Just recovering after a busy March filled with travel and dramaturgical adventure!

 

Took Robert McKee’s STORY seminar in New York.  36 hours in three days.  All lecture.  McKee holds our attention though -- brilliantly.  He’s an erudite deli owner, a cigar-smoking teddy bear, a scotch-slinging guru.  And guru he is. Though, like all religious leaders, his message is not original as much as it’s universal.   In 36 hours, McKee holds your tiny hand as you walk through Aristotle’s precepts for drama construction.  For those who think he preaches Hollywood formula, I would agree with what he says, “This is form, not formula, and if you’re going to write stories, you need to know the form used for the past 2,500 years. “ I would add, “Only then, can you mess with it, if you choose.” The seminar is marketed to screenwriters, playwrights and novelists.  I couldn’t recommend it more highly.   I think I’m a zealot.

 

 

The next weekend, I was off to the Humana Festival of New American Plays.  This yearly gathering in Louisville, KY is a Who’s Who of the contemporary theater scene.  It was my first festival, and I had such an amazing time seeing plays, dissecting plays, praising plays, pondering plays, and drinking lots of coffee to stay sharp: the weekend is exhausting.  But worth it.  Can’t wait for next year!