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Photo by Debra Lopez
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![]() I learned to write by teaming up with an established writer to write my first play, Liberty City. We then spent four years going to writers's retreats, developmental labs at New York Stage & Film, The Culture Project, New York Theatre Workshop and many others learning not only how to generate documentary theatre material, but how to spin that into the solo play form while still retaining the values of a well-made play. I majored in English in college, but that was literary theory. Writing, is real life and a far more elusive skill set to master. In short, I learned how to write, by doing it, but also by doing it with the help of writing mentors (along with voraciously reading the work of great writers). Great playwrights, novelists, developmental producers who turn screenplays into films have been my mentors. All of these steps have led me to producing, writing, developing and producing screenplays and plays in my position as SimonSays Entertainment's Director of Development. I had great mentors: Jessica Blank, Lynn Nottage, Marcus Gardley, Darci Picoult, George Eliot, Jhumpa Lahiri, Zadie Smith, Mary Karr, Naguib Mafouz, Jacqueline Carey, Robin Hobb. People whose work I studied meticulously and asked them questions (the ones I knew personally, the others I stalked their work reading page after page, again and again... and listened to their words of wisdom and guidance. So I'd like to give back because that journey has been the grandest of my life. Learning to write has taught me how to live, love and laugh. Ask me your two most burning questions about writing in the comments below. I'll answer. P.S. Sign up for the free weekly Writers' Arsenal here
10 Comments
Soyini Crenshaw
12/12/2014 01:57:13 am
I'm working on writing my one woman performance piece. I want to write it as a choreopoem and have a choreographed piece at the end. How to do I go about crafting my play for the stage; I'm dealing with a heavy subject.
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12/12/2014 03:10:03 pm
Hi Soyini:
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Well, first you need to get a team of professionals onboard and there are several ways to do that. What other work that's been produced successfully (great reviews, awards and nominations) off-Broadway or Broadway are similar to your solo show? Find out who the creators (director, writer, dramaturg) of that show were and begin studying their work by picking up a class with them or hiring them to collaborate with you or read your script and give you notes. Or study with whoever trained them. That's first off. If you want to do something you've never done, the best way is to learn from someone who's done it well.
Tiffany
12/18/2014 09:22:14 am
Tiffany's 2nd Question: I wrote and performed a solo play with music over the summer but it needs a lot of work. How do I produce the play in an off broadway theater in New York after making the revisions?
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Hi April!
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12/22/2014 05:11:20 pm
Hola Sweet Sadah:
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Hey Sadah:
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Victoria
1/5/2015 01:08:55 pm
Is it possible to be a writer if writing is a physical challenge? You speak about volume as a way of finding the heart of your story, but what if one page of text takes a massive amount of time to type, and what about Morning Pages? Is speaking text or using a dictate program the same as writing?
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1/7/2015 03:45:41 am
Hi Victoria:
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