2 recurring Questions
playwrights ponder:
1) what's a "professional"?
The implication is that somebody got paid-- but who, and how much...
This is assuming that "professional" is a term of approbation and refers to merit. Not always. We know what people are called who perform sexual acts professionally. Sometimes "for love" is the category that gets the approbation and refers to merit.
As a playwright question, however, the question behind the question is probably: "Can I send my play that was done in a high school gym and sold 67 $8 tickets and nobody but the janitor got paid to a theatre whose guidelines say that only accept scripts that haven't been "professionally" produced?" And the answer to that is "probably"-- because guidelines mean what the person who wrote them think they
mean, not what "should be" meant according to the dictionary or legal definitions of the words.
2) Does a writer really want feedback? I particularly welcome things from actors like "I found it hard to just sit silent when Sue revealed she'd stolen the letter. I really wanted to cuss her out" and "I don't understand why my character isn't in the scene in the tavern. It seems to me he would be there-- he loves to party. I can see that if I have to double the cop, I can't be-- but why can't I be the the actor double the delivery man in scene 4, and have that other actor double the cop in the tavern scene?"
I don't want anyone to tell me what to write, but I'm very happy to hear solutions for problems I've failed to anticipate within whatI've written-- esp technical ones.
1) what's a "professional"?
The implication is that somebody got paid-- but who, and how much...
This is assuming that "professional" is a term of approbation and refers to merit. Not always. We know what people are called who perform sexual acts professionally. Sometimes "for love" is the category that gets the approbation and refers to merit.
As a playwright question, however, the question behind the question is probably: "Can I send my play that was done in a high school gym and sold 67 $8 tickets and nobody but the janitor got paid to a theatre whose guidelines say that only accept scripts that haven't been "professionally" produced?" And the answer to that is "probably"-- because guidelines mean what the person who wrote them think they
mean, not what "should be" meant according to the dictionary or legal definitions of the words.
2) Does a writer really want feedback? I particularly welcome things from actors like "I found it hard to just sit silent when Sue revealed she'd stolen the letter. I really wanted to cuss her out" and "I don't understand why my character isn't in the scene in the tavern. It seems to me he would be there-- he loves to party. I can see that if I have to double the cop, I can't be-- but why can't I be the the actor double the delivery man in scene 4, and have that other actor double the cop in the tavern scene?"
I don't want anyone to tell me what to write, but I'm very happy to hear solutions for problems I've failed to anticipate within whatI've written-- esp technical ones.
posted by G.L.Horton at 9:20 PM
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