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    The Play's the Thing (and how to Write it)
    The Play's the Thing (and how to Write it)
    The Play's the Thing (and how to Write it)
    Ebook141 pages1 hour

    The Play's the Thing (and how to Write it)

    By Christina Hamlett

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    About this ebook

    Another openin'! Another show!

    And what could be more exciting than seeing your own name on the program as "Playwright."

    When it comes to taking your idea from page to stage, mastering the craft of dialogue and finding your characters the audience they deserve, this must-have guide has everything you need to know for building an applause-worthy script.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChristina Hamlett
    Release dateFeb 4, 2019
    ISBN9781386374626
    The Play's the Thing (and how to Write it)
    Author

    Christina Hamlett

    Former actress and theatre director Christina Hamlett is the author of 42 books, 174 stage plays, 5 optioned feature films, and squillions of articles and interviews that appear online and in trade publications worldwide. She is also a script consultant for stage and screen as well as a professional ghostwriter. For further information, visit her website at www.authorhamlett.com

    Read more from Christina Hamlett

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      Book preview

      The Play's the Thing (and how to Write it) - Christina Hamlett

      INTRODUCTION

      Once upon a long ago time, one of the requirements to earn a Girl Scout merit badge in Dramatics was to attend a full-length play and write a review about it. Since this was a subject of interest to half the girls in the troop, we were trundled off in our snappy green uniforms and matching berets to the nearest community theater by our scout leader and her assistant.

      Although the title of the play has faded from memory, the clarity hasn’t dimmed that it involved a magnificent Arabian castle, a beautiful princess, a handsome young sultan in disguise and a requisite villain determined to keep them apart. The director even came out to meet us and to ask if we’d like to come backstage after the show. Certainly, I thought, there’d be extra points to be had for getting a genuine behind-the-scenes tour and meeting the actors.

      Why, then, were the two moms in charge of us so adamantly opposed to the idea? It will ruin all the magic for you, they declared.

      How could this be even remotely possible, I wondered. I was already envisioning all the spectacular rooms the grand staircases must lead to and wanting to see all of the clothes the princess had in her closet. There had to have been a castle kitchen, too, and I was curious what kind of meals the characters were eating. The sultan-in-disguise made reference to the horse he had ridden across the desert. Was it black? Was it white? Was it munching on grass on the other side of an exterior wall?

      Seeing all of these amazing things was exactly what yours truly wanted to do, and I persuaded my fellow scouts to join me in a display of solidarity.

      Don’t say we didn’t warn you, the moms murmured as we happily followed the director behind the magic curtain.

      The first thing I noticed was that it was only the façade of a castle, not an entire building. It was canvas and plywood and braced from the back with 2x4s and lots of metal so it wouldn’t fall over. The staircases led to platforms with ladders so the actors could climb down to ground level after they exited. The full moon wasn’t really the moon but, rather, a bright disk hung from the ceiling that could be turned off with an ordinary wall switch. The sultan not only didn’t have dreamy blue eyes (it was intense turquoise eye shadow) but also had a bad complexion made worse by layers of pancake makeup. Nor was the princess a beauty with flowing blond locks—minus the wig she had discarded on her dressing table, her natural hair was short, flat and mousey brown.

      And the sultan’s magnificent horse? Believe me, I looked every place a horse could conceivably be sequestered and found nary a hoof print.

      Our scout leaders were looking smug when we finally rejoined them on the other side of the footlights. Had we learned a lesson about the fakery of illusion? My fellow scouts solemnly nodded, disappointed in what they had just seen.

      Not me.

      If theatre could create the kind of powerful magic to suspend belief and make people believe that everything was real, I knew at that moment this was the world I wanted to belong to when I grew up. Happily, that career dream came true in ways I would never have expected. It not only led to my acting and directing for 16 years but running my own touring theatre company—The Hamlett Players—as well. (And yes, Hamlett really is my last name.)

      Though my days of treading the boards have long gone the way of memory, the passion for playwriting is still very much alive. If that’s the sort of journey you, too, have been dreaming of pursuing, you’ve come to the right starting place. And if perchance you reach the end of the book and feel there’s anything I’ve left out, I invite you to send me an email via my website at www.authorhamlett.com. Having been blessed with so many wonderful mentors who showed me the ropes, I’m only too happy to encourage the dreams of aspiring playwrights worldwide.

      See you at the theater!

      ––––––––

      Christina Hamlett

      USING YOUR SENSES TO INSPIRE CREATIVITY

      For non-writers, one of the most mystifying things about the creative process is, ‘Where do ideas come from?" It’s as if they believe there’s a secret vault on a remote island somewhere which can only be accessed by savvy wordsmiths. Within this vault are all the ideas a writer would ever need in a lifetime to pen poems, songs, short stories, novels, plays, movie scripts, etc.

      I recall an older lady asking me one evening after a performance how I was able to come up with so many plots for my plays. I quipped that I subscribed to the Schenectady Idea Service for $5 a month and it sent me new material every 30 days. Yes, she said with a nod of satisfaction, "I figured it had to be something like that ..."

      In reality, ideas are not only all around us 24/7 but can be freely tapped by anyone who wants to use them. Let’s start with our own senses and see where the process can take us.

      *****

      My former mother-in-law was an avid collector of cookbooks. The best ones, she always said, were those that were written with such passion and clarity you can practically smell the flavors right off the page.

      Engaging a reader in that level of sensory connection is more than just an artful blend of savvy wordsmithing and sumptuous color photographs. It’s the author’s intimate knowledge of the culinary arts—the been there/done that expertise—which gives the recipes the authenticity a non-cook might find hard to articulate. Much of this is due to the fact that cooking is a skill set which actively engages all five senses—the texture of ingredients, the tantalizing aromas, the sound of the sizzle, the ability to distinguish sweet/sour/salty/bitter flavors, and the sight of an appealing meal.

      In contrast, what we’ve been taught since grade school about the craft of writing largely focuses on the stimuli we receive through our eyes and ears. Yes, we’re writing about what we know as a product of our observations and experiences, but how much more creativity could we unleash if we put the rest of our senses to the task?

      THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SMELL

      Memory and smell have long been intertwined, an imprint relationship starting at birth but diminishing as we age or if our olfactory receptors are impaired by disease. The brain’s ability to associate smells with particular emotions, events and people is why the faintest whiff of perfume, cookie dough or burnt rubber can immediately transport us to the past and trigger sharp memories of a lost love, Christmas at Grandma’s, or a car accident we were lucky to walk away from.

      In my own experience, for instance, I can’t smell cows without remembering every detail of the rainy afternoon our Girl Scout troop went on a field trip to a dairy farm. Yep, those wet Holsteins are still running around in my head ... despite the passage of over 50 years.

      Scents can also affect our mood without having any connection to the past. As an example, my imagination always conjures a late 1800s manor house library whenever I encounter someone smoking a Cavendish blend of vanilla pipe tobacco or wearing sandalwood aftershave.  Certain aromas of incense invite moonlit images of gypsy caravans, while new car smell, fresh cut lumber and hedgerows of star jasmine promote an inexplicable sense of optimism.

      Exercises

      What does your neighborhood smell like? Whether it’s a big city, suburbia or the countryside, take a half hour walk and breathe deeply, making note of the various aromas emanating from gardens, garbage, industrial sites, bodies of water, restaurants and the open windows of neighbors’ kitchens. Write a series of flash fiction stories in which each scent you’ve recorded is associated with a character or event.

      Follow that nose. With the exception of fresh seafood, coffee blends and certain fruit, you probably don’t pay much attention to supermarket smells. For this exercise, have a trusted friend blindfold you and walk you through the aisles of a grocery store. Each time a distinctive aroma hits your nostrils, use a mini-recorder to describe how the scent makes you feel. For the second part of this exercise, remove the blindfold and visit the aisles that sell packaged and canned goods as well as cleaning supplies. Assess whether the label designs and colors influence your expectations of what a product smells like (i.e., do you assume a detergent in a yellow box will smell like lemons). Create a series of advertising slogans in which scent is the key hook.

      Non-Scents. A lot of elements around you defy olfactory association. Colors, for instance. And emotions. And household appliances. Yet that’s exactly

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