2023 NEOMFA Playwrights Festival (Week Two)

Isaiah Betts, Amaya Kiyomi
Photo: Rob Wachala

What if you stage a terrifying and absurd fever dream and no one cares?

Well, that would be awful. And that was my fear: will this, does this, this dream I wrote on paper and which is currently having its first workshop performances at convergence-continuum this weekend, will anyone have anything to say about it … or will they just be confused?

Or worse – bored.

And to my relief the answer was no, they have not been bored, they do care, they may be a little confused, but that part is fine.

Isaiah Betts, James Rankin
Photo: Neil Sudhakaran

Scenes From a Night's Dream a big, colorful fantasia full of movement and beauty and horror, where audience members claimed they weren’t sure when it was or was not appropriate to laugh, but laugh they did, and so did I.

Speaking of a “fantasia” … during intermission Thursday night, Robert Hawkes recounted attending a revival of the Walt Disney classic Fantasia some fifty years ago, and noticing a young man sitting on his own who was obviously high. The guy was giggling almost uncontrollably at the film, and when the hippos in tutus appeared he blurted out, “My God! What will happen next?!” I was pleased with the comparison.

Samantha Cocco
Photo: Neil Sudhakaran

One audience member remarked that all of the adults in the first act were “absolutely unhelpful” while another observed how the subject of the dream eventually becomes an unhelpful adult himself. This is where the conversation was most important, to me, if or how the two acts respond to and reflect each other. And certainly, they do. But people wanted more of it.

Now, there are already a couple déjà vu moments which are played for comedy. The question is whether or not the rich stew of subconscious ego in the first act can inform the second, that what seemed abstract or random can actually be helpful or instructive. After Friday night’s discussion, I had dialogue ready to go which I was aching to feed to the actors, but that would have been inappropriate. Still, I have it and I will incorporate it into the new revision.

A'Rhyan Samford, Isaiah Betts
Photo: Neil Sudhakaran

Also, folks seem to agree with my sentiment that the True Crime Industrial Complex is bad. And that I should lean into that a little more.

Driving home, my seventeen year-old son spent the entire drive picking apart the entire script, I mean that in a good way. He talks about my work like it’s important, that I am a playwright with a style, and with substance. He said, “Your grasp of nonlinear storytelling never ceases to amaze me.”

Which brings us to the ending, the phone call. Is it redemptive? Is it appropriate? It depends on how you feel about the protagonist.

Tim Keo
Photo: Neil Sudhakaran

The boy, a musician, compared the phone call to an imperfect authentic cadence, which is a resolution, though not a conclusive one. He said my plays end where they should end, but that the audience is left feeling as though the characters will continue. This is my son saying these things.

So, that was my Masters Thesis. I have never written so many stage directions into a play, and my greatest concern was that the company would be able to successfully execute them, which they absolutely did, no question. It was fast-paced and dizzying and the audience was able to follow the entire thing. It was all right there on the page, and they made it happen. I am satisfied.

Scenes From a Night's Dream (inspiration)

We were in a hotel room and she was in a box and she would not come out.

"He is Bob, eager for fun.
He wears a smile, everybody run."
(Twin Peaks)

Had the opportunity to attend a run-through of Scenes From a Night's Dream on Thursday night. The first act is a dream, and by that I mean it takes place inside a dream. There are so many entrances and exits, it's dizzying. But it's delightful. It's also horrifying.

My wife sent me to the basement to rub toothpaste on a couple of fuses. I went to the basement, the light was out, but I knew there was a fluorescent light on a cord down there, so I hurried down the stairs and found the light. I could just see the old fuse box, way across the room. I could see other things, too, and that scared me so I fled back up the stairs as fast as I could go.

The subject of my dreams has been a major part of my waking life, especially in the past couple of years. Is that true for others? Or is that incredibly self-indulgent? Musing on random imaginings which make sense only to me.

It was so big inside my parents’ house. Their bedroom was massive, with flocked wallpaper and Trompe-l'œil ceiling. But there was terrible mold and water damage. I offered that anyone who needed a place to stay the night might live there.

"Mama! Papa!"
(In the Night Kitchen)

In the past several years, between the death of my mother and the pandemic, these amorphous journeys have loomed large, featuring undocumentable trends which are difficult to trace.

With my brother and his wife in a crumbling old house. I was lecturing them about not setting the spider webs on fire.

During the lockdown, my subconscious was out there, in the world that I was visiting with much less frequency. For the past year or so, interiors have played a strong role in my dream space. And while they can be grandly spacious they are also worn and aged.

There was this rap act. They had a demo that they tried to re-record but it wasn’t as good so they made a video from the demo. For some reason, I held this particular act in contempt and used an app on my phone to change the lettering on the marquee to read “Comedians Rap Now.”

My parents stately home is often a location I return to. They may or may not be there, and the rooms are not actually the rooms as they were, but physical manifestations of the emotions those rooms represented. 

A large school many kids, flooding. High water. Lots of snacks. A beautiful schoolroom. So many kids.

Source: Cleveland Clinic Foundation

Returning to these neglected rooms, I lamented not having sold my parents' house when it was still in good order. I woke relieved because I had actually sold it. I once held a great sense of responsibility to keep the place, but that would not have made me happy. And so my dream actually reminded me that I had made a good decision, which is a useful thing for a dream to do.

Tooling down a street in my old neighborhood, noting homes that had been torn down we missed the turning and drove into the cemetery, which appeared from the opposite end to be a packed theater house.

The first act of Scenes From a Night's Dream tells a story where nothing is real but everything is true. James plays a menacing character (actually, he does that in both acts) and the other night he told me he'd unlocked the entire play in one line. I was shocked because he was absolutely correct, but I was unaware of it. You'll have to come see the show to figure out what that line is. 

Different rooms, different spaces. A big event. I was dressed as a mime, but I had to go around. Part of the performance included a shadow play in which a ballerina got stuck but was rescued by a fox with the voice of Prince.

"Scenes From a Night's Dream" by David Hansen and directed by Cory Molner, closes out the NEOMFA Playwrights Festival at Convergence-Continuum, February 16, 17 & 18, 2023

Ten Theater Projects in 2022

"Here's To You, Mrs. Robinson" at Cleveland Public Theatre's Pandemonium
Sarah Blubaugh & James Alexander Rankin
Photo by Steve Wagner

Folks have asked, David! Why a degree in playwriting? Aren’t you already an accomplished, professional playwright?

No, the answer to that is no, I am not. I am a playwright with an obnoxious social media presence which might lead one to think I am successful, if they weren’t paying close attention.

The fact is, I have done lots of plays in the past, and they are good plays, but they are not great plays. One or two may be considered very good. And I have never had a production at a professional house. Apologies to all the theaters that have supported my work in the Cleveland area, no shade, but I would very much like to have a full production at an AEA house.

This year, however, I have had a large number of original pieces, generated through my graduate workshops and elsewhere, that have been workshopped or produced. It’s been a pretty remarkable year.

Hannah Woodside & Adam Harry
"The Ocean Breathes Salty"
(Convergence-Continuum, 2022)

1. The Ocean Breathes Salty (festival)

The year began with a ten minute play, as part of the NEOMFA Playwrights Festival, about miscommunication and loss, and that fucking bunny.

2. The Witches (workshop)

I learned so much through this process. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, and this was one of those moments. Let’s say my heart was in the right place, but I did learn to lean back a lot through this experience, and I like to think I managed it the best I could.

I like to think that it was this experience which was greatly influential on the very next script I would complete which brings us to:

3. Scenes From a Night’s Dream (reading)

Here’s the thing. I once wrote about what was important to me, personally. And I produced comic strips and short plays and full-length plays that told people what was important to a narrowly-focused straight, white man. These plays have always been, not surprisingly, more successful with straight white men than they were with people who do not identify that way.

Then, I chose to expand my point of view, and so began to write about people who were not like me. Some attempts were not successful, and in the case of The Witches (first drafted before the pandemic) I learned a great deal about that.

However, I have produced scripts in the past two years which I feel have worked because I do more listening than I used to. But I have failed, to date, to seek into myself for that which is within me that might be universal, relevant, and possibly dangerous. And where better to find what passes uncensored and honest than in a dream?

This will be my Masters thesis production at Convergence-Continuum in February, 2023.   

Falling

4. Falling (short film)

For my graduate level class in illness narratives, I created a short film that described the sudden decline of our mother, the text taken from my daily writings at that time. It’s not something I want to be made available for public viewing, but who knows? Maybe I’ll do something with the script one day.

5. Theater Camp

This summer we used my short plays as splash scenes for the middle and high school students to concentrate on, in addition to larger and longer pieces from Shakespeare. Some parents took offense to the “political” nature of some of the scenes, but if you think moral relativism humor is political, well, there’s not much I can do about that.

6. Forget About Me: The Breakfast Club Play (reading)

One of my recent works was tapped by the folks at Purple Rose Theatre for a Zoom reading, which was very exciting. People claim to be exhausted by Zoom but there were around one hundred fifty participants, which would be very impressive for a live reading! Their theater has a devoted following, and the company specializes in new works.

The cast, the director, the entire program was supportive, productive, and I hope I have the chance to work with them again some day in the future!

7. Here’s To You, Mrs. Robinson (Pandemonium)

It was a delight to return to Pandemonium, having previously provided a scene from The Witches, a work in progress at the time. I have a bad habit of submitting unhappy scenes to this event, which is supposed to be a party. I took great pleasure in presenting something which, while still entirely me, was funny, dirty, and transgressive.

Apparently the Dawson’s Creek joke went over like gangbusters during each of the three performances.

8. I Hate This: A Play Without the Baby (film)

This was a such a big deal. It had been a year and a half since principal photography, and to finally release the work to an audience was so important. It’s now being used by University Hospitals to educate teams of nurses and doctors about the effects of child loss on the parents, and I am so grateful for that.

After Roe

9. After Roe (reading)

The man said write a play that will change the world. I don’t know if I managed that, but I can say that so far this has been a remarkable experience, interviewing fifteen subjects and then braiding (there’s that word again) their stories together into what I believe is a compelling and important narrative. I will be submitting this piece far and wide in the coming weeks.

10. Metropolis (in progress)

Still in its formative stages, this is what I am currently working on. Using both the film and the novel as source material, to create a stage adaptation of the most inspirational science fiction film in history. If it makes any difference, H.G. Wells hated the movie, which relieves a certain amount of pressure.

Twenty Twenty-Three

I have notes.

Fifty-five was once the age of retirement and isn’t that just fucking hilarious.

The second half of this year has been one of health issues. In July my retina detached. In September I got Covid. In November I developed a bout of vertigo. At the same time I continue to run, to exercise. I try to keep moving.

Barring any last-minute surprises, in this new year I will receive my Masters Degree in Creative Writing. One of the benefits of no longer being on Twitter is that I don’t have to read snarky comments about creative writing programs. I will have a Masters degree and I like to think I earned it.

This winter my thesis production will be part of the NEOMFA Playwrights Festival held at Convergence-Continuum. The play is Scenes From a Night’s Dream, one of the deepest dives into my own subconscious that I have ever attempted to get on stage.

Apart from that, who knows? It’s all in my hands. Not only to promote existing work, but to keep creating. I will be working on a one-hour version of After Roe which absolutely deserves a stage in the new year.

We have a film adaptation of I Hate This, the fulfillment of a twenty-year wish, and I owe it to everyone involved to promote that, to get into before the eyes and ears of doctors and nurses and midwives not only across the country but around the world.

There are other opportunities in the air, and I look forward to sharing them if they come to fruition.

With age, and practice, my appreciation for my own work, and for the place it takes in the community of theater creators, is in what I believe is a very good, realistic, acceptable place. I am grateful to no longer be jealous, anxious, embittered. Did you know I felt those things? Perhaps you did. If so, I am sorry you had to see that.

Which is all to say that, in spite of the horrors of the present age (or my present age) I am determined to remain optimistic. I am further than I ever have been from being concerned about what my career as a writer will amount to. I always wanted to write. And writing is what I do.

Scenes From a Night's Dream: First Reading

dissociation n. the disconnection or separation of something from something else or the state of being disconnected. In psychiatry: separation of normally related mental processes, resulting in one group functioning independently from the rest, leading in extreme cases to disorders such as multiple personality.

No matter the project, be it for a writers group, as a commission, or the final project for one of MFA classes, I will hold a pre-reading reading with a cadre of close friends and colleagues to hear it in a safe space. Last fall that was in my living room, a year before that via Zoom. But it always happens.

Sunday night a delightful crew of friends (not an unsurprising amount either present or former actor-teachers) gathered on our patio, in perfect weather, to read Scenes From a Night’s Dream.

Random thoughts: Given all the messed up things that happen, some people were most upset by the dead goldfish. “The party downstairs” also set some on edge. The second act is too short (my opinion) which affords the opportunity to address some confusion as to what the company - "Morpheus" - actually does.

New rules: When holding a post-reading discussion (or in fact, the talkback following the workshop of a new work) the playwright must not answer any questions. You’ll never learn anything about how your play works if you do.

We started and I immediately got one question directed to me and I said, Oh. I’m not answering any questions. What followed was something like forty-five minutes of the assembled going over everything that had just happened.

The disconnect, the dissociation, the dream.

Last fall I mentioned how Mark Ravenhill was sharing 101 tips on playwriting over Twitter. That has developed into the 37 Plays podcast sponsored by the Royal Shakespeare Company where he interviews other playwrights and they discuss their own tips on writing. 

This week, writer and director Chinonyerem Odimba brought up Ravenhill’s Tip #12: There’s something cruel about constructing a play, putting characters in situations that are everything from awkward to very painful. Don’t shy from this cruelty but use it responsibly, explore all its ramifications and don’t use it cynically or for effect. 

This is a thing. I don’t normally indulge in cruelty in my plays. Or not since The Vampyres, anyway. And yet, I failed to provide any kind of content warning as we began reading. I immediately regretted that as we started reading. Sometimes people make light of or in fact scorn or ridicule such advance warning, but those people are children.

Now, I have a page of notes and an entire week to tweak the script before we read it in class. So glad!

UPDATE: A workshop of "Scenes From a Night's Dream" will be presented as part of the 2023 NEOMFA Playwrights Festival at Convergence-Continuum, February 16, 17 & 18, 2023.

End of Play (Week Two)

The reason working on these three different scripts is working is (I believe) because they are each a different kind of process, using a different part of my creativity.

One is purely generative, brand new. New characters, new ideas, new plot.

One is from original source material; a journal. I am not writing, so much as reshaping unedited thoughts into something more coherent and cohesive.

One is an existing piece which I am entirely retyping, and editing in chronological order based on my experience with having produced it as a workshop.

I can procrastinate working on one by working on another. Or doomscrolling Twitter.

The Wytches: Working in order, from beginning to end, retyping the entire script. Sections that need to be entirely rewritten I am skipping, and will come back to those. Not a surprise, they are all scenes that take place in the past.

Scenes From a Night’s Dream: I was very pleased when my professor mentioned Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls when discussing the new pages for this piece. The first act is a dream, it follows dream logic, but characters are introduced and something like change occurs for the protagonist.

The great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki was originally on the team that produced the film Little Nemo: Adventures In Slumberland, but was dissatisfied with the entire project. One of his main issues was that a dream is not real, and therefore holds no consequence, for anyone, including the dreamer. “A film that professes to be set in a dream world will only make the audience blank out.,” said Miyazaki

When I wrote a stage adaptation of Little Nemo for children, I took this challenge head on. There are three dream sequences (he wakes up twice in the night, it is, after all, Christmas Eve) and each time he learns something about himself and wakes with a fresh awareness.

The first act for my new work is also a dream, and then the audience is presented with a real world setting and situation, and they may be confused at first how the second act relates to the first. This is why Top Girls is relevant, as the first act is a coming together of women from throughout history for a luncheon. Only the host, the founder of a women’s employment agency, continues through the rest of the play, which is based in reality.

One revelation in the second act is, who is the dreamer? The actor who plays the boy (who for the moment I am calling Nemo) in the first act has not yet been seen. He will be, I promise. That doesn’t mean he is the dreamer.

Falling (new working title): I have transcribed those elements of the notebooks I kept while my mother lay dying which are relevant. They are written in present tense, as though they are diary entries from over the course of two months. Having set myself on this project, I am pleased so far that I was even able to do it. I had no idea what I would find in these notebooks. I was surprised by what was there. I was surprised by what was not there. My wife is looking it over, not only for style but also for errors. I want it to be accurate.

No, It was not easy to read these notebooks.

End of Play.® is an annual initiative, created by the Dramatists Guild, to incentivize the completion of new plays, scores, or songs over the period of one month.

Source: “Hayao Miyazaki's illusory US debut "Little Nemo" Withdrawal in the middle of planning, many encounters and "masterpieces" are born …” Magmix, 12/2/2021