RAT Response Desired

[The Independent Eye <bards@independenteye.org>]

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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