"It's finished!"
-Scott
“Play Labs at The Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis is one of the most prestigious play development programs in the world. They keep their focus on the writer and the text. With the 2008 application deadline rapidly approaching (October 26) this is a good time to review some of the events that took place in 2007. The first is a transcript of my interview with Noel Raymond, co-artistic Managing Director of Pillsbury House Theater and the director in Play Labs 2007 of “Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been…” a fictional account of the dilemmas faced by Langston Hughes while writing a poem the night before appearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee written by Carlyle Brown.
Noel: And just sort of watch it from that perspective because that’s the other layer that you get in a reading, is to see whether or not the choices that you’ve made in an intense but fairly short rehearsal process leading up to it, to see whether they actually worked, to see whether the story is clear. You know, you can feel whether or not the audience is following the story and getting all the things that you laid in there in the rehearsal process or not.
Noel: Yes exactly. And especially in this, a big part of what we’ve been trying to do is figure out, Carlyle had this vision of a play with spoken text interacting with projected text, so the idea that the audience had to see and hear and read all at the same time and to see whether all of those things came together in a coherent narrative or whether it was distracting and disjointed and all that… So sitting in the audience for the first performance was all about did we achieve a coherent narrative, using all those elements?
Noel: Yeah, so that would have been tragic in this case because the information that he needed and the process was really about the play and the playwright was to see those things realized and to see how they interact with the spoken text.
Noel: A couple of things that watching it were clear to me that I saw that were choices that we had made that were unclear. For instance, when Langston tears the sheet of paper out of his typewriter he had been laying it on the top of the typewriter and then using the same sheet of paper the next time he has an impulse to write a line. When I was watching during the first performance what that said was he’s adding to the same sheet of paper. That’s not what we wanted to have happen. Ok, so I needed to think in between [performances] think of ok, what can we do staging wise to make sure that it’s clear that each one of those lines of poetry are coming separately and are fully realized in their separate way and it’s not until the end of the play that they accumulate and become a single poem… There weren’t huge numbers of things. Carlyle had a few changes that he made… We also added an actor because Carlyle had put himself in the show and then realized that because of the way he was staged he couldn’t see what was going on behind him and that’s not good when you’re the playwright trying to…
Noel: So we worked another actor in, but it wasn’t really about specific picky notes at this point. And the actors are all unbelievable and did a huge amount of work.
Noel: With very little time so there wasn’t much need to fine tune that. If we were putting this up we would get there.
Noel: And as long as we had the basic builds and enough nuance that the story unfolds as it should, then that’s what we’re going for.
Noel: I hope so. That’s up to Carlyle, it’s his play, still.
Noel: Not directly in this capacity but we’ve been friends for a long time and talk about theater all the time and have similar aesthetics and ideas about stuff.
Noel: Yeah, the dance of how do I say what I want to say, we don’t worry about that because we’ve already got that figured out.
Noel: I don’t give the credit to myself but I really like the piece. It’s beautiful, his idea about the projected text and spoken text and the images and all of that is a really fabulous idea. It’s really beautiful to watch it start to unfold and become itself. I was very pleased with it.
Noel: Thank you.
"It's finished!"
-Scott
I want to thank producing artistic director Polly Carl and her staff at the Playwrights’ Center and all the assembled team for supporting what has been a very successful and productive process during this 25th annual Play Labs festival. I have been around Play Labs for quite a number of years and there is always one project in the festival that is a literal pain in the butt. This year it was my turn and the Center graciously and generously honored every request. Because of the particular nature of the project, ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN…, where the projected texts of poems are like individual characters in themselves we needed a sych hung behind the black curtain, a scrim in front of that and 10 additional lights as well as an expanded creative team which included a lighting designer and a media design assistant. The Center even hired another actor at the last moment when I realized that I had foolishly put myself in the play when I really needed to see it. When a play takes shape in its aliveness it allows the writer to witness the distance between what has been imagined and what can be realized theatrically. This distance is critical to a writer’s learning and growth, to say nothing of it being part of a play’s necessary journey to a possible life in the theatre. Such opportunities are a blessing. My experience at the 2007 Play Labs was a blessing and more.
Thank you very much,
Carlyle Brown
ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN…
Hi Carlyle
I can make the changes tonight and send them to Jess, Tiffany, you and Noel so hopefully one of you will have the file tomorrow. All that need to be done would be for Noel to go over how and when she wants them to appear. I’m assuming the animation would just be for them to type across the screen like all the other stanzas of the poem. …I shouldn’t have any trouble getting it finished before tomorrow.
Taj
Hey Taj,
I’ve made some changes to the script, one related to power point. I realized that after I cut the 2nd stanza of the poem to make the transaction from two sections to one that I left out that section of the poem. I’ve decided to add the four lines of that section of the poem to be embedded within the four sections of Langston’s prepared statement.
Shawn Hamilton is available to step in as Frank Reeves. He will pick up the script today.
Sarah
Dear Carlyle,
Just wanted you to know that Polly has approved the request to find an actor… We’ll let you know when it’s all set up.
Rachel
Hey Sarah,
I just shot you a phone message, now I’m shooting you an e-mail. I want to ask you to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Sitting on stage last Wednesday night, in the back of my head, I kept saying to myself, “What the hell am I doing here? I should be watching the show”. I was a cheap actor in more ways than one, who kept the author from seeing his show… I wonder if we can get an actor for tomorrow’s pick-up rehearsal and reading.
Dear Donna,
Although it has taken me all day today to process it, last night went really great. I think we achieved all we wanted and more for this stage of the process. The audience followed along and was engaged in each part of the narrative (performance and text), they were responsive, warm, informed and touched. There were even times that I felt that they wanted to applaud certain moments, yet restrained themselves in respect for the moment, but the final applause was long and loud and appreciative. I couldn’t be happier. Congratulations to all of us.
In the meantime I think you and Faye are so right about the music accompanying the major poems of this “Jazz Poet”, and I’m so excited that you are excited about taking this on. And I look forward to talking to you about the images and the dust which I see in black & white and sepia tone, grainy, textured, rich in contrast, sparse and stark.
Carlyle
Dear Donna and Noel:
I have been thinking about this idea of timing as it relates to the actor speaking and imaging the words of the text and the text itself. I think perhaps we and more specifically me have been looking at it the wrong way. Whatever timing convention we come up with something is going to have to be fixed. Something must be the metronome of the action. Now, to me this metronome must be the poems themselves. In the interaction between the real world and the poetic reality of the play the poems take the lead. They are ultimately in charge of the real world narrative, yet they live in a reality all their own, they are like Gods, dispassionate and unmindful of the realities of the real world. The poems in a way and Georgia Dusk in particular are the central characters in the play. Therefore I think that each poem should appear in text as a thing of its own expressing itself and appearing to us in its own particular manner of expression, in beats and pauses, silences and rhythm. The poems are like music. The words as text are like notes on a music sheet. In this way I think the actor will be free to do whatever he does, improvising on the moment. Singing to the down beats of the poems…
Georgia Dust seems somehow another matter. A poem in the act of becoming, the actor typing in a typewriter text… This I think is about timing. We want the audience to “see” Georgia Dust as a character that struggles and grows to become an entity that has its own beats and pauses, silences and rhythm; and lives a life of its own. How do we do that? I have no idea. But I do have an old Royal typewriter. It doesn’t work, but you can push the keys.
As for the prose I think the simpler the better, they should be straight forward and all the same without calling attention to themselves other than words and sentences.
Carlyle
Dear Noel and Donna
I’ve made a small script change, but I think it is significant. It is in response to your idea Noel of making a transaction from part 1 to part 2, so that there is not intermission and the play runs as all of a piece. There are certainly problems to solve, including a set design that allows for a seamless and radical change of place, but the more I think about the theatrical possibilities if offers the more I like it. Not this change from the bottom of page 18 to page 20.
Donna, I got your e-mail about Taj joining us. Wow. Talk about above and beyond the call of duty. The only problem I’m concerned about here is the trouble and expense it may put you through. I’m therefore offering to put Taj as well as you with us. But please understand, while our place is clean and pleasant, it is on the Bohemian side, or a little bit funky as we say in New York.
Carlyle
Dear Noel and Carlyle:
Attached are a series of text slides we can use for blocking the text projections during next week’s rehearsals. …there are some additional alternative versions that show examples of other text treatments we may want to consider. These are just for timing and blocking and can be changed, deleted, or others added at any time.
If there is no problem with the idea, I would like (at no expense to Play Labs) to bring Taj Whiteshell with me. She could reformat or redesign text slides while we are working, and could stay through the 18th if it seems that would be helpful for the intervening rehearsals. I think she would be great support for the process.
Donna
I always wanted to do a piece about Langston Hughes and now these kind of things are going on in the government with the Home Security Act—all of the privacy issues that are current today—it made me feel like I wanted to delve into it.
Well, I am very bad at talking about process. I barely know. I feel in some ways that Langston Hughes visited me. But I am not so good at talking about this.
Well, what we want to find out—there are images in the text that are projected. One of the ideas of the piece is that the audience is a central character. They’re his readers. And just the timing and the effect of the work, the audience—what they have to do is read the text and see the poems as characters in themselves, as an entity beyond the writer, to see if it works on that level.
Well, yeah. One of the ideas of the play is that the work of a writer is an entity beyond the writer. It’s an entity in itself. That’s our theatrical experiment in this exercise. And that’s what we want to see in Playlabs. We’re having a designer join us, who is dealing with the text to reveal that aspect of the play.
We’re going to do a workshop production at Pillsbury House Theatre in December. In that workshop production we will put it on its feet.
Well, that’s what we’ll find out at Playlabs. Surely something will be revised. You know, I have a webpage. There is a section called “Development” where people can follow along to see how the play develops. (It’s probably a lot more articulate than I am.) And of course, I have collaborators now, who are now in many ways working quite independently to realize the show. And they’re quite brilliant people and they have brilliant ideas, and they’re all story tellers in they’re own right. Their job—led by Noel the director—is to try to realize the play (as much as they can in a staged reading) the way that I imagined it. I am really just waiting for that. They’re good artists and so far they’re quite successful. They have interesting ideas. One of the things that is really interesting is the vocabulary that they have, which is very much in sync with the kinds of things that the play wants to be.
How do I imagine it?
It’s a difficult question because a play is a thing that is moment by moment. A performance is like throwing a spool of thread out to the audience and the whole idea is to keep that thread taut throughout the evening. So, I see it in a lot of ways—in a lot of moment to moment ways. But is how I see it is in fact relevant? You know, you’re in a room by yourself writing a play, and suddenly you’re joined by a lot people who have they’re own subjective views, and they might be more right than I am. The audience is the ultimate arbiter. I’m kind of reserving my judgment.
Well, he’s sort of a preeminent example of an African American writer who was an activist writer and wrote about the social problems of black people. I think in many ways for many writers, he’s symbolic of the literary legacy we’ve inherited from him and people like him. He’s one of the key note writers for every African American writer, or any writer that writes material with social content. And also, his life is pretty symptomatic of a writer’s life. He had a hard time making money, and he always had to take commissions and grants. He lived through—aside from the catastrophic events concerning censorship and the McCarthy trial—the day to day grind of being a writer and your relationship to your readers and the kinds of questions that someone making a living as a writer has to grapple with. So, that’s what attracted me to him.
Yeah. There are the issues of freedom of speech, surveillance, and the government. The McCarthy trial was a witch hunt. Under the loose definition of communism, people lost their livelihood and were socially persecuted, for things which—well the play explains it a lot better than I can. I can’t find a better way to say it than the play says it. I’ve had readings of the play before, and the contemporary issues resonate with people. As you can see on the webpage, I’ve got some quotes from people who have mentioned particularly how these things relate to the here and now.
I had a reading at St. Mary’s College in Winona, Minnesota; at New Dramatists, in New York; and recently Miami University in Ohio, where I had a residency.
Late last year. The first full draft was completed on December 3rd.
No. I try not to repeat myself.
Yeah, I guess most of them tend to be historical.
You know, over the years, people have referred to me as a historian and a scholar because I do a lot of research for my pieces. That’s sort of a nom de guerre that I have inherited over the years because I have an interest in that kind of thing—history plays.
No. I am not a writer who’s wedded to style. I am mostly interested in what I’m trying to say—so I’m kind of a slut in that way. I’ll adapt any kind of style or format as long as it fits the story.
Yeah. Doing something new is always a way to charge up when you get up and write in the morning. It gives you a reason to keep interested. And someone said to me once that my interests were heavily into phenomenology. And yeah, I’d say that’s true. On my webpage I have an essay on playwriting, on the kinds of things that I think make theatre what is—the things that make it work.
Yeah. The kinds of things which the audience brings to the table. Unlike other forms of entertainment, the more immediate forms of entertainment, the theater requires the audience to do a certain amount of work. And that work is part of their investment. It’s a really ancient art form. And there are some really anthropomorphical reasons why people go to the theatre whether they’re conscious of it or not. And it goes back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors and the importance of story. That kind of function in the community is what interests me about theater. Emotional content is important. That palette of humanity that comes into the theater is what I try to work with in telling a story. So, you know, when you say history play, in that sense, history is a metaphor as we can see from the situations we’ve gotten ourselves into in this country that we don’t really look at history very much unless it resonates for us, unless it has some connection in the present moment. Like the HBO series Rome. I think that’s popular for a reason. It answers some questions that politicians can’t. It’s very reflective of things that are happening in the contemporary moment. So when you choose to write a history play, embedded in it must be something that pertains to the present moment.
Not at this point. I read plays in order to find out how other writers solve problems. I like a lot of writers, both from the past and my contemporaries. They’ve all shaped me in some way, but what that is I can’t say.
Noel
I’ll follow up regarding equipment etc. Just wanted to let you know that the power point is coming probably tomorrow… there’ll be 2 sets of slides to play with: one is jus straight text frames (white on black) to us for blocking in your mind: the second is a “fancy” set that offers you some options such as scrolling text, dissolving up and down, etc. We can use these through the rehearsal and performance, modifying as needed along the way.
Donna
Thanks Donna,
I have been talking to Mike (our lighting designer) and was able to make contact with the play labs tech coordinator Matt Dawson last week. Here’s where we are so far with the prep. Matt is fine with us doing whatever is necessary to give us the best options. I will pull a piece of scrim fabric today to hang somewhere with his help. He said it would be fine for Mike to add some light cues for us if it doesn’t interfere with the general plot. There is a black curtain against the back wall of the theatre and a white sync behind if we need it. Matt is looking to see if the Playwrights’ Center has a monitor option for in the building anywhere. I have a laptop and a projector. After looking at the schedule, I am going to ask if we can switch with another group so that we can be in the theatre space during all of the rehearsals that you are here for. I think our ability to experiment will be compromised in the other space. I think I have reached the limits of my technical knowledge at this point so I am sending you the contact info for Mike and Matt so that you can talk through specifics if necessary. I am getting really excited about working all this through.
Noel
Dear all
I am looking forward to seeing all of you soon and want to introduce you to Taj Whitesell who is working with me as a production assistant as we prepare for Play Labs. Please copy Taj on any and all communications from here on.
Today or tomorrow we are sending Noel a power point that contains text screens that we can use to experiment with timing and layout. These are of course place holders until actual scenic/media design takes place
Donna
Carlyle Brown & Company receives a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council grant for the workshop production of Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been…
Best,
Scott Donaldson
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Sketch by Scott Donaldson
“Bravo! The more I think about what I heard last night the more excited I get. What a great first act. The layers of tension that come from the ‘reality’ of his summons, the struggle with his own words, his awareness of how being black plays into all of it, and the just really primal struggle to create in the middle of such destruction… wow! I think you’ve created something really powerful and it will be great to see the whole.
“It’s clearly a good play --- something very playable and totally connected to the theatre and the wonderful thing an actor can do with a live audience--- theatre that knows its theatre and loves it. But it’s also a brilliant mix of poetry, image, story and emotion with just the right dose of humor (especially the ironic).
Very cool Carlyle”.
Bill
William J. Doan, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, School of Fine Arts
Professor of Theatre
Miami University
“I think the most moving moment for me was when Langston was talking about his relationship with his readers. How he seemed to fear losing them, how he needed them, but how they also needed him and people like him.
“Carlyle said it best, the HUAC committee has become the culture now. We police each other we watch each other (check out the neighborhood watch section under the Homeland Security Act). I think also, artists and just people still struggle with how to express themselves and how to live in a society that they don’t think accepts them as a self-actualized individual. I think Carlyle always uses his plays to discuss questions pertinent to a contemporary audience. That’s why I’m drawn to his work… That we look at something through a lens and still see ourselves.”
Amy Foster-munoz
Graduate student
Miami University
“I don’t know if I related the historical moment of Langston Hughes to be a particular current one, but yes, I think the pressures are still at work today. I agree with whoever brought up the notion in the talkback that this sort of discrimination and thought process has, in a sense, dispersed into the culture at large and now is much more difficult to pinpoint. Today it is more a degenerative disease rather than a sudden epidemic.”
Amy Peterson
Student
Miami University
Hi Carlyle, it's
kClare Kemock. Welcome back to Miami! I hope your trip was good and
that you're getting settled back in fine.
As part of Ann Elizabeth's American Studies class, me and two other
girls, Lanita Davis and Anne Towne, are facilitating the talkback
after your reading of "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been...". We
were hoping to do a little program to answer some questions the
audience has about the history of the HUAC and Langston Hughes. We
were also hoping to include a little bit about your process to avoid
it being a lengthy discussion in the talkback.
We were hoping to meet with you to get some information about all
this and to see if you had any ideas specifically for the talkback.
As a group, we meet at 1 pm on Wednesdays, but we are open to
working around your schedule. Can you let us know when is a good
time for you to meet with us?
I'm really looking forward to meeting with you, hearing your
reading, and working with this talkback. I think your play is
amazing; I like how it ties in with the process of creating--so many
great things at work here. I can't wait to hear you talk about it.
Thanks so much,
kClare Kemock
Dear Colleagues,
As we move forward towards Play Labs and on to a workshop production in December I’ve been trying to put on a producer hat and visualize how it will all come together. It strikes me that it would be useful to us if we all shared a central image for the play. Something literal and visceral, something that says that this is what the play is about. Something we can use for promotion and to coalesce our visions. For me that image is the image that earlier we communicated about regarding the ending image in the play which is the image of a man, Langston, standing next to the text of his poem.
Georgia Dusk
Sometimes there’s a wind in the Georgia dusk
That cries and cries and cries
Its lonely pity through the Georgia dusk
Veiling what the darkness hides
Sometimes there’s blood in the Georgia dusk
Left by a streak of sun
A crimson trickle in the Georgia dusk
Whose Blood? …Everyone’s
Sometimes a wind in the Georgia dusk
Scatters hate like seed
To sprout its bitter barriers
Where the sunsets bleed
Langston Hughes
Carlyle
mmmm… triggers many thoughts…including use of scrim and/or other technique that allow him to melt into words or vice versa.
Donna
Donna,
I had a thought about the ending of the play that I wanted to run by you as you move forward. I have this image in my mind of Langston standing there looking out at the audience as the finally finished poem is projected life size at the height of his body. He is standing next to the text and then lights fade out on Langston while the poem remains and then BLACK OUT. I guess what this is trying to say is that the art (if it’s good and we’re lucky) our lives the artists and remains eternal.
Carlyle
Carlyle,
My post Cincinnati Play House brain is starting to clear and begin to focus on your play now. I typically read and reread small portions, at a time, and then ruminate… and with the help of Carlyle Brown, Ozzie Davis, Ruby Dee, Gwendolyn Brooks et al. – Langston Hughes is everywhere in our household.
…I’m curious how you work and what help, if any, I can offer.
All best,
Doug Stein
Scenic Designer
ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN… selected for inclusion in the Minneapolis Playwrights’ Center’s 2007 PlayLabs Festival of new plays.
"The sense is of one's total usefulness. We all have a power of control, it's part of our lives: we have it in love, in work that we love doing. It's a sense of ecstasy, as simple as that. It always leaves you feeling great. In short, you've made sense of your life.
Carlyle:
What a beautiful play/poem, as the play so seamlessly glides into and out of the poetic reality. I’d love to assist in any way I can, schedules permitting, of course, but with some planning there should be no problem. I’m hearing and seeing things as I read this; can’t wait to discuss and learn what the process is. World’s colliding… isn’t it fun? We should find some time to talk. Are you on a deadline? Family starts coming in this weekend and a little tight leading up to and through that, but can certainly grab time for a call. Let me know what’s needed, and thank you for inviting me to play.
Donna Lawrence
Donna Lawrence Productions
Media Design
“Are Now Or Have You Ever Been…” accepted as a finalist at the Playwrights’ Center’s 2007 Play Labs Festival and Play Penn in Philadelphia.
Having just finished the first full draft of the play I sit here, try to be still and let it settle. And I suddenly realize that this play has been written as much for designers as it is for actors. And that it is as much a poem itself as it is a play.
This work will blend the syntax of theater with applications used in the museum field with its new focus on interactive environments and technologies. Through the presentation of a story of a man in crisis with projected text and images where the audiences not only sees a poem in process, but what are the costs to the writer to write it and how it emerges from the fabric of the writer’s life; and within this context explore the meaning of self expression and freedom of speech, and the dangers to those freedoms in social atmospheres of suspicion and distrust.
As with all artistic challenges, the challenge of telling a story with dialogue, projected text and images in a coherent montage of mixed media to create the emotional, unconscious and artistic landscape of this famous writer will force and compel me as an artist to discover new ways in making theatre a more interactive and lively art form, to test my ideas on a new canvas. As a writer telling the story of a writer I also see a door into some serious self-reflection on my own personal role as an artist in society. Langston Hughes as an African-America writer is part of a great literary legacy that I have been blessed to inherit. The tradition of literary activism is synonymous with African-American writing. It is important in these times when national security interests make broad demands on the personal freedoms of all Americans that we explore these issues in ways that initiate introspection and dialogue through provocative examinations of our times.
“Dear Charles:
I attended your stepfather’s reading! It was great! I now have to review Langston’s poetry and life. Your stepfather did a magnificent job… Thank you for inviting me.
Best Helga”
“… Your reading was great- I think the play will be incredible. It was good that you could come and do your reading before the final play is available. Did you get good feedback? Did the people you wanted to see get to see it, did they like it?
Deb”
