Wednesday, September 23, 2009

I'm B-a-a-a-c-k!

Not sure for how long. Not sure if anyone ever even checks my blog anymore since it's been so long since I've posted. But the blog has been calling to me.

As usual, I have lots going on and lots I'd like to write about. I'll start with here...

God of Carnage & the Writers' Forum
So. I saw "God of Carnage" last night. It was good. It was fun. It was a little "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"-ish. But was it Best Play material? Well, I guess since there are about 3 straight plays on Broadway a year, the competition is not too tough, but, um, no.

It was flawed. Seriously, seriously flawed.

But here's where the Writers' Forum comes in. For almost 2 years, I've been a member of the Source Writers' Forum, a fantastic group of fantastic writers. Each week, someone brings in a play they've written or are writing and the group provides feedback. The feedback is consistently respectful, honest and insightful--quite a neat trick. I've learned alot. Some of what I learned is what enabled me to see the flaws in "God of Carnage" so clearly.

But.

"God of Carnage" is playing on Broadway. And winning Tonys.

So.

I guess what I'm learning (over and over again, but we'll get to that in another post) is that it's better to get your stuff out there than it is to get it perfect. Because it'll never be perfect.

The perfectionist in me does not like this. But I'm working on it.

3 comments:

Andrew Bellware said...

Did they forget to Save the Cat? ;-)

InGenius Festival - Voices from the Writers' Forum said...

Silly rabbit! Playwrights eschew (that's right, I said, "eschew," deal with it) the imposition of formal and stultifying structure! Forget that it's produced thousands of successful (and lucrative) movies! We prefer to cling to our creative freedom--which includes the freedom NOT to have an arc, NOT to have a story, NOT to let the audience in on what we're trying to say! (Note: Not specifically talking about "Carnage" here, just things I've witness in playdom in general.)

Andrew Bellware said...

Ha!

Yeah, you're right...