Thinking it would do me good to stretch my creative muscles in a different way, I signed up for an 8-week playwriting workshop this spring, taught by Paul Calandrino at Oregon Contemporary Theatre. Last time I tried to write a play, I was in high school. But I’ve read and seen and studied and taught a lot of plays in the meantime, in Spanish and in English, at OCT, in Portland, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, Spain. . . wherever I go, if I have the chance.
Well, yes: stretching. Paul gave us exercises, some straightforward, some perplexing, detailed. What if this? Add a that! Write something impossible to stage. Every one of them produced good results for someone in the class, though not always for me. The watchword, always, was supposed to be conflict, and my best result was an ever-crescendoing dialogue that made me more and more tense as I wrote it.
We finished with a showcase, when a gaggle of gifted local actors along with most of our classmates took on roles for a reading, one play/participant. We bribed our invited guests with pizza and had a nice turn out. And what a kick to see each play that much more alive than it had been around the seminar table, what a kick to hear an audience laugh at my jokes.
I come away with a short play I’m fairly pleased with, another I want to keep working on, and a couple of ideas I’m still thinking about, not sure where they might take me (or if they’ll take me anywhere at all). And I’m a little more limber.
Not bad for eight weeks. Our small class included a number of repeaters, and I understand why–I may be hooked.