So, this past weekend I found myself in Washington, D.C. at the Kennedy Center’s Page to Stage festival, a three-day weekend of readings, open rehearsals, and panel discussions featuring 40 different theater companies from around the area, designed (according to their webpage) “to produce and support the success of new plays and musicals.”

I went to see a play written by a friend of mine who started the Playwright’s Group of Baltimore. This group presented readings of twelve ten-minute plays members of the group had written specifically for the festival (each of which included, somewhere in the script, both a whistle and a naked light bulb—and you wouldn’t believe the diverse directions into which this simple prompt sent these twelve playwrights). I also got to see a developmental reading of an absolutely brilliant solo performance piece by Josh Lefkowitz called Now What?, which is all about his process of figuring out what he should write about in the high-pressure wake of the massive success of his first solo show, Help Wanted. The reading was fabulous–witty and engaging and very, very fun–and I for one can’t wait to see the finished performance.

Anyway, all of this got me very excited about the whole process of creating new theatrical work and developing plays and playwrights, which is pretty much my passion when it comes to theater. One of the main reasons that McCarter’s literary internship was at the top of my list was the theater’s strong commitment to the development of new work and groundbreaking theater. With an Artistic Director who is herself a playwright, frequent theatrical premieres on its main stages, and a variety of developmental readings and festivals scattered throughout each season, McCarter presented itself to my anticipatory investigation as a hotbed of theatrical growth and innovation.

My perception of McCarter’s invaluable and energetic role in developing new work, and my excitement at my own chance to be involved in that process this year, has only grown since I arrived to begin my internship. Getting to peek in on Lydia Diamond’s developmental process during rehearsals of Stick Fly has been just one exciting aspect of a whole interconnected system of play development to which I am being gradually introduced.

There was also, for instance, last week’s Live at the Library event, where about 100 people packed the aptly-named Community Room at the Princeton Public Library to hear Valerie Smith and Emily Mann interview Lydia Diamond about her writing process and reflections on the play. It was a fascinating evening, whose topics of discussion ranged from how Lydia first became a playwright (turns out she started out as an actress, and then began writing plays because she was frustrated by the lack of interesting roles for young African-American women) to the ways that the personal and the political intersect in the play Stick Fly, and in real life. After a while, the floor was opened to members of the audience who wanted to ask questions, providing further opportunities for some fascinating discussion about the process, impulses, inspiration, challenges, and rewards of creating new pieces of theater.

And then today, Carrie gave me an overview of “The Sticky Board”—a big sheet of foam core with 119 (I just ran back and counted them) sticky notes organized into various categories. Each sticky note represents a different project or person that McCarter Theatre is currently in some way fostering, supporting, or excited about. As Carrie provided a couple of sentences of background on each colored note, I marveled once more at the vastness and diversity of the creative work that is happening, even as I type this, in the many far-flung realms of theatrical development. And I am now, in my own small way, a part of this interconnected web of energy and inquiry and inspiration and creation. It’s simultaneously humbling and invigorating. But I am very, very glad to be here, and I can’t wait to see what will next set alight my fascination, excitement, and abiding passion for new work.

See also:

• The Literary Office
• The First Two Weeks

Posted by Elizabeth Edwards, Literary Intern at McCarter Theatre.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 at 1:07 am and is filed under Get Connected, In the Lab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.