A colleague from Playwrights' Platform asked me to look over her new script the other day. She wanted me to take a part in a staged reading, which I won't be able to do, and to give her any thoughts I might have on the script.
This is work I love doing, even though it sometimes feels at times like pointing out a child's missing toes and teeth to a doting parent. Having acted, directed, produced, and written a ton of plays, I can usually visualize how a script will run, or stagger, in a production.
I printed out the script and read through it, scrawling huge, fierce circles around offending words and phrases. The ?? and !! marks mounted up in the margin. Then I went back over the script and wrote out an analysis (line-by-line comments, followed by notes on stagecraft, scriptcraft, character development, language, and logic), tearing it up in way that I hoped the author would find useful.
Great fun. And she says she is grateful, and exactly what we wanted, and that it will help immensely with the next draft.
But if she never, ever speaks to me again, we will know the real truth of it.
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