WHAT IS THE IN-BETWEEN STAGE AND WHAT CAN IT DO FOR YOU?

 

The In-Between Stage is an ad hoc group of theater artists (primarily writers and actors, but also directors, producers, designers, and generally anyone who can formulate an opinion) that meet one night of each week to attend play readings and engage in discussion about them so that the writer of that night’s play can learn more about what their play is and can be to an audience.

The In-Between stage is a play development tool, although not a play development process with production as a goal. Rather, The In-Between Stage functions as a means for a writer to experience their play objectively, through the eyes and ears of others, and receive feedback to help them fine-tune their script to make it more meaningful to an audience.

 

What can it do for you? Let’s break it down further.

 

Let’s assume you’re a writer. You’ve spent a good deal of time alone, typing or scribbling out a story that you feel should be told theatrically, live, in front of an audience. It may have particular meaning to you, but having it interpreted by a group of actors for an audience, who bring their own life experiences to the table, can show you its meaning and structure in a different way.  Experiencing other writers’ readings can teach you how other people create scripts and how they tell a story; giving feedback on others’ plays helps you create structured and meaningful self-expression.

 

Let’s assume you’re an actor. Participating in the readings as a reader helps you develop your script analysis skills and gives you good practice, plus it gives you the opportunity to work (however briefly) with other people you might not have otherwise met. It also gives the writer a sense of their dialogue’s flow, a sense of how their words work as tools for the performer.

 

Let’s assume you’re a director, producer, designer, or generally someone who can form an opinion.  Experiencing the readings and offering feedback helps you to meet other theater artists you might not otherwise meet, gives you experience in script analysis and gives the writers a point of view on their script that may be less conventional but equally helpful.

 

Again, the In-Between Stage is not a development process in and of itself with production as a goal. It’s a tool to help writers see their plays the way an audience and other artists will see them, and find ways of improving them. Many plays read in The In-Between Stage have gone on to have successful productions, because the writers benefited from the live reading process. Recent Philadelphia productions that have been read in the In-Between Stage include:

 

• Editorial Decisions, produced by the Brick Playhouse, written by Nicholas Wardigo
• Half The Rent, produced by The Torchbearers at Plays and Players Theater, written by John Di Felice
• Postcoital Variations, produced by Philadelphia Theater Workshop, written by Alex Dremann
• Seven Margaritas, produced by XX, written by Lindsay Harris
• Turpentine, produced by The Surface Tension Project, written by Mary Jones

 

 

 

WHAT HAPPENS AT THE IN-BETWEEN STAGE MEETINGS?

 

We generally start at about seven thirty. Chairs are set out in the playing area, and there is a brief period of time for announcements. The moderator introduces the play with as little description of it as possible (generally just the title) and lists the characters and introduces the actors that will be participating in the reading. Also, the moderator reads all stage directions or designates a reader to do so.

If there is an act break in the play, or if the play is very long, there is a seven minute break midway through.

Afterwards, the readers sit in the audience and the playwright is brought up on stage for the Critical Response Process. This is a process (detailed in a separate document) where the moderator asks questions of the audience and readers, and responses are given, and the playwright doesn’t respond to those responses. Later the playwright is allowed to ask questions of the audience/readers.

 

After that, we generally retire to a local watering hole for further discussion and socializing, and the playwright has a nice chunk of food for thought on how they can further craft their play.

WHAT IS THE CRITICAL RESPONSE PROCESS?

 

In his article “Blood Loss,[Note] ” playwright and NYU faculty member Gary Garrison said, “When I sit down to witness a reading of a new play of mine, my first thought is, ‘Will this be a Band-aid evening or should I call the paramedics and triage team and, for good measure, book an emergency suite at St. Vincent’s hospital?’ The real dramatic action isn’t happening onstage, baby. You want dramatic action? Just watch me to see if I’m going to keep my nervous spittle confined to my bottom lip or if I’m going to throw up on somebody’s shoe before the whole ordeal is over.” [1]

 

            It’s true that hearing a story that one has only experienced alone, in one’s head and/or on paper, read aloud in front of strangers, can be very disturbing. A playwright’s worst nightmare isn’t just the readers making mistakes or a director taking gross liberties with their script. The thought of receiving audience feedback after the reading can shrink one to a wilted cauliflower. Phrases such as “Your play stunk because…” or “Just exactly what kind of pervert are you?” or “Come back when you learn how to write,” tend to spring to mind and clutch at the pit of one’s stomach. (Actually, this playwright always fears being disemhysterectomied without benefit of anesthesia, but that’s just me). 

 

Fear not, good friend! Rather than ritual disembowelment, we here at the In-Between Stage have learned and are utilizing a process to keep the feedback on your play concise, focused, and constructive to the story you’re trying to tell. Remember, this isn’t a production process; it’s a tool to help you better your script. No one is here to say whether your script, you as a writer or you as a person, are stupid, untalented, sick, crazy or just plain bad. We’re also not here to say that you as a writer or your script are virtuous, life-changing or otherwise good. We’re here to help you see what your script did, and we’re going to show you that in a specific, focused manner. This process was created by a theater artist named Liz Lerman, which she outlines in her book [insert title of book here].  Rather than treat you to a verbatim description of The Critical Response Process, we’ve managed to distill it into a highly-concentrated, easy to digest form, fine-tuned for the needs of the In-Between Stage.

 

1. The Critical Response Process
1. “enables a group of people to uncover their various aesthetic and performance values and, by being patient, apply them to a creative work-in-progress in a way that pushes the artist’s thinking forward.”

 

2. Again, the name of the game here is not good versus bad, and it’s not production- worthy versus unproduceable. It’s about how your work affects an audience, so you can achieve your goal of telling a good story in a theatrical medium.

 

2. The Rules

 

1. THE ARTIST

                                                               i.      “Artists need to be at a point where they can question their work in a somewhat public environment.”

                                                             ii.      The process is most fruitful when artists are invested in the future evolution of the art they are showing or, at least, or, at least, in the possibility that they can learn something of value to apply to future projects.

 

                                                            iii.      Nobody’s perfect. Everyone has room for improvement. If you know that your art has room to improve and you’re open to looking at your work without bias, change, or at least learning new things, you’re ready for this process.

 

2. THE RESPONDERS

                                                               i.      The observers have to sincerely want the artist to make excellent work. If you don’t want to see the artist and/or this work succeed, please don’t bother participating.

                                                             ii.      Competitiveness is difficult to avoid among theater artists, but it’s always worth it to strive for not having our responses to each other’s art be tinged with schadenfreude or jealousy.

                                                            iii.      Likewise, objectivity in analysis is a goal, and mutual admiration societies have got to be avoided.

 

3. The Facilitator

                                                               i.      initiates each step

                                                             ii.      manages transitions to each step

                                                            iii.      keeps process on track (avoiding tangents etc.)

                                                           iv.      assures artists & responders all understand the guidelines and gets the most out of them

 

 

STEPS IN THE CRITICAL RESPONSE PROCESS

 

1. STATEMENTS OF MEANING

 

This step in the process is when the Facilitator asks questions of the audience (know also in Lerman’s book as the Responders) about what in the work they’ve just seen/heard has particular meaning for them, what stood out. This can elicit responses such as, “The rhythym of the dialogue in the second act stood out for me,” or “the easter egg metaphor was compelling,” or “the dog character was very affecting.”

 

“When we start by naming the fact that the work has meaning at all, and offer options for responding to that meaning, we broaden the lens by which responders can experience and comment. The new phrasing encourages responders to be more specific by enabling them to name their experience and affords artists a different way of accepting that information.”

2. ARTIST AS QUESTIONER

 

This step is the first of two rounds of questions and answers. Some artists are quite able to step outside their work, see it objectively, analyze their work and form their dissatisfactions or dilemmas into questions with ease. Some artists find this to be a new experience. General questions often elicit more varied responses, which may not address the issue at hand (i.e., “what did you think?”) Specific questions bring forth a more precise commentary (i.e., “Did anyone notice that Arthur had no hands?”) Either/or questions end up eliciting an opinion poll and is limiting for the responders.  For example, a question like, “Do you think the dog should chase Frisbees or bagels?” only gets a bagel-frisbee debate. It’s good for playwrights to ask “meaning” questions about a specific aspect of their work, such as, “ Was the rhythym of the dialogue in the discussion about the necktie in the necktie scene in the second act meaningful to you?” rather than, “What did you think about the second act?” Framing a general question around a specific aspect, i.e., “I want the easter egg hunt to be less sentimental, what did you think about the dog’s speech in that scene?” helps the artist find out more information about the building blocks of their work.

 

3. NEUTRAL QUESTIONS FROM RESPONDERS

 

For many people, forming a neutral question is not only difficult but a seemingly ridiculous task if criticism is the point. But the actual process of trying to form opinions into neutral questions enables the responders to recognize and acknowledge the personal values at play. Often, these are the very questions that the artist needs to hear.  Many feel at first that step three makes them sacrifice the right to tell the truth very directly. But they quickly discover that they can say whatever is important through the mechanism, and in the process, get the artist to think more reflectively.

 

This is a really nicey-nice way of putting it. Let’s try that again, shall we?

Let’s assume you’re a responder and you’ve just heard a play that needs a lot of help. Your gut reaction may be that it was completely boring and a waste of your time. You may think, “Why should I ask a neutral question when what I really want to do is say what I thought of this work, i.e., ‘I thought having the main character hit Kim Jong Il over the head with a Easter Egg as the climax of the play was stupid.’ I don’t want to ask this playwright a question. I want to tell them what I think, which is that this is a colossal, pointless waste.”

So, you stop and rethink for a minute. “Why do I think the Easter egg as a weapon is stupid? Well, because I think there was no other mention of religion in the play, because I have particular feelings about Easter, because I have particular feelings about head trauma. These are my personal feelings, but maybe this playwright had something they were trying to accomplish, some part of this story they were trying to tell, and they aren’t sure how to tell it, so they did something that might not have been true to the story they want to tell. I hated this play so much I really don’t care why the playwright decided to have an Easter egg as a weapon, but maybe they don’t know either because maybe they’ve never considered this question.

 

So you ask, “What made you decide to have the main character kill Kim Jong Il with an Easter egg? Was there any other object in the scene he could have killed him with? Could the main character have used the Easter egg in some other way? Why is the Easter egg pink?”

 

The point is, this gets the artist thinking about the reasons why they created something a certain way, or how they chose to create it, instead of just reacting to a statement. “Your play is [XYZ],” only gets a reaction of “thank you” or “wow, you’re crabby,” where a question gets them thinking about what they’ve created, why and how.

This is part of an artist seeing the play in a way they hadn’t thought of before.

 

4. PERMISSIONED QUESTIONS

 

“I have an opinion about [part of the play]. Would you like to hear it?”

More likely than not, there is an aspect of the play that at least one responder has to say something about, or their brain will explode. If the play evokes strong feeling from the responders, it’s worth it for the artist to hear them.

For the responder, forming this initial statement offers a kind of warm-up and mental preparation for identifying and stating the opinion, rather then just putting it out there. For the artist, it affords a chance to readjust their focus to become receptive to a new idea. This also serves to keep artists and responders focused and listening. Some artists may know that aspects of their work are flawed, or may not want to change an aspect of it. Having this statement frame up opinions can help time not get wasted. (i.e., “I have an opinion about your copious use of dairy products in the end of this play. Do you want to hear it?”- “No, I know something else I want to do with it.” This also keeps respondents from rewriting someone else’s play with opinion and bias (i.e., “you shouldn’t have the dog swallow the Easter egg, that ruins the whole thing and it would be so much better if Darla fell in love with the tennis player”). This also is an effective way of wrapping up the discussion because it allows people to add information that may not have gotten covered in previous steps. Also, the focus of the discussion has gone from broad to specific and back to broad again.

 

If the goal here is to help us see our work objectively and create better plays, it’s valid for us to do it in a structured fashion so that a roomful of right-brained, creative people can rein in their copious ideas and get them in a semblance of order. Lerman’s Critical Response Process  is a way of helping us to challenge each other constructively.

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

 

All plays submitted to the In-Between Stage must be in our hands with three weeks advance notice.**

The playwright must provide one copy to the Producing Director of IBS and sufficient copies for all necessary actors plus one for the person reading stage directions with two weeks advance notice unless they hear differently from the Producing Director.

 

Scripts must be securely stapled or bound with a cover page indicating the title, the author’s name and contact information (for our purposes e-mail is preferable, a phone number doesn’t hurt), and a character list with the characters’ names, genders and approximate ages. The author is responsible for ensuring that your readers have copies of the script.

 

All scripts must be in Standard American format and typed or word processed. A style sheet for Standard American format is available as a .pdf file here: ibs_playwriting_style_sheet.pdf

 

If you are not submitting for the first time, your script may be e-mailed as an MSWord document attachment to [insert address here].

 

If you are submitting for the first time, you may hand your script in in person to the Producing Director, after at least sitting through one session of the In-Between Stage, at the end of the meeting.  This gives you an idea of what process your play will go through, and what constitutes “fair criticism.” First-time submissions will not be accepted via e-mail.

 

If you are submitting for the first time in more than four months, you are subject to the same submission constrains as someone submitting for the first time (you must attend a session and hand your script in personally).

 

Submitting a script is not a guarantee that it will receive a reading. Not all plays are ready for a staged reading, and not all plays are castable or work with our limitations. For example, if your play has a cast of fifty, is three hours long and requires that all of the actors be fluently bilingual in Cantonese and French, we may need more than a month to set up that reading. In the event that such a thing happens, the Producing Director will be able to explain why in a brief one-on-one conference.

 

Again, please remember that this program is not a development process with production as a goal, nor is it a production in and of itself. It’s a tool to help you see if this play you’ve written “works,” how, and how it can be improved.