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“I don’t want to write plays that are meant to be elitist. I think theatre is there to build a community,” said Theresa Rebeck to her own community of fans and Guild members who were thoroughly engaged and entertained by her “Conversation with…” appearance as part of the 2013 Dramatists Guild SoCal Symposium held February 16th at the Ebony Rep/Nate Holden Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles.
Gary Garrison Leading the Southern California DG Symposium
Theresa shared the secrets of her success to 70 or so Guild members in attendance as part of a day-long series of events.
“Everything is practice. If you write all the time, you’ll get great at it.”
She cited the book Outliers and its 10,000-Hour Rule, which states that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.
“And if you only practice writing for 7,000 hours? You’ll be pretty good.”
The theme of the day was “Recharge Your Creative Batteries,” and on hand to provide the juice were Gary Garrison, David Faux, Seth Cotterman and Amy VonVett from the New York Guild offices.
Gary opened the day with a Town Hall meeting, discussing the upcoming national conference in Chicago (I’m telling you now: MAKE PLANS TO BE THERE), and broke the news that the 2015 conference will be held…guess where?!?
He then followed up with his amazing 10-Minute Play seminar, which is a master class on story-writing. This is my fourth time hearing it, but Gary always makes it fresh. Nothing inspires me more to write.
Meanwhile, next door David Faux was sharing his considerable legal expertise in “A Jury of Your Fears,” which was a big hit with members like Zsa Zsa Gerchick and David Church who raved about his presentation.
Following lunch, we took a look at playwriting from a different perspective: the actor’s. Guild and Council member Charlayne Woodard (The Night Watcher) joined three-time Tony Award nominee Kevin Chamberlin (The Addams Family) for The Big D: Development, discussing what it’s like to work with playwrights and directors on creating characters from the page, workshopping, and developing new works.
Kevin said he’s drawn to new plays that use the conventions of theatre and are full of surprises, citing Alan Ayckbourn’s work.
I could see the writers in the audience scribbling a sage piece of advice that Woodard had picked up from Athol Fugard.
He instructed actors, “For the first four weeks of rehearsal, I am the expert. So don’t make any suggestions until you know more about your character than I do.”
The day concluded perfectly with Gary’s conversation with Theresa Rebeck, who made us laugh, made us think, and made us want to go home and practice writing.
[Photo caption: Gary Garrison Leading the Southern California DG Symposium]
ldharris@dramatistsguild.com