Playwright/Playwriting

Noticed this tonight on a wryly observed website called The Playgoer and wanted to share it:

Since the question has come up . . . let's clear up this playwright/playwriting confusion once and for all.

The term playwright bears this wonderful anachronistic notion of the dramatist as "handicraftsman." (Hence "wright" as in shipwright.) It's very much in the same vein as dramaturgy, which, as Michael Feingold once helpfully pointed out in a column, is an etymological cousin of metalurgy.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Playwright" dates from 1616--yes, the very year of Shakespeare's death. But it was his rival Ben Jonson who is credited with coining the term (or at least authoring its first extant appearance):


1616 B. JONSON Epigr. xlix, in Wks. I. 781 Play-wright me reades, and still my verses damnes, He sayes, I want the tongue of Epigrammes; I haue no salt: no bawdrie he doth meane. For wittie, in his language, is obscene. Play-wright, I loath to haue thy manners knowne In my chast booke: professe them in thine owne.
I'll leave it to the more adventurous antiquarians out there to unpack that.


Note the hyphenation. It also appears as such in OED's next historical example...

a1677 M. CLIFFORD Notes Dryden's Poems (1687) iv. 16 Wherein you may..thrive better, than at this damn'd Trade of a Play-wright
...where apparently this guy Clifford is telling Dryden to avoid the profession, even back then!

My off-the-cuff historical diagnosis is that we see here the growth of the theatre business in 17th century England, after such hitmakers as Shakespeare and Jonson proved one could make a profession out of poetry for the stage. Concurrently in this period you also will see dramatists referred to flat out as "poets," in Restoration prologues, for instance. ("Our poets," etc) But that fell by the wayside once plays turned pretty consistently to prose by 1800. And so "playwright" was all that was left, I guess. And so it remains.

Notice also how the hardwiring into the word of menial craftsmanship--as opposed to ethereal poetry and high art--coincides with that ol' anti-theatrical prejudice. While many a dramatist to this day would be proud to be deemed a good craftsman, they don't share that honor with would-be "novelwrights" and "symphonywrights." Come to think of it, "Dramatic Composer" doesn't sound all that bad, does it?

As for the verb form, "Playwriting" is totally legit since it's actually a different word, not "playwright" modified--that is, "writing plays" as opposed to being a "wright" of plays. OED does recognize "playwrighting" but only dates it from 1892--which is puzzling since "wright" as a verb seems to have gone out of style around...oh, 1616. "Playwriting" actually appears to predate "Playwrighting" which shows it's not some corruption. Maybe putting that hyphen back in would help: play-writing?


We also might be interested in reviving what Carlyle in 1831 termed the "playwrightess."

PDX = new plays for now people

The fabulous new publication PDXmagazine continues to champion the worthy cause of NEW PLAYS NOW in both its print and its virtual pages. Read all about it at:

http://www.pdxmagazine.com/pdxpo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=736&Itemid=7



I'm especially glad to see this article (by actor/writer Patrick Wohlmut) because, as the article points out, all the playwrights profiled are either current members of PlayGroup @ PCS or alumni of it. That's the ultracool Ebbe Roe Smith in the picture to the left, captured in his natural habitat by photographer by Amaren Colosi.

NICE.

Hey, it's all about me!

I mean: what’s a blog for if not megalomania? I’ve had a run of favorable press recently. First there was an interview in followspot, Portland’s leading theater blog, about PCS’s upcoming JAW Festival. Then there was a “hot seat” discussion in the July issue of PDXmagazine between myself and the glam Trisha Pancio Marketing Director at Artists Repertory Theatre and also President of the Portland Area Theatre Alliance) in which we opined about the future of Portland theater. And then too there are some new contributions to Lit Up!, an ongoing column on The Playwrights’ Center’s extremely informative website – a resource no playwright should be going without, by the way…..

…..so you see, it’s been a Festival of Dr Fun. And a nice boost of much-needed energy for me, as I veer recklessly into JAW mode……

One Night Only, One Night Only.....

What is the Many Hats Collaboration? As Alison Hallett described it in the Portland Mercury:

Many Hats is a theater company founded by three out-of-towners, women who have worked in New York and California, did time at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles, and came together in Portland in 2004 around an interest in iconoclastic, challenging theater.



This coming Monday, July 2, 2007, the fabulous performance Many Hats unveils Rest Room. This is a piece the company presented last year as a site-specific piece for PCS’s Just Add Water Festival (JAW), where it caused an immediate sensation. Because the play took place inside a tiny women’s restroom, only a cupful of people could be in the “theater” with the actors. But many more could watch from outside the facilities, thanks to a live video feed.

Rest Room ran six times during the portion of JAW known as You Are There (the site-specific anthology). Between performances, the video feed was left trained on the row of stalls inside the restroom, and it was amusing to watch the consternation of patrons who approached the monitor only to behold a series of toilets. Most hastened away, lest something take place they would rather not see.

Now Many Hats unveils a new version of the play on July 2 as a benefit for the company. The short piece explores issues of women and addiction in an intriguing and surprising way. This is a great opportunity to witness the work of one of Portland’s most inventive ensembles.

Catch it while you can. Five performances only, all on this one night, in the eternally twilight atmosphere of the Armory’s spacious women’s restroom on the Gallery level.

Times: 7:00pm, 7:30pm, 8:00pm, 8:30pm, 9:00pm
(the first two “seatings” are wait-listed at this writing)

Location: The Gerding Theater at the Armory
128 NW Eleventh Avenue (at Davis)

Suggested donation: $10

Reservations: 503.952.6646

See you there.

Oregon playwrights, check this out!

All right, so I'm bad. I've been so caught up with JAW preparations that I've neglected my own blog. And consequently I'm just now reminding you of an important deadline that happens to be, um......tomorrow.

June 29...yeah. This is the last day to submit an application to the fab people at Literary Arts for an Oregon Literary Fellowship in Drama. I'm appending all the details below, which I posted some time ago on PDXbackstage and on the PATA board, but I meant to put it here long ago. Just in case any one ever looks at this blog. Does anyone ever look at this blog?

Anyhow. If all this is news to you, not all is lost -- at least not if you happen to live in Portland OR, or nearby enough to walk your application in to the Literary Arts office.

Details below, and buona fortuna.


--------------------------------

I want to make sure you’re aware that a terrific opportunity awaits you, as an Oregon playwright, through the Oregon Literary Fellowships. Administered by Literary Arts, Fellowships are awarded to writers in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young readers literature -- and drama -- as well as to independent publishers.

Although the Fellowships for drama are awarded annually, the category gets relatively few submissions. Therefore I urge you to apply --the odds are good! Applying costs you nothing, and winning this distinction can bring you a little money and a lot of visibility.

Several aspects of the Drama Fellowship are different from previous years:

• The minimum amount for each Fellowship, Drama included, is now $2,500.

• Drama now has its own judge – a notable theater practitioner -- meaning that your script will be read by a real live theater person, rather than a literary figure from a different discipline.

• Drama means work written for the stage, but your submission does not have to be produced already.

Guidelines and applications are available at www.literary-arts.org, on the Oregon Literary Fellowships page, or by contacting Susan Denning at susan@literary-arts.org. But please note: applications are due in the Literary Arts office (not just postmarked) by 5:00 p.m., June 29.

Yes, that’s right. You have 10 scant days left to fill out your application and get it in to Literary Arts. But the application is E-Z, and now is a better time than ever to cast your bread upon the waters. So do it. Show our friends at Literary Arts that playwriting is alive and thriving here.

Best of luck,

Mead

!! The incomparable Adam Bock wins an Obie !!

Recently the talented and pulchritudinous Adam Bock was awarded a well-deserved Obie for playwriting, the occasion being his play The Thugs. The announcement made me whoop for joy, which scared my dog and made the neighbors look up at my office window -- I was that happy. Adam's a singular talent whose playwriting I've been reading since he was a slip of a lad at Brown University some years ago. And while I've always admired his work, over time he's honed what he's up to with putting performative work on the live stage, to the point he's achieved total heavyosity. He knows exaclty what he's doing. His scripts are perfect blueprints for actions whose meanings are only fully revealed in the doing of them.

Actors love Adam's work because he honors their instincts as observers of human nature. His language is staccato, abrupt, fragmented -- scavenged from orts of human language in which people speak in shorthand, assuming the rest of their commmuications are understood even when they're incompletely voiced.

And ALL RIGHT, I'm especially gladdened by Adam's distinction because we worked on The Thugs with him in 2005, during PCS's summer festival of new work, JAW. After a week of workshopping, we presented Adam's play as a rehearsed reading, and it generated tremendous excitment in the audience. That reading was directed by Rose Riordan's, who is PCS's Associate Artistic Director; she also directed the full production in the current PCS season, when we presented the play as a late night offering. So it feels good indeed to have our belief in Adam's work ratified by an Obie.

Outstanding! Congratulations, Adam.

Another kind of performance

Pink snow season has come and gone at last, alas, in Portland – that delirious and brief time when all the flowering fruit trees are doing their thing. Big luscious clouds of pink and white line the riverbanks, and a walk down the street means you and your dog come home with festooned with cherry blossoms.

Also at this time of year, people walk around sneezing their noses off.

Along with all the floral phenoms, another performance has been unfolding for months here. Someone tell me if this is happening all over the U.S. or just in Portland.

Like many cities founded in a pre-auto era, Portland streets have iron rings imbedded into the curbs, apparently meant to provide places to hitch up horses. Several months ago, someone started making use of these relics; small plastic horses began to appear all over town, tethered to the curb by means of a wire braid looped around those old iron rings.

Eventually it turned out the ubiquitous horses were largely the work of a lone installation artist. I saw her one day downtown, being video-documented while she “dedicated” a new tethering at the corner of 12th & Washington.

At least in my neighborhood of Irvington, she inspired a lot of copycats. Soon long-disused toy models started turning up on curbs. Especially well-represented were those spooky Sparklehorse creatures that had an inexplicable vogue some years back – you know, the Disneyesque equines, fully anthropomorphized with long eyelashes, demure smiles and spun fiberglass manes and tails. On one nearby block, Sparklehorses appeared clumped together in tiny herds, glowing and glinting at you in the dark with those unreadable Mona Lisa smiles….

But toy horses are not the only things participating in the city-wide show. I’ve spotted bears, rabbits — even a few dinosaurs. No Barbies, though. I guess shackling pert little blonde effigies to the curb is a step too far into the dark side even for Portlanders…..

Anyway. There’s an odd coda to our local Happening. A month or so ago, some counter-installation artist went around Irvington on an impressively thorough safari and busted the legs off every single toy! Probably s/he did this just to be a grinch, but you know: arguably, the action does provide the logical conclusion to the original artist’s (presumed) intent. If at first the little horses reminded us of bygone days here in Portland, maybe the vandal’s response reminds us of how car culture came to change the city – and not for the better.

As if in defiance of the spoilsport’s campaign, few people have removed the broken toys. Now the horses just lay there, legless and lonesome, their painted eyes still wide open but now looking just a little surprised.