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Telling Stories From Underneath Rather Than From Above with Daryl Lisa Fazio
108 Plays1 year ago
Long time collaborators Daryl and Amber talk about their relationship as playwright and dramaturg; the metaphor of playwright as a baby chicken held in a dramaturgs palm; how being an actor impacts the way Daryl creates her work; the ways moderation can serve the playwright; exploring storytelling through podcast, novel and theatre in non- traditional spaces; Both of their personal medical journeys and Daryl’s developing story of women in medicine and women doctors with Autism; developing a deeper audience understanding of new plays and play development; the sacred energetic connection that happens between humans in live spaces; and a shout out to NPX (newplayexchange.org).
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Transcript
Introduction to Table Work Podcast
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Thank you for tuning into Table Work. My name is Amber Bradshaw, and I am a new play dramaturg arts administrator and educator. On this podcast, I chat with theater makers about the art of new play dramaturgy. Our mission is to demystify the process of creation and collaboration, explore ways to better our field,
00:00:27
Speaker
share tools to diversify and improve the work and record what we discover.
Role at Working Tidal Playwrights
00:00:32
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by Working Tidal Playwrights, a new play incubator and service organization based in Atlanta, Georgia, in which I serve as the managing artistic director. For more about Working Tidal Playwrights and me, check out www.workingtidalplaywrights.com. You still do also need to get out and be with people and experience them.
00:00:55
Speaker
Yes. There's so much richness there and so much frailty and beauty and all of the, you know, we want to focus on the ugly and the disconnect. And when you get out there, you realize there's really much more of the opposite of that.
Guest Introduction: Darryl Lisa Fazio
00:01:12
Speaker
I'd like to start by introducing y'all to our guests today, Darryl Lisa Fazio.
00:01:17
Speaker
Thank you so much for being here, Darryl. Thank you for having me. So Darryl is a playwright, actor, and graphic designer for theater based in Atlanta. Her plays and musicals have been produced off Broadway internationally and in regional theaters from Southwest Florida to Bangor, Maine. She's developed work in professional theaters around Atlanta, as well as the Barter Theater, Florida Rep, and the Contemporary American Theater Festival.
00:01:43
Speaker
Daryl recently self-produced and released her novel manuscript as a serial podcast called Pearl River Remains and also just finished the first draft of a new play called Calm Down, which she intends to self-produce in non-traditional spaces. She studied acting at Northwestern University and has an MFA in graphic design from the University of Memphis.
00:02:04
Speaker
For more about Daryl, check out daralsplays.com or NPX, also known as the New Play Exchange. So, Daryl, you and I met in 2010, right? Yeah, that's right. And I have to say, you will always have a special place in my heart because you are the first playwright I worked with one-on-one as a dramaturge. I really consider you my first dramaturge, dramaturgical experience as a playwright, I guess. So we're equal.
00:02:33
Speaker
That's a great honor. I'm glad you're still writing.
00:02:37
Speaker
And you're still dramaturging, so you also did something right. I guess you did. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'd say you taught me a lot about establishing a relationship because I remember you asking me just a bunch of questions, you know. You were just so eager to learn who I was and what I was into and how I do dramaturgy. And I really hope that every playwright would be as inquisitive about dramaturgs and collaborators.
00:03:05
Speaker
because we should choose our work wisely, right? And we should choose the collaborators that we work with wisely as well.
Importance of Playwright-Dramaturg Relationships
00:03:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a relationship. It's a relationship with the play. It's a relationship with the other person. And you want to make sure, I mean, especially if you're writing about sensitive topics or things that are regionally specific, you want to know if this other person is going to get it.
00:03:34
Speaker
Are we going to really jive together with this play and this message and these characters and where it is? Have you had some experiences in this part of the country or with these kinds of people? Are you a feminist?
00:03:52
Speaker
I think, you know, it's so funny. You remember me asking a lot of questions and I guess I, you know, I like to say whenever I meet new people, I always have lots of questions because I'm just interested in people and who they are and where they come from.
00:04:05
Speaker
But I think unconsciously, maybe I was interviewing you a little bit because I didn't know what I was getting into. Like, what is this? What are we doing? What's a dramaturg? And similarly, every dramaturg I work with helps me, you help me on that project sort of hone in on my voice and force me to make stronger choices.
00:04:31
Speaker
And out of the stronger choices, you know, there's more potential for failure, but also more potential for works that are life altering, both for the writer and for the people experiencing them. You know, they just become so much more daring and they become so much more like an extension of the playwright's curiosity and the playwright's view of the world.
00:05:00
Speaker
And I think dramaturg sort of give you...
00:05:04
Speaker
when there's that good relationship, they're like, I am here to support you in these discoveries, not to smack you down every time you start to do something that's a little bit, you know, off the beaten path, or maybe off the track you thought you were on here to say, Hey, yeah, there's something there. And that's scary, isn't it? But I'm here to support you. And I'm going to make sure, you know, if you fall down that I can pick you up. And that gives
00:05:31
Speaker
Dramaturgs who've been that for me in the room have really helped me become a better writer, a more confident writer. And then you really helped me find the danger of the play and really create this constant sense of things being on the precipice, which it had really lacked. And that's something I've taken into every play I've written since then.
Balancing Safety and Risk in Art
00:05:55
Speaker
whether consciously or unconsciously. And, you know, we always say safety, you know, that's not where great art gets made, but you need a little safety. Yeah. You gotta start there so you can get risky. You have to have dramaturg's hold. I always think of like the metaphor for me, for some reason, it's become like a dramaturg's hand. And then the playwright is a little fluffy baby chicken. And the dramaturg is putting a little chicken on the head and then the chicken gets bigger and bigger until it can kind of fly.
00:06:26
Speaker
Whereas the director might be sort of smacking the chicken down a little bit with the dramaturgs there to be like, hey, it's all right. You're gonna grow into a hen one of these days and you're gonna leave all these people at the dust. Yes, much of our work is supporting whatever the playwright is going through and letting them know that
00:06:54
Speaker
that we're here. They don't have to do it alone. Right. It's not just the play. It's the person. Yeah. Yeah. You are also an actor and performer. Right. Right. And you perform in a lot of your own work. And I love this about about you. And I think it it's a it's an important part of your artistic artistic identity.
00:07:19
Speaker
How do you feel that the playwright and the actor converge for you? Besides the obvious, you know, when you're writing the play and you're in it. But what does that do for you from a process perspective? Yeah, I'm always trying to make choices that
00:07:38
Speaker
give clear beats, clear pileups, stage directions that really get inside the head of the characters and have a voice that is just as distinctive as the characters themselves. To help the actors, because I know what it feels like to read those words on a page, just drop in. And to have all the clues be there on the page as far as how do I get from point A to point B.
00:08:06
Speaker
or what the director's always asking, what do you want as a character? What's your objective? So writing from character first, I'm sure that comes from being an actor. And if the character is there first, and the things that they do all are informed by all those weird juxtapositions and opposites that are sort of simmering inside of us at all times,
00:08:34
Speaker
then that's where things get really juicy and complicated and messy, yet they still make sense. So, you know, it's all human nature. I'm fascinated by human nature. I would say, I think actors and playwrights are in some ways best served by being students of life and not students of other plays and other
Theater Constraints and Creative Breakthroughs
00:08:56
Speaker
actors' work. Watch the real life, watch the real people, see who they are, see what they do.
00:09:04
Speaker
influences necessary and important and impossible to avoid. Sure. And I think, you know, we do need some awareness of
00:09:15
Speaker
how things are going in the real world with theater, because you can envision something, a creative way to solve a problem that's going to cost $20 million. Oh, yeah. For sure. What did somebody else do with this? Because they may have done it better. Let's not be the first. Yeah. Agreed. And when I was a teacher, I used to teach graphic design to college kids.
00:09:39
Speaker
I always saw how parameters could help them see solutions that wouldn't have been readily available if they just had a wide open space and zero parameters. It's like, okay, well, this is going to push me in a direction that
00:09:57
Speaker
I wouldn't have been pushed otherwise. So sometimes what we consider limitations of the theater or a budget or space can also open up these doors, these wonderful solutions that never would have happened. Had you not known that the theater only seats 35 people and there's a train that goes by every 20 minutes and
00:10:17
Speaker
Yeah, whatever that is, it seems impossible to overcome. And the next thing you know, you've worked the train into the play and you know, you've decided to plant the actors within the audience because there's not enough space and it becomes this wonderful living breathing thing. So, you know, all of those things are necessary, but I am a big believer in
00:10:38
Speaker
being, yes, an observer, a participator, is that a word? Yeah, I think it's a participant. A participant. I just use words for a living, and so do you know that I made up a word just now. Shakespeare made up words. Yeah, definitely. But I think
00:11:01
Speaker
And that's something I'm thinking a lot about these days because we've all sort of become hobbits in our little hobbit holes from COVID. And people, even you said this to me, you're like, I realize I'm actually not an extrovert. I'm an introvert. I like being at home by myself. A lot of people have realized that. Now I already knew that. And I was already practicing that lifestyle. You had many playwrights. So it can become difficult to get out
00:11:28
Speaker
into the people and see them. And so sometimes I'm like, oh, you're watching too many documentaries or
Real-Life Interaction vs. Digital Consumption
00:11:37
Speaker
you're watching too many interviews on YouTube with real people. That's fine, but you still do also need to get out and be with people and experience them. There's so much richness there and so much frailty and beauty in all of the, you know, we want to focus on the ugly and the disconnect and
00:11:58
Speaker
When you get out there, you realize there's really much more of the opposite of that. I know, right? Yeah. I think sometimes I'm like, well, I can be with people and not have to talk to them. I can go to yoga class. I can go to dance class. I can go see a play. I can and I can do all those things alone, you know, and and I can be with people and experience their energy. And and that is
00:12:23
Speaker
just as important for me. So yeah, I completely agree with you. And I think it's being an introvert means you have to get a little bit creative about how you do that, but I think it's possible, you know? And I definitely did discover that during the pandemic and was very grateful for it because I think I now understand myself better so that I can set better boundaries for myself, you know? Yes. Which I think as artists, we really need to know
00:12:53
Speaker
what we need in a process so that we can let people know. Sometimes the system just needs to be paused, right? Like the thing you've created needs to be paused so you can take a break and return to it. That's why I love those developmental workshops that are the day on, day off, like you do with the Wilson.
00:13:14
Speaker
because I've been in them also where it's just five straight days. And the rewrites that I have to do have to happen like late at night and then first thing in the morning and then you show up to rehearsal and you're completely wasted and spent. But still needing to do more work. And that's when also your dramaturg becomes your ears when you maybe have lost the power to listen or receive. Anything else? Another effing word.
00:13:44
Speaker
So true. And you know, the Ethel Wilson lab is it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, right? So the writer gets to work Tuesday, Thursday without rehearsal. And that was based on responses from playwrights. Yeah. Right. So we set it up that way. And often by Sunday, when we do the reading and we have moderated talk back at the end,
00:14:05
Speaker
you know, sometimes all we need to hear are good things by then. Right. Because you are running on the whole week. Yeah. The team has been sharing with the playwright and the playwright has been revising. And so it does end up sometimes that all we need are things that resonate and questions. And we leave out the distractions and the confusions. Right. Which is a playwright knows what they are anyway. Exactly. Sitting and getting to watch it from start to finish. Like, oh, damn.
00:14:35
Speaker
I broke this play. I broke this play worse. Like in this week, it was necessary and it's going to get me to this awesome place in the next draft. But right now this is bad or this is painful or this I took this off in a direction that was not where I needed to head.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah, and then you don't need a one damn person telling you to not talk back what it is you need to, you know, it's that tone people get. Yeah, it's just like, no, the glaze, I'm glazed over. I know my ears are, they are not capable of hearing and longer. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah.
00:15:19
Speaker
That comes with a lot of time and experience in those processes, understanding yourself and knowing when you need to say to someone who's guiding that workshop, this is what I need or don't need. And it's okay to say that. It's okay to say, I don't need any negativity right now.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah. I can't handle it anymore. Exactly. And I used to think, oh, if I can't handle it, then I'm not up to the challenge. You know, I need to just go find something else to do. And it's just not true. No. It's just not true. We did a lab recently where we didn't have a talk back.
00:15:58
Speaker
And it's probably been a while since we did that, but I think that if the playwright feels like they don't want it or don't need it, then I think that it's important to trust the playwright's intuition. That's great. Well, because part of what we are doing as an incubator and service organization is encouraging playwrights to trust their intuition. So if we don't trust them, then how can they trust themselves?
00:16:23
Speaker
just giving them the options and a voice to say yes or no I think is really important and even like if they they could be like oh no let's do it you know just having that having you ask them and giving them the choice not to have the talk back maybe is enough you know to say no I think I can I can do it I want to do it but but thank you for giving me an out yeah
00:16:52
Speaker
And I also just want to note, I know a lot of people don't even do talkbacks because they can be a bit of a disaster. And I think that talkbacks need experienced moderators, rules of engagement, and a discussion with the playwright beforehand about what is needed. Thousand percent. Without those things, no, there should not be a talkback.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yes, I've had some horrible, horrible, horrible ones where nothing was accomplished. Yeah. And already have the building blocks put in place for any of those. Right. And so a lot of the time I like to say it's really not the talk back. It's the way the talk back is handled and structured. And that if we can be cognizant of the mission, then we can probably do a lot better overall with talk backs. Yeah.
New Play on Women in Healthcare
00:17:44
Speaker
So I want to talk about a few of the many projects you have going on. So you are working on a show called Calm Down about women in the healthcare system, patients and doctors, that is envisioned as a stage piece with an accompanying podcast, which sounds really cool. Tell me about that. I've gotten really interested in podcasts over the past year. I'm sure a lot of
00:18:14
Speaker
writers of various types of material have because of COVID and if you work in the live entertainment sector and you've seen just one too many Zoom play readings, you think about, well, what is there that I can create for this medium?
00:18:32
Speaker
this digital medium that's intended to be experienced that way and not something that's meant to be a live piece. And we try to shoehorn into these little boxes, little braid bunch boxes. And then I started to love storytelling through audio and how it allows so much imagination on the part of a listener, how it's so intimate because your voice is so close to the ear.
00:18:59
Speaker
So I thought, you know, is there any kind of story that can be told on the stage that then can continue to evolve in a podcast form? And I'm thinking specifically of subject matter that is healing or informative, educational. There is a social justice component. You know, there's all kinds of sort of little
00:19:25
Speaker
pools of wonderfulness that you could dive into because podcasts have such a reach. And maybe the person saw the stage play, but maybe they didn't. Really, it's kind of more that's more there for me and the other actors because we want to have that relationship with an audience. And then, oh, we don't have to stop telling the story just because the theatrical run is over or out of money. We can keep telling it. Right. And we're going to reach different people that way.
00:19:57
Speaker
So I had this friend, I mean, isn't this how a lot of projects gets started? This is my favorite kind of project. Most things I hatch by myself, because as we've already discussed, I've got myself a lot at home. But some of my favorite projects are ones that were hatched just by being like with someone, another artist that just get like really jazzed. Yeah.
00:20:18
Speaker
by their energy and you both have lots of ideas when you're together and you're both really passionate about what is it frustrates you or what you want us to change. And so I had a run in like this with an actor and producer who recently moved kind of to the region who had been much farther away and I left and I had like a three hour drive home and I was like, I have to create something for us to do together. I'm so like on fire and what is it going to be?
00:20:48
Speaker
The answer was right in front of me. In this case, it wasn't going to be something I was going to research for two years. I was going through, I've been going through a very lengthy years long process of trying to get a diagnosis for health problem I've been having and being told numerous times I was anxious or I was stressed or you know, all those things women get told when they can't find something on a test. But then I was also observing like these female doctors I would go see and like their frustration
00:21:18
Speaker
with like being called by their first name by patients and other doctors instead of being called Dr. Blank. Really? They're clear stress with the system. They're clear stress over how little time they could spend with a patient to where they just became like these sort of robots. But I knew under there was a person still. They just didn't have the bandwidth for it. And I thought, wow, this system is broken.
00:21:43
Speaker
on so many levels. I mean, it's broken on such a human level, everybody wants to focus on insurance and Medicare and, you know, the greed of the pharmaceutical companies. But like, there's also this very human sort of intimate drama being told constantly in the push pool of patients and doctors. And so
00:22:07
Speaker
I really wanted to tell a story about what women go through not being believed as patients. And, um, and also tell a story about what women doctors go through. And then I got really interested. I got one day I was watching something on YouTube and it led me down this totally unintentional rabbit hole about women with autism and the fact that many, many women will make it into their 60s, 70s, 80s.
00:22:36
Speaker
before they realize they're autistic. They've been autistic their whole life and they've struggled with making friends or having relationships or having burnout because they're so empathetic and so much absorbing emotion and never understanding why they felt like an alien on earth. And that led me down this path of there's actually all of these healthcare professionals who are autistic.
00:23:03
Speaker
And they're starting to develop these organizations to help autistic doctors be supported in their environment. And you can see how
00:23:14
Speaker
someone with some characteristics of autism might make a wonderful doctor because there's this incredible focus and interest in solving difficult problems in creative ways. Their minds don't necessarily work in a linear fashion. And so you have patients with difficult to diagnose problems and they're going to come at it in a totally different way. Right.
00:23:35
Speaker
So often the system isn't going to support that though. Right. Of course. So this play ended up becoming about at first I was going to write this outrageous comedy.
Women's Stories in Healthcare
00:23:45
Speaker
It was going to be there were going to be zombies. It was going to ultimately be like this like governmental plot to try to like have all the women who couldn't birth babies labeled anxious and like shuttled off to institutions.
00:24:00
Speaker
And I realized, why are you adding all of this stuff on here? The story is plenty interesting without zombies. And it just sort of emerged as it's a two character drama, comedy drama, but we both play multiple doctors. So you have like the core relationship of this autistic doctor trying to help this woman who can't get a diagnosis. But then that doctor also gets to play a patient at one point,
00:24:27
Speaker
and we both get to play male doctors and other scenes or therapists or doctors functioning in other capacities, patients functioning in other capacities. So I have a lot to say to people that I hope will be healing and cathartic if they feel they have been disbelieved and abandoned by healthcare
00:24:58
Speaker
And also want to talk about some difficult to diagnose things that people might not even realize they have and be like, Oh my God, that's what I have. Yeah, I need to go talk to my doctor right now because this is it. No one's ever been able to label it as somebody who
00:25:14
Speaker
has been through my own medical journey, discovering my diagnosis and seeing these doctors struggle with the system and having to find actually a woman doctor who studied women and focused on women to solve that for me.
00:25:36
Speaker
Our bodies are different, yo. Just a little. And you know what else? I also found a lot of healing in holistic modalities and meditation. And in my case, I did finally get a diagnosis, but it was, you know, nine neurologists. Wow. Over five years. I think mine was there were around the same, around the same. Yeah, it's surprising.
00:26:02
Speaker
shockingly routine. That's routine, isn't it? And you have to, you know, after a certain number of times that you've been told these things about yourself that don't feel true. Right. It's very hard to keep going back. But that's where all my love of research came in. I just started essentially training myself like a doctor. I mean, I joined Facebook groups, so I could see sort of anecdotal evidence. But then I also just read a lot of scientific papers. Where do I fit? Where are the pieces that fit here?
00:26:32
Speaker
And then when you figure it out and you put together a case, like you're preparing for a damn criminal trial and you go to the doctor with all your evidence. Yes. Um, yes. And there you go. Exactly. Sometimes it has a happy ending. Well, strange to wish for a happy ending to be that you have a chronic autoimmune disease, but you know, when you have a name for it and there are some treatments you can get access to when you're not just
00:27:01
Speaker
quote unquote hysterical woman, number 50,209, right? Yeah, it's a very empowering feeling. I'm really glad you're writing that. I think it needs to happen. We really need to be talking about these experiences. Yeah, so you can hear how like even just the conversation you and I have had about like our personal
00:27:28
Speaker
attempts to get to the bottom of what's going on with us. That's a podcast. Exactly. But I might end up writing something that's scripted and I could make all these different scenarios based on all these incredible stories I've seen people play out in these Facebook groups of these sort of relatively rare illnesses that are being ignored or stigmatized. Things that you just wouldn't believe.
00:27:53
Speaker
I would, unfortunately, but I've been there. But it's only because I've been there. Right. I would not have believed it otherwise. I think one of the hardest parts about those journeys is being sick while realizing that that is what's happening. Right. And that that is really hard. And I have a family member who is in the field, you know, so as a nurse. So it's
00:28:19
Speaker
It's been helpful to have that family member in my life to help me see their side too, obviously, right? Because we're all human, you know? So you want to demonize the other side. That's not it. It's the system that's the problem. You know, everyone's a cog in that system.
00:28:35
Speaker
And I often feel like that about the American theater, right? It's a system and we're cogs in it and we have to reroute and rebuild the system, right? So that we can do it differently. Yeah, some of the stuff you mentioned you wanna talk about, I have some very similar thoughts on that about the American theater, the business of the American theater, the industry.
00:29:01
Speaker
Well, before we get into that, because I'm going to ask you that question next, I also want to hear about this other project you're working on, a serialized fiction podcast called Elizabeth Quick about a woman discovering her power as she survives alone in the aftermath of an extinction event.
Serialized Fiction Podcast on Survival
00:29:19
Speaker
And you're going to be sound engineering and voicing this yourself. That's the plan.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah. And I have this this woman I met through my agent. Well, my agent introduced me to a director she represents and she's done some some podcast directing up in New York. And she's like super excited about the project. So it's always helpful when you have like another person on board that's like in your corner and is kind of. Yes. Yes. I'm waiting for that script. Let's get to work. Yeah. This is another one where, you know, Amber, I love
00:29:53
Speaker
I have a zillion ideas for scripted fiction podcast. I could write with five to six to 20 actors. That would be incredibly fun and interesting. I don't have the money to pay those people. Sure. And, you know, I've tried, I've dipped my toe into, you know, approaching producers who do produce podcasts and they just weren't ready to pull the trigger on
00:30:21
Speaker
The one project that got close, it was a 10 episode piece and each episode was probably 15 to 20 minutes. I don't know if people will find this interesting. I mean, it was, I had no idea what the cost was and that was going to be about 75 grand, which, you know, Hollywood money, that's like someone sneezes when that comes out of someone's nose. But yeah, if you're like a production company in Atlanta, Georgia, and you've mostly done nonfiction,
00:30:48
Speaker
sort of true crime, which is the bread and butter. That's a very scary thing to sort of start to think about going into that fiction mode. Fiction hasn't found the same audience in podcasting that nonfiction has yet. Interesting. I mean, I hope it will get there. So I just thought, well, I have things I want to do. I want to act still and I want to write and I want to tell stories through podcasting.
00:31:17
Speaker
How can I do that? And like I was saying earlier, this idea of how you're with a podcast, you can talk right into someone's ear. You know, they put an earbud in and your voice is like right there. Yeah. I can tell you shit that be a lot harder to tell you on a stage where I have to talk very loudly and project my voice. Yeah. I mean, the access is incredible. It's so it's so cool how you feel like
00:31:43
Speaker
as a listener, like this person is just telling me this story while I'm having this relationship right now. Um, so it's exciting as an actor, it's exciting as a writer and then figuring out how to solve the problem and tell the story without visuals. So the idea with this piece is just that she's, she's, it's the aftermath of something that's gone down. We don't know why yet. And we'll sort of find that out over the course of the story. Um,
00:32:09
Speaker
And she's finding her physical body and her capabilities as a powerful woman and whether she's going to sort of use her physical body to defend herself or whether she's just going to sort of stay away from any sort of confrontation. She's also an observer. And so she can talk to us about what she's seeing. And she's found this old tape recorder and someone's like old mix tapes. And that's how she's
00:32:34
Speaker
And she's just sort of talking to herself, but she's recording it for quote unquote, posterity. And that's how we get the story. And you can imagine like she's carrying it and she's talking and then, you know, she's walking and then something happens and she shuts it off really quickly and she comes back and she tells you, what is she telling you now? How has she changed? Is she suddenly out of breath? Has anything bad just happened? What is she going to reveal about what just happened? There's all kinds of really cool juicy, you know, opportunities there for storytelling and for acting.
00:33:02
Speaker
And then sound design, soundscape, what we're hearing, what we're not hearing. It's all just exciting.
00:33:13
Speaker
I love it. I love how you are exploring storytelling in just so many different mediums, right? I mean, I would love to hear how your piece Pearl River remains came to be what it is now, right? Where it started and what you moved it into.
Encouragement for Artists' Self-Production
00:33:32
Speaker
I think it's really inspiring to hear what you're doing.
00:33:36
Speaker
I know a lot of playwrights feel like they need to wait for someone else to produce their work. And I'm just going to say right now, don't wait for anybody. Don't wait for anybody to do this for you.
00:33:49
Speaker
Doing it for yourself is such an amazing way of learning about your process, yourself, and your work, making the work better, and also having a lot of respect for people who are actually producing, right? But it's just another way to learn. It's like you're saying you sound so excited about this opportunity, and I hear you being excited about learning as an actor how to do that kind of work, because it's going to be different than being on stage.
00:34:14
Speaker
And that's really exciting and figuring out how to tell a story in this other kind of medium where you only have sound. But that that as a parameter, it sounds really exciting for you. You know, I mean, your voice just got you got passionate. You got really into it. Just the idea of of the all of the opportunities to explore. You know, and I think that's where it's at for me when it comes to process is
00:34:40
Speaker
As an artist, what makes you the most excited and ecstatic? And how can you maintain that, you know? And I hear you saying, my way is to figure out how to get my work out there in whatever way possible. And that right now that is me doing it for myself, you know? And I love this. I just want to support you and I think it's amazing. Thank you.
00:35:04
Speaker
I guess, yeah, I just encourage people when you feel stuck. And I mean, I know a lot of us have felt stuck during the pandemic. And then you start to realize, oh, I'm not stuck. This is a pause. This is a breath. An opportunity to reevaluate and to take the situation and sort of rotate it and look at it from another angle. And I've done plays where I had a hundred thousand dollar budget behind it.
00:35:33
Speaker
And, you know, it was beautiful. I've done some that were less beautiful. I've felt what that was like. I've experienced the shortcomings of the professional theater as it stands right now. And the fact that I'm frustrated with the lack of audience diversity that we're reaching. I'm talking about age. I'm talking about race. I'm talking about class. Class, y'all. Shakespeare was for everybody.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, people are like poor at Shakespeare. And you write a lot of working class characters and stories and the people who are those those working class people have every right to see themselves on stage. Right. People who haven't gone to college have every right to get to go to a play. A plumber gets to go to a play and write and see something that reveals the world to him in a way he'd never thought of before. And I just
00:36:33
Speaker
I don't know how that's going to happen in the current model. So in addition to the frustration of being an artist and having other people open doors for you, and you just get tired of coming up against that thing that stops you every time. It's the audience as well. So podcasts reach a vast audience. People who can't leave their house can suddenly hear you. People all over the world can hear your work.
00:37:03
Speaker
with calm down with the play that I'm working on. I want to take that to like community centers or like someone's backyard and do it with a couple of chairs. Yeah. And I want people to feel welcome who are from every walk of life. And that's good for me and it's good for the world. Like it's I think that there
00:37:27
Speaker
We're partners in this. I can't just be writing work because I need to see my stuff up on stage. That's not enough for me anymore. I need work to be helpful to others in some way. And I don't mean to shy away from entertainment. Entertainment to me is not a dirty word. It's necessary. I think entertainment is always there alongside
00:37:53
Speaker
whatever it is that you're doing, I'm healing, I'm educating, I'm informing, I'm changing minds, you know, whatever I'm bringing together. There's a lot to be said for
00:38:04
Speaker
finding spaces for theater that is not a building called a theater. It doesn't feel stodgy to people. It doesn't feel like the door's closed or there's like a boat around it with crocodiles. Exactly. And it's a castle and I can't get in. They're going to fire a cannon at me because I don't have the right education level. I don't know how to properly respond to this flight. I don't dress right. Yeah, I won't be smart enough for it. Yeah, exactly. Bring it to the spaces where the community's needed, I think is
00:38:33
Speaker
what theater is really about because it's about connection. Yeah. Yeah. We're missing the mark on that, I think. I think so, too. And, you know, Adaya and I did talk about the sort of pretentiousness of the concepts of theater and that it is connected to class and education and all of these things. And and to really approach the work like I really talk about storytelling now because it's not just playwriting or screenwriting or this or that or podcasting, like it's all storytelling.
00:39:01
Speaker
What platform you're on, of course, you have to consider that, but when it really comes down to it, story is a way for us to connect to one another and feel like we get each other just a little bit more. So to me, there's just so much logic to theater being moved into community spaces and that being where it happens.
00:39:26
Speaker
You know, when we talk about immersive theater, but to me it's like immersive is like, okay, well, let's go to the park and let's go see a play. But, you know, bringing theater into a community space, like a retirement community or, um, or a hospital, right? That is, to me, that, that is life changing for sure. You know? Um, so I, I really love that idea. I'm excited for you.
00:39:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's like it's going to be a lot. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how any of it's going to work, but I have to start. I love the word storytelling. It's my favorite word. I have to start with a story and then worry about it. Yeah. Then figure out the rest of it. Don't ever let like not knowing how to do the rest of it stop you. You got to tell the story first, get that in some form and then
00:40:21
Speaker
the other pieces may not fall into place without effort. They may fall into place with great effort, which comes with a great satisfaction and reward at the end because of all the difficulty of getting there. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the heck I'm doing, but in some ways that's more exciting at this stage of things than
00:40:45
Speaker
Exactly. Knowing, oh, I've written this play for this theater and we're going to work on development for two years. And then, you know, maybe by the third year, we'll get into the season. Oh, well, no. Global pandemic. Oh, well, no, they're never going to do the play again. Or maybe they're going to find a slot for it in two more years. Right. Oh, no. The board's changed. Oh, no. They've lost the artistic director. Completely new vision. Oh, no. The budget's been cut in half. Sure. You know, they have their own struggles. Exactly.
00:41:15
Speaker
I can't fix all that and complaining about it also isn't really going to do anything. Certainly isn't going to let me tell more stories. So find another route. Find another route. Yeah.
00:41:27
Speaker
And your piece Pearl River Remains started out as a novel, right? Oh, right. Yeah, I wrote a novel during the pandemic. I was like, fine, I'll become a novelist. It's that easy. Well, you wouldn't know it, but no one was really interested in publishing my novel because no one knows who I am. So I started reading that a number of first time novelists had found success by
00:41:53
Speaker
self-producing an audio book, essentially, and then getting enough followers on social media that way that then an agent and then a publisher would be willing to take the risk. We're reading fewer books now. I mean, they're always saying this or that medium is going to die, but books are suffering. Right. Theater's been dying for 2,000 years. Theater has been dying. It's been a long, long death.
00:42:22
Speaker
But it is, you know, it's expensive to publish a book and they need to have a little assurance that someone's going to buy it. So I was like, great. But then the coolest thing happened in the process of like learning how to record all of that and getting to like read my own book and do all the voices and inhabit all these characters that I had written as an actor and then like sound engineer and edit it all.
00:42:47
Speaker
I didn't give a crap whether the book ever got made because now suddenly people in Finland and Israel and all over America and people who never gotten to come to my place or friends or family I haven't seen in 25 years were able to listen to my book.
00:43:03
Speaker
wild, right? It's been, yeah, it's been wild. And it's not like it's like had some outrageous number of, I think it's been downloaded 1700 times. I mean, that's like all episodes. So it's not like 1700 people have listened to the whole book, right? Just like number of individual downloads. So nobody's gonna, yeah, nobody's, nobody's rushing over here from Hollywood or from Simon and Schuster. Damn you contract. But those are people who I've been able to talk to.
00:43:30
Speaker
I've been able to tell a little bit of a story about the South and about strong messy women That I wouldn't have gotten to do that any other way. Mm-hmm. So And I would also say maybe just not yet Sure, not yet And I mean it, you know once you create something like that and you put all that effort into the product It is a product. It's like a thing. Yeah, and you can use it to
00:43:53
Speaker
maybe it becomes a stepping stone or it's a calling card. Someone wants to know what else would be done. Oh, what is your portfolio? Well, my portfolio is. Sure. Exactly. Yeah. And I don't want to underestimate the potential.
00:44:07
Speaker
Yeah. Power of that. Definitely. Yeah. I think that's a huge part of why people need to be trying to produce some of their own work. Right. Sure. Not just because of how much they can learn from doing it, but because it is a building of a portfolio. Yeah. And that is invaluable. Right. And a stage piece when it's over, it's over. That's it. Yeah. But a podcast, it potentially they forever. Yeah. No, that's true. You know, it's there. It's there now. It's not going anywhere.
00:44:39
Speaker
So I would love to know how you imagine or how you hope new play development will evolve as we grow and evolve. What would you like to see?
Audience Understanding of New Plays
00:44:55
Speaker
You know, there's such a big question. How do we stay alive forever, Amber? How do we just solve the problem of aging and death? Exactly. It's just time to do it right now. Right. Right. I'm just going to get this easy button out. I guess one thing comes back to audience. I mean, when you hear about audiences not knowing that a vast majority of like a theater that does a lot of contemporary work,
00:45:27
Speaker
is doing plays by writers who are still alive. Like we just take this as rote, we're still alive. I'm a writer, I'm here, I'm alive. I'm also a woman. I'm not a dead old white guy. This is not common knowledge, even to people who are regular theater goers.
00:45:52
Speaker
So they need, we need to do a better job of teaching them what's exciting about new work and why they should feel like part of something when they come to see a world premiere and not scared that it's gonna be terrible because they've never been tested. Well, movies aren't tested before either. The movie just came out. Exactly. And then maybe it feels like less of this giant leap
00:46:19
Speaker
of faith to do new work and the developmental process is not so long and we don't need so many frivolous comedies, you know, to fill in the blank. People are writing the difficult work and that's getting lots of development and it's not getting produced because no audience is going to go watch that because it's too depressing. This is also what I hear, you know, being on the inside of theaters while they're choosing their seasons.
00:46:48
Speaker
What is the solution to making new work not a risk? I guess this is the common denominator. And I do keep coming back to it starts with who's in your seats. So with that, I would love to hear some of the new play references or inspirations that you would love to share with our listeners.
00:47:12
Speaker
I would say Sarah Wool taught me, you know, about the magic of theater while Annie Baker taught me the magic of the ordinary person. And I really like the way those two things fit together. I've always been obsessed with who's a greater Virginia Wolf, even though I'm not a huge Edward Albee fan, but something about the way he put that horrible woman on stage.
00:47:35
Speaker
I still find sort of mesmerizing and fascinating. I'm also really drawn to actors as writers, and I just read a play, one of the theaters I work for, we were looking at for the season, by a woman named Charlene Woodard, and she's also, she was in the world premiere as well. She's a black playwright, actor, and then of course,
00:48:04
Speaker
I don't I'm going to mispronounce her name. Deny Guerreira. Have I said that? I believe that's correct. And that's right. She's clearly an actor and really seasoned in terms of film and television. But she's writing these these risk taking.
00:48:25
Speaker
Juicy Meaty plays. As far as sort of broader inspiration, I'm really into, well, there's this documentary series I highly recommend on Showtime called Couples Therapy that I'm obsessed with. I just finished the third season in like two days. But they're real couples and it's the same therapist.
00:48:48
Speaker
And it's not like one episode per couple. You follow them over the course of the season, like four or five different couples, and they sort of cut them together. So you get little snippets of each. And just the storytelling and the editing is really fantastic in terms of how they show us how these couples get from where they are at the beginning. We're like, oh, this is hopeless to the end. And some of them are hopeless.
00:49:13
Speaker
them the marks, though. And they make this miraculous, this this arc is just incredible. But then all of course, these little ups and downs within each episode. And then the woman who's the therapist is this Israeli American. And she's just incredibly focused and sort of mesmerizing and kind is incredible listener. And I don't know, I just I can't get enough of it. Love it. And then on the web, there's a
00:49:42
Speaker
You can follow him on Facebook and I guess maybe Instagram as well and then see all the videos. But it's called Soft White Underbelly and it's a documentarian called his name is Mark. And I don't know how to pronounce it later. L A I T A. And he interviews. He's based in California. So a lot of people are in California. He interviews
00:50:04
Speaker
People on the fringes, a lot of people live on Skid Row, they're homeless people, they're addicts, but then also he interviewed a guy who's parachute didn't deploy when he jumped out of an airplane with this kid. He interviews people who are sex addicts.
00:50:21
Speaker
interviews people who are like you would look at them and think they were just a normal everyday person and then there's this incredible story underneath and he always starts with their childhood and so you find out so much about like early traumas and then how that's influenced who they are and how they are today. Can I just comment that I feel like all of these things are observations of human condition. Yeah. And you are a playwright who writes humans
00:50:49
Speaker
and characters and you just taught a class for us about writing people. And I just want to comment that I'm hearing all of the things that you take in to be very much focused in on that and that's really cool.
00:51:06
Speaker
They're so amazing. You look at a person and you think they don't have an entire 500 novels in them, then you are misunderstanding what humanity is. Even people you think are quote unquote basic. Exactly. This is a lesson for myself too, right? So true. We can all make snap judgments. Heck yeah. It's incredible.
00:51:28
Speaker
when people show you their vulnerability too. And that's what, I mean, it's one thing I love about playwriting. It allows me to show my vulnerability to you more than I'm comfortable as a person because I can do that through the characters, but also all the things, the layers that we put on ourselves to protect.
Theater's Role in Fostering Empathy
00:51:46
Speaker
that soft, that soft white underbelly. I love it. Look at you pulling that all together. It's beautiful. It is beautiful. It is a beautiful thing. Humanity is a beautiful thing. And I think the more we can appreciate that, I think if we can write always from a place of empathy and understanding, then we make the world better because audiences are not going to be able to help but leave
00:52:17
Speaker
that theater or take that your butt out and have a different viewpoint into someone's existence. And this realization that we are just not different. You just aren't. And you're like, I mean, I could be like one
00:52:39
Speaker
you know, car accident away from being a crystal meth addict. It's like, it doesn't take. It takes very little. You know, with these incredible stories, people, and you realize how no one needs to be up on a high horse. I was thinking the other day how I wish we could do a better job in the theater of telling stories from underneath rather than coming from above. If we get on the sort of level
00:53:07
Speaker
of vulnerability and fallibility and the fact that we are all similar regardless of class, age, sex, race, all those things. That's then where the people of all those different groups come to the theater. Oh, I belong here, just like anybody else.
00:53:37
Speaker
Yeah, we're all down here in the dirt together just trying to survive. It's true. Yeah, it's true. That's beautiful. I love that. And I think we talk a lot about empathy in the theater. But you know, if we look at science, if we if our heartbeats sink when we are in the same space together, watching a story,
00:53:58
Speaker
Um, if, if our breath and our energy connects when we're doing that, then that is a sacred space and that is a sacred moment, you know, and we're, we're having it together. And that is just, I mean, for me, when that happens and I really feel connected when I'm at a live event.
00:54:15
Speaker
the hair on the back of my neck comes up and I have this excited feeling in my body and it's like electricity and it is just coming from all of the people around me and I just love that because nobody can judge electricity, right? It just is what it is. It's just energy and it's what drives me to create live anything. I know because it's so hard. It's so hard. It's so hard.
00:54:44
Speaker
Unlike anything else. Absolutely. Because you get to have the discovery as an actor in a moment and those people get to watch you experience it and discover it and they get to discover it too. And they may not realize it, but a lot of those discoveries are happening in that moment for those actors. And that's so exciting. Yeah.
00:55:04
Speaker
You know, it's just, I love it. And I'm so glad that I feel like for you through the pandemic, it almost sounds like you found more ways to reach out and connect to other human beings that you may not have had before. I hope we all have. Yeah, I feel a lot more tender. I don't know. I feel a lot more.
00:55:24
Speaker
like the vulnerability is much closer to the surface now than it used to be. And of course, we've all suffered loss and sure and grieved over things in that time. And I'm sure that has something to do with it. But life didn't stop like someone the other day called it the big the great pause go it and I was like, but
00:55:46
Speaker
But that wasn't, it was a pause, and I did refer to it as a pause earlier, I think. And it gave us an opportunity to sort of stop the rat race, stop the hamster on a wheel, go to work, come home, go to bed, get up, go to work, come home, go to bed. But it wasn't a pause of life. And a lot of important things have happened in that time.
00:56:10
Speaker
I feel that. Yeah. And I guess we've all changed in our the way we feel connected to the world. Yeah, we're disconnected, which is such a worthy thing of bringing into the art now. Yeah. Otherwise, what was the point of all those deaths?
00:56:27
Speaker
Exactly. Oh my God. Yes, exactly. But it doesn't have to be a story about COVID. No, please. God knows I won't ever write a play about COVID. Maybe not. Yeah, maybe not. It can be about COVID, but not. Yeah. I love that. Thank you for that. So what is your best advice for new play artists, playwrights, actors?
Research and Understanding in Theater Business
00:56:52
Speaker
Yeah, well, I have, I mean, the thing I've already said, which is just
00:56:57
Speaker
get involved in life and human behavior and look for ways to observe it that speak to you. And there's lots and lots of ways. And if you're a really, really shy person like I am, some of that, a lot of that will end up being documentary films and strange web series. The soapbox that I get on whenever I'm asked this question,
00:57:27
Speaker
has more to do with the business of getting produced, which if you're a writer listening to this and you're like, I just want to get, I want to tell stories and I need them to be on stage in front of an audience so I don't feel complete, which I completely understand. How do you get produced research? It is your job.
00:57:54
Speaker
to go to them and get to know them. And by them, I mean the theater, the institution, the places you want to work, the places where you feel your work fits, the places you believe are going to get your work and the audiences who are going to get your work. It's your job to go find those places and not to expect them to come to you just because you finished a play. And not every place is right for your play. And not every place is going to do right by your play.
00:58:23
Speaker
I've had experiences that were very negative because all I wanted was just to get that production. And I didn't do the work to make sure we fit together. So that was on me. Um, go right back to the top of the interview and start with choose your collaborators. Well, choose your collaborators. Yeah. It's not just about the production. It's about what,
00:58:50
Speaker
who's gonna tell your story, right? And be intentional about where you're submitting, right? Like where you're submitting and why. There's so much information out there about theaters and what they do. And you can look at their whole archive of like season after season after season and see, does my play fit here? And then, you know, you do the work to sort of find creative ways
00:59:17
Speaker
to get in there, if they don't have a festival you can submit to, then maybe, you know, if it's in a town where you live, you volunteer to do other things, you get to know them doing other things. And that's how I've gotten a lot of my corrections because I already had a working relationship with them as a graphic designer. Exactly. And then I could pass a script or an actor or as an actor and I can pass a script. So I mean, it's a lot harder if you have no relationship. Sure. Absolutely. And there's a lot of ways to build relationships. A lot.
00:59:46
Speaker
A lot. I mean, a lot of these producers teach classes, you know, offer engagement, you can volunteer with them. I mean, there's just so many different ways to engage and thinking about as a playwright how you can be a part of your community, right? And hopefully not just spend all your time at home. And I see you out at the theater a lot. I mean, I remember before the pandemic, we would go see plays by ourselves and often be sitting next to each other because we would go show up alone.
01:00:15
Speaker
Right. And so I think that's that's one of the great things is once you start doing that, you always have someone to sit with at the theater because there's always people like that. Yeah. You're always going to I always run into people now. Yes. You know, so I never worry about going alone because you never know who you're going to get to sit next to. Right. And who you're going to connect with that night. So I think it's so true. Like,
01:00:40
Speaker
How can we engage with these producers beyond them providing a production for us? In what ways can we give back to that organization? I have an interest. I'm getting to know who you are. And then sometimes the playwrights itself. And that happened just like that. But I had an experience working in a theater as an actor. And I really got a very clear sense of the theater. And I said, I want to write a play for this.
01:01:07
Speaker
this theater, I think they would do a beautiful job with the kind of play that I'm thinking of writing next. And that's where I'm gonna, I'm gonna tailor it. Exactly. And it ended up there. And they did do a beautiful job with it.
01:01:23
Speaker
That's a really nice situation. Yeah, I couldn't have done that without having that experience first, because I'm looking at it from the outside. Which I gotta say, as a multi-hyphenate, really speaks to the multi-hyphenate lifestyle actually being helpful to creatives. Yeah, for sure. When I was coming out of college, people would say you needed to focus, and I never did, because that's not my vibe, right? And I actually found that
01:01:50
Speaker
the more things that i experienced that were different the better i became everything and the more i respected everyone in the room and their roles you know is not true i mean we all think we can do everybody's job is.
01:02:04
Speaker
So easy, right? We're so quick to, you know, criticize or have, you know, all this grief about the way that something's handled. And then if we try to do that job, we see what's involved. Nobody has it easy. Exactly. Right. I mean, we're all we're all there is a common goal, even when money, you know, we're just we're trying to pay the bills and your money is involved. We're still trying to make good art.
01:02:31
Speaker
even if it's maybe a little bit of a silly play, you can say, well, the good art here is to entertain people and make them forget their worries for two hours. Exactly. That's our goal. Okay. We're all united to that common goal. Yeah, it's hard. Why don't we do this?
01:02:55
Speaker
I keep going back. I just, I'm like, I have to, I don't, I have not, I do not get to choose, you know? I keep trying not to care about telling stories and the stories keep coming. Yeah, exactly. It's, you know, it's.
01:03:09
Speaker
I don't know. I don't have the answer to that. But for me, there's nothing more exciting than story and building story and collaborating with other people and getting to see just how incredible all the people are in this community that we get to work with. It's really special. So where can listeners connect with you and keep up with your work?
Follow Darryl's Work
01:03:38
Speaker
I think you mentioned them, probably the best places in a little bio at the top, but yeah, I have a
01:03:45
Speaker
website, Daryl's Plays, it has all my work on it, or at least info about all my work as well as some of my acting. And then if you go to the new Play Exchange, I tend to put all my scripts on there, like the full script. So they're all ready to be downloaded. And if you ever need any graphic design work, that's just DarylFazio.com. I do graphic design for a theater almost exclusively
01:04:12
Speaker
So yeah, apparently I just can't get enough.
01:04:19
Speaker
Oh my god. It is my home. Yes, it is. It is home, isn't it? Yes. And for those who are not familiar with the New Play Exchange and our playwrights, look it up like right away. Oh, yeah, it's an incredible platform for for plays, playwrights, dramaturgs, producers to connect and to get to see see your work. And it's very affordable, very, very important. And you can read plays and you can leave your own reviews. Yeah, just like
01:04:48
Speaker
for any play you want, which is a way to support and lift up other writers as well. And lots of times then they'll return the favor so you can scratch each other's backs and get some exposure out of it. Yeah, it's a great place to discover though. So much stuff on there. Yeah, it's amazing, right? It's a treasure trove. Shout out to the New Play Exchange and the National New Play Network for creating it.
01:05:14
Speaker
Thank you so much for being here. It's been so wonderful talking to you. Oh my gosh, it was a pleasure. You're such a dear friend. Thank you. Love you, England.
01:05:24
Speaker
Thank you listeners for tuning in to Table Work, How New Plays Get Made with Amber Bradshaw. This podcast was brought to you by Working Title Playwrights. If you like what you've heard today, support this podcast and all our initiatives by leaving us a review, following us, and or consider making a tax-deductible donation to Working Title Playwrights at www.workingtitelplaywrights.com.