Question about collaborative playwriting

They are NOT less acceptable. Your professor has an opinion, just like everyone else. It's SO not a sure thing. He should have stated 'in my opinion...'

Several years ago, I had the honor of attending the Directors Laboratory at Lincoln Center Theater in NYC. The topic we addressed that year was "How to bring new works to stage with the shrinking pre-opening rehearsal period" (then about 3 1/2 weeks). Most of the attending directors were decades younger than I am and most were directing plays written by the cast and crew of the play.

One of the more popular methods used was for each participant bring an object that had particular emotional content for them then tell the story of that object. Several stories are then selected and woven into a play. After the play begins to take form a playwright (sometimes a member of the group, sometimes an outsider - paid or not) would clean up the play and return a play ready for production.

I was surprised at how widespread this process was.

I'm currently writing a full length play - "Growing Up Catholic" - where I am the scribe but the story comes from many women who grew up in the Catholic school system.

I also know two playwrights who have had their work produced who are writing a play together by emailing the script back and forth - he ads his response to her last email and then she ads her response and so on.

I guess what I am saying is that there are a lot of ways to collaborate and there are probably more collaborations than you think. There are dozens of playwrights who work together - Milmore and Van Zandt, Michael and Susan Parker, and Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, Jamie Wooten who have written many, many popular plays. I am currently directing a play by McGillivray and Walter Zerlin.

I read well over one hundred plays a year looking for a half dozen plays for our theater to produce each year. Many of them are collaborations. I currently have a play called "Tracers" sitting on my desk. Tracers was written by the eight members of the original cast - all Vietnam Veterans.

Looking at the list above, except for "Tracers", they are ALL writers of comedies and farces. Maybe that tells you something.

Just some thoughts. My point is that there are more collaborations of playwrights than you think.

Doug B

Screen and stage ...

It would take a whole essay to discuss this matter, and I cannot invest that kind of time right now.

In short, though, I would agree with your professor. Unfortunately, all the nuance is missing from what he said. Your report is probably completely accurate, but the professor most likely did not say everything that he really felt.

First, all statements are generalities, not absolute truths.

Film is about producing a product. Scripts generally get rewritten and rewritten, usually with more than one writer. Film is about product. Some personal vision was probably in the mix originally, but it also probably did not survive the process.

Stage is an entirely different matter. That is where the individual artist can create his own vision. Will some changes be necessary? Probably, but they are in the hands of the author. Your play is not going to become the property of someone else who will proceed to change it.

My real question would be: If you are a writer, why cannot you write your own play? If you cannot do that, then you are just interested in product, a show. Nothing wrong with that, if it is what you want to do, but it is not art. Consensus always kills artistic vision.

I think that what Doug mentioned is a different situation from the kind of collaboration that I am talking about (and I am obviously not too keen on collaboration for the stage). If you take a collection of personal experiences and turn them into something with integrity, with a thematic vision, you are still the artist who is molding those experiences.

As I said, it would take a whole essay. I feel that, like your professor, I have given too absolute an answer, but it is the best that I can do right off the top of my head.

I have a very loose collaborative relationship with a writer/director friend of mine. He is, as Stephen King puts it, my Ideal Reader. When I write something (be it a play, a comic book, a short story, etc), he is the first person I send it too (and vise versa).

I recently wrote a play that he directed, he calls me up and goes "I've found that this scene works better if we extend the joke. Do you mind if I make the changes" later he said he had a former actor interested in a part, could he rewrite some of the lines and add some for this actor (he doesn't Children's theater, teaching children the basics of acting and theater, so it's hard for him to turn down actors. Plus he's a really nice guy). Because I trust him as a writer and director, I said "sure". I also sat in on many of the rehearsals (and co-directed parts of the show) so I had a feeling of what worked and what didn't and changes that needed to be made.

The idea was mine, I was the driving force, and I'm the sole credit bearer, but he certainly contributed to the process and I trusted him to do that because he knew my vision and wouldn't compromise it.

So my question would be, who is the pilot and who is the co-pilot? Do you have a shared vision? Do you trust your partner as a writer not to stray from the original vision?