Taking the Left Turn: Radio & Stage

The image of a million writers pounding out their spec screenplays and sending 'em off to a reader somewhere who'll rip 'em apart -- it's always hit me as a little depressing.

Don't get me wrong. It does require toughness. Any time any writer finishes a new script, an angel gets a small little airplane- sized bottle of Vodka. (I'm talking about the drunken, ranting angels, who are really the only ones you want to spend any time with.)

But if the point of writing is to be read, or enjoyed, then having your script's audience be a successive series of assistants and readers really does just seem...oogie.

There's also the simple truth that though you learn a little more with every script you write, you learn way more by seeing something go through production, where you have to deal with Producers and Directors and Execs (Oh My.) Even working with a producer on the script is going to make you a better, tighter, more focused and marketable writer.

But what if you can't do that? What if nothing's hit yet?

Well, then you need to do something, son. You've got to see your words up and running in some way. You've got to figure out a way to get some chops.

Now if you're in L.A., I'm sure there's a million out-of-work waiters that will love to help you organize a reading. But even there, you're still only getting feedback from Actors and Insiders.

If you're in N.Y. then I'm sure your cat can throw up on a sidewalk somewhere and it will, by coincidence, be just outside a lovely little black box theatre space where you can put on a dandy show and invite your friends, and hear real people react in real time to your words.

This is such a key transition I can't possibly overstate it. In long-ago baby days, when I first got out of University, I used to perform sketch comedy in clubs around Toronto. It was a good time for sketch -- the comedy boom was still booming, the Kids in The Hall tv show gave the scene a little cachet...but after a while, though my group got consistently good notices for our writing and our material, life intervened. A couple of people broke off and formed their own group. One of our members went off to become a rock star. (No, I'm not actually kidding.)

But by then I'd learned what I needed to from the experience: I'd heard where the laughs were. I'd also completed the transformation that I'd always been destined to make. Y'see, I started out writing material so that I could have something to perform. Then somewhere along the line, I realized that I actually found the performing nervewracking and not as enjoyable as the conception. I wanted to hear the laughter, I just didn't enjoy sweating the performing of it.

I had come out as a writer.

Well this is a bit more of a Memory Lane trip than I'd wanted it to be, but I have been elliptically coming to my point, which is this: if the end you seek is money, you are doing this all wrong. The end you must seek is getting your stuff in front of an audience. That's how you learn, and that's what will keep you going through the crappy day jobs. The money will either come (if you're lucky and good) or it won't (if you're neither, or even just one. Seriously, the universe sucks.)

From those comedy days, one of the people I performed with is a very successful Actor & writer, one is a writer for two of Canada's most successful comedy shows, and the Rock Star is a Goddamn Rock Star. I went on to write plays and continue the transition from timid TV producer type to "nope, I'm a writer full time now" type.

And that brings me to the first thing you can look for: Fringe Festivals. They're all over. If you're a writer, and there's one in your area, find out the application deadlines, and enter. Fringe Festivals are a great way to get something on the stage because usually your entry fee, whatever it is, covers the rental and the tech. You're part of a like-minded community, and when all's said and done, you can get that work in front of an audience for under a grand -- maybe a little more if you do fancy posters. In Canada, the big Fringe festivals are in Edmonton, Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto. There are also fests in Ottawa and Winnipeg, and probably a few I'm forgetting.

For you Americans, you should know that Urinetown came out of the New York Fringe Festival.

All these festivals happen during the summer, and for most of them the application deadlines will be coming up in January and Februray. If you have a story and you're not married to it being a screenplay, why not try it out? Get your stuff seen. My Fringe experiences brought me some new friends, it resulted in amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Heck, I even got to write a musical. Twice.

Time was that I'd use the slack writing months between January and April to come up with a new theatre piece. I don't know if I'm going to be slack enough this year to do it. Probably not. But come this summer, I'll know that I'll miss not having something on stage. It's you, your words, actors, a director and an audience. Pure. How can you not learn from that?

A second route is maybe a little more quixotic, but that's just what makes me love it more. My friend Gregg Taylor is an old-time radio fanatic with his own site, Decoder Ring Theatre. It pains me to think that among you young'uns, you may never have spent part of your childhood as I did, under the covers, listening to rebroadcasts of Orson Welles as The Shadow, late at night on a Sunday, when I was supposed to be asleep, listening to "Theatre of the Mind" (which followed "Dr. Demento.") The fact that, as a culture, we more or less jettisoned the radio drama form always struck me as short-sighted and unfortunate. But with the popularity of Audiobooks and Podcasts, the whole form just might be ready for a revival. Read Gregg's how-to guide of making your own Radio Drama here. And check out his shows here.

And remember the point is to get your words in front of an audience, so you can grow as a writer.

How you gonna do it?