Yesterday a play I wrote received a staged reading. Something to know about me is I’m a little bit shy. I write because I love it, but I also find it an easier and more enjoyable form of communication than talking. However, when working with dramatic writing forms, rather than short fiction or novels, there is a lot more collaboration.
There are people involved in the final product far beyond the playwright. Without a director, without actors, with a stage team, there’s just a lot of dialogue on paper. I like writing plays, but I don’t write them to be read. I write them to be seen. It’s such a gratifying experience to sit around a table and hear your words for the first time actually formed by real human beings. The voices in my head (however amusing they are) interpret the play only one way. But lines, like people, come in many different forms. The director and the actors all brought something of themselves, and thus something I alone could not create, to the piece. It was a collaboration that would not have been a success without every one of us.
The experience of seeing my work on the stage is so immediate. People aren’t going to amazon and writing a review after they’ve finished reading, I listened to the audience reactions to my story as it unfolded. It’s something completely unique to writing for performance I think. As scary as writing for the stage is for me, as much as it pushes me to work outside my comfort zone and participate with others, it’s a unique experience that I enjoy every time despite any nerves that follow me.