyone about making sure it's performed exactly as written.  Of
>course, it's quite possible to mangle a play beyond all recognition while
>playing the text word-perfect - like most everyone, we've won some, lost
>some.
>	But for this particular volume, we're considering something
>different.  The bottom line is that we're inviting amateur producers to
>make changes, as they will, in the texts.  We've discussed it at some
>length, and I'd like to run it past y'all for responses.  Is this basically
>a good idea?  Is it clear what we're saying, and the intent?  Are we going
>to regret it?  Is there a better way to say it?
>	I don't think our career or the future of Western theatre is going
>to stand or fall on this, but we're really interested in getting a broader
>perspective on this.  Copy is due Jan. 10th, so I'm a bit under the gun.
>Here's the first draft of the Preface.  All responses - pro, con, or
>sideways - will be welcomed and given a lot of consideration.
>Thanks-
>Conrad Bishop
>
>***
>
>PREFACE -
>	In our view, the best "Plays for Teens" have been written by
>Shakespeare, Moliere, Brecht, Ibsen, Chekhov, Euripides and hundreds of
>other playwrights over the past 2,500 years.  Adolescence is about
>discovery, and there's no richer landscape than what's contained in the
>world's dramatic literature.  The work of teenagers is not to learn to be
>teenagers, but how to be men and women.
>	So the plays and sketches included in this collection are far from
>being the "best" dramatic work for teens.  We offer these plays for a more
>circumscribed purpose:  to expand the repertoire of work that can be
>performed in regular high schools by and for students, not only in those
>rare schools with superlative theatre programs.  We also hope they can be
>seen as models of work that can be created within schools through
>collective methods.
>	All the work included here is a product of collective creation.
>The Independent Eye provided direction and final scripting, but each piece
>was strongly infused by the improvisations and impulses of many
>participating actors.  Sometimes a group was led in free-form
>improvisations around a scenario, leading to a script.  Sometimes a script
>evolved over a span of several years, with new cast members bringing
>transformational insights.  And always, the audiences taught us what the
>show was about.
>	In that spirit, we welcome experiment with the texts of these
>pieces.  The normal requirement in production agreements is to perform a
>play exactly as written, no line changes.  Usually, we too insist on that.
>But for these plays, we invite you to bring your own creative energies to
>the text as well as to the performance.
>	You may change lines to update colloquialisms.  You may add new
>character lines.  You may even improvise new scenes.  In those plays
>involving direct questions to the audience, you may find questions that are
>more provocative and relevant than those written here.
>	But you may make changes in the text only if you agree to three
>conditions:
>	1.  Don't change a single word unless you really feel you
>understand why it was written that way in the first place.
>	2.  Add elements only if they add truth to the piece, make the
>characters richer, or bring it closer to the understanding of your
>audience.
>	3.  If you make changes, send us a copy of the script.
>	Why should we offer this freedom?  After all, we've worked hard in
>crafting the plays, and they've been tested in performance.  We'd hardly
>relish the discovery that our work has been mangled - with our own
>permission - into some embarrassing shadow of itself.
>	But if these plays are to work for you, they'll work only because
>they're fully alive, because you've made it yours.  That doesn't mean you
>need to change lines; it does mean that you say a line because,
>collectively, you feel that that's the best way to say it.  An unexamined
>play isn't worth performing.
>	Of course, if you want to alter the whole intent of the work, e.g.
>adding a speech with some explicit moral or political twist  clearly
>counter to our aim, then you should write your own play.
>	But if there are questions in your mind about changes, or about
>interpretation in general, there's a proven magical technique.  Ask us.
>We're accessible by phone or by email and welcome inquiries from anyone
>who's dedicated to doing the best possible job.  For us, audiences are
>audiences, whether they're Off-Broadway or at Susquehannock High School.
>	One final word.  Because much of this work is comic, and because
>it's short, characters delineated with a few brush-strokes, it's easy for
>actors to fall into stereotype.  Always assume, though, that the characters
>are as smart as you are, and as human.  When someone reduces himself to
>stereotype, it's because real people do that.  If they persist in doing
>supremely stupid things, that makes them absurd or pathetic, but it doesn't
>make them less human.  Find their incongruities, their contradictions and
>inconsistencies.  That's the first step to loving them, which is the first
>step to playing them.
>- Conrad Bishop & Elizabeth Fuller
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>Visit The Independent Eye's website
>at <http://www.independenteye.org>.