Cue stage lights:
A man and woman are sitting on opposite sides of a table, his face hidden behind a newspaper and hers behind a book. They do not speak, but I am already running through the conversations they will soon have and the words that will be left hanging in the air. When the dialogue begins, I lean back in my chair and become an audience to my own work.
This is my play being performed on an Off-Broadway stage in New York during Writopia’s 2013 Worldwide Plays Festival. These are the words that I typed on my computer and scribbled on post-its and assorted pages every chance I had. This is the result of a year-long effort of collaborative thoughts, revisions, and drafts. I have played these scenes in my mind hundreds of times, searching for improvements. And now I have been placed in the ultimate workshop setting: a sold-out theater.
As I watch the actors move across the stage, I make a mental note of the audience’s reaction to every moment. I sigh when the female character speaks one line incorrectly, but now appreciate the numerous times directors have told me never to tamper with the playwright’s dialogue when I am acting onstage.
I soak in the subtle reactions of the people around me and smile to myself as I think about the fact that, as the audience takes in my play, they are unknowingly learning all about my life, my playwriting process, and my quest to be a storyteller from the time I was old enough to sit up and construct scenes and dialogue with my Winnie-the-Pooh figurines. If only, as the audience listensto my play’s female character discuss her fascination with Daphne du Maurier’s novel Rebecca, they could picture me in my pitch-black bedroom, holding a flashlight to the book as I read the final pages, desperately racing to the end, while wishing the story could go on forever.
Then, as the characters’ emotions heighten and the atmosphere becomes tense, they could imagine me doodling images of my characters into my idea notebook, basing their facial and body expressions on those I had noticed on different people throughout the day. Or they could watch me suddenly waking up at three in the morning, grabbing my notebook to record a dream about the fate of the two characters before it escaped my thoughts. And then they could picture me at museums, on the subway, or walking through Central Park, listening to conversations to gain further inspiration.
And, once my play is over, I wish, as a coda, the audience could see my friends and siblings acting with me in all the plays I had written over the years, pretending we were Broadway stars as we reveled in our ever-present laughter and I hung on to each word we spoke to be sure it sounded exactly right. Then the audience might really know who this playwright, this storyteller, really is.
As my play nears its end, a man and woman are standing by an open window, overlooking a fire escape. The woman kisses the man on the cheek, and, in an act of defiance reminiscent of Ibsen’s Nora, she climbs out the window and walks down the fire escape. As the audience applauds, I think about the characters I have created, and, as I have done throughout my life, I naturally start thinking about where my characters will go next, where I will go next.
I write to tell stories. By writing, I am learning about myself and the world around me. I live a life filled with new events waiting to happen, compelling people to meet, exciting places to see, and new adventures to incorporate into my tales.
This is my play. This is my life. This is who I am.
Cue blackout.
