I am so, so, so excited to introduce you to some, most of you probably already know my amazing guest who also happens to be basically my big brother and one of my favorite writers in the universe. Your name is Steve Yackey. Hi, Steve. How are you? You are here. It's good to be here. So this, yeah, I'm so excited. My cat is real excited that Steve is here and she's been jumping up the entire time. So the cat does not like me. You can tell the internet. The cat is like, who's this guy again? Yes. Well, okay, so this is a class about writing in a short form, writing ten minute plays and evenings of ten minute plays. And this came from a question from one of the viewers out there who wanted to know about writing ten minute plays. So we're going to get kind of into the practical nitty gritty of this pretty quickly because all of y'all are down for it and really want to want to get better at your form and your craft. And I could not think of a better person to talk about this than Steve because even though he has written for TV and main stage plays across the world, really, some of his plays are Octopus and Blackberry Winter, which that one went everywhere, and Mercury and Pluto. And there's a whole, several of them are named after planets. Yes. So he has a great amazing career in writing like the normal full length play, but also has this incredible ability to write just blisteringly funny or scary or bold short plays that are kind of genre. There is no genre. They are they are totally Steve. He also is the person who basically turned me on to the power of dramatic structure, the reason why I went to grad school, Steve Diacchi. So I think we can talk about all of those things, but we'll specifically start with ten minute plays. But before we do that, Steve, I know all about you, but some of these people not. Would you tell us a little bit about where you come from, where you are at the moment, how you're doing and a little bit about kind of how you got to this point in your career and and yeah. Yeah, sure. I started out in college writing short plays at the University of Georgia. And then I went to the American College Theater Festival regional and had one of my short plays brutally eviscerated and was told that I shouldn't be a writer anymore. And so then I stopped writing for a little bit. And then when we were living in Atlanta, and I guess writing short plays is for Dad's Garage, which is the place that we both sort of got a lot of our start in terms of having short work produced. I know you won the Berlachur award when you were 18 and you're very famous, but when you're writing ten minute plays. And so it just kind of went from there. And then I went to grad school at NYU and so did you. And then I just, you know, it kind of took off from there. And then definitely I got into the TV work and most recently I was a co-executive producer on Supernatural and now I've got to show the flight attendant that's going to be on HBO Max whenever the pandemic lets us do our jobs again. And right now I'm just staying at home, staying safe, staying healthy, mentally healthy as well as physically, probably not mentally healthy. We're going to get about 20 minutes under this, Lauren.  It's fine.  We are not alone in our current madness. I am watching for the comments online. So if y'all have specific questions for Steve at any point, throw them, throw them out there. I am watching comments with her so that you can say anything you want and I won't see it.  So, yeah, so I am very intimidated by writing in the short form and I kind of only did it because once again you tell me to do things and I'm like that sounds like a good idea and I should probably do them because Steve told me. So when we were writing short plays it was always hard for me, but it is a great way to get started. Can you talk about, because you've also taught playwriting and certainly taught the short form, how do you approach teaching the short form and maybe does that differ or does it is the same of how you think when you sit down to write a short play? How do you dive in and do it? I mean, the reality is when you sit down to work on a short play, I guess I get why it's intimidating, but I think it's super fun because you're essentially writing the first scene, the climax scene, and the last scene of your play all at the same time. That's such a great way to describe it, yeah. I mean, you have to do a lot in 10 minutes because like lots of these places that you'll submit to publish to produce your 10 minute plays will tell you like it can't be longer than 10 minutes and that can mean a lot of different things because if you're writing a monologue then that's probably four pages as opposed to 10 pages, but I think maybe even three pages, but when I sit down, I'm always kind of thinking about thematically what am I interested in writing about and then sort of like what is my kind of grounded intimate relationship between two of the characters on stage that I can use to explore that theme. I think you really have to have a theme in mind. You really have to have an idea of what the intimate relationship is and in a 10 minute play you really have to know going in that you are what your kind of main event of your play or your big turn is because you are heading for it from page one. Right, very quickly. Yeah, you have like a single page to kind of establish your world even if it's a mystery and we're supposed to sort of like in part of the trick of the play is you've got oh as an audience member I have to figure out what exactly is going on or what exactly is being set up even if so even it's a mystery you still are doing the work of building like you immediately there's not very much stasis for you to have your incident incident it's like go and you just kind of immediately have this very steep roller coaster climb or ride it can go all over the place I mean you can do anything to people for 10 minutes if they know it's only 10 minutes long you can you can make it as crazy as you want to you can make it as still as you want to I mean I have a 10 minute play called when it happens it will happen quietly and it's about two teenage or teenage to young adult women that are eating soup and it's two pages long but it takes 10 minutes to perform because of all the silence in it and you realize over the course of the play that they are they're eating their father in a soup because he wasn't feeding them um and it's and that thematically for me I'm like I'm writing about um class and I'm writing about income inequality and I'm writing about all those things wrapped up in this kind of child-parent relationship and I know that kind of the event of the play is going to be when the younger sibling realizes what she's eating and then makes the decision to keep eating it um and so you know you kind of like step back and you kind of let yourself like those are the things I tend to ramble so just jump in I'm just trying to well but what I'm getting some some questions a lot of questions this is awesome um but I will say one to go back to that first point because on my classes that's one of the things I've talked about is once you know that beginning middle and end of a full length play and I again I'm usually write full length but in a 10 minute play it's actually excellent practice because you have to make those decisions right away you don't get to wander for 10 pages to discover your character you got to start and go and I will say so many of your plays start with such a bang they start with like an act of violence or a big old crazy monologue that's either like angry or really like uh strangely peppy like ah you know and if you just go right in and you're kind of forced to it's the deep end of a play and then that you have to save your sink or swim basically which I love that how do you can you talk about starting the play again like what is it how do you how do you come to just how you start these things so from yeah sure that was very nice everything you just said I'm not sure it's 100 true but that was very kind of you um I do think with the with look with full length plays you're right like I very seldom when I sit down to write a full length play do I write the first scene that is going that the audience is going to see I start somewhere else in the play whatever that kind of emotional impetus or thematic impetus is I dig into that and that's where I start writing from with a 10 minute play very often I start with like the first image like the first thing the audience is going to see what is or the first thing they're going to hear like because you basically look whether you're writing a short play or you're writing a full length play I think you want to let the audience know very quickly that they're in good hands so that they will trust you and kind of relax and then you can take them any crazy place you want to take them once you've kind of showed them I know the fundamentals of what I'm doing I'm telling you a story come with me on this it's going to have a dramatic payoff because we all know the feeling of sitting in a theater especially I mean it's true in full length plays but most full length plays don't make it all the way to production and still have this problem but you'll go see a 10 minute festival and there will be like one play that feels like 17 or 18 minutes long and then you'll look at your watch and it's only been three minutes and the reason is because nobody kind of there there is no context given to you in the first page to kind of like this is the world that we're living in like if I'm writing about a woman who's afraid of what what's it I have a short play about a woman who has Karanath Metaphobia which is this amazing fear of man-made satellites falling from the sky on them but that's a real thing and as soon as I read that I was like 10 minute play that's a good but like on the first page her daughter shows up and is like like you haven't been answering your phone and she's like I'm fine and she's like why do you have that iPad and she's like what iPad and hides behind her back and she's like oh my god you're doing it again you're looking for satellites and we're like in it do you know what I mean and we've got a mother-daughter relationship we've got what's we've got kind of oh this kind of woman in a bathrobe who seems very much like everyone's grandmother is afraid of falling satellites and she may in fact have been keeping these people hostage in her house to try and save them I don't know whatever's happening in that in that play um this kind of goes to a question that somebody just asked about how do you make exposition work in a 10 minute play which is kind of what you're talking about like go in quick like set it up as quick as you can so that you can have the rest of the time to pay it off right yeah you can either because it's a 10 minute play and that that thing that I said I I think I said it but that I always say about 10 minute plays is that you can do anything to an audience for 10 minutes because they know that it's only 10 minutes they're coming to see short plays so if you want to have a crazy narrator that spouts exposition and has strong opinions you can do that I think Elizabeth Diggs actually at NYU taught me the best thing about exposition period whether it's 10 minute plays or full-length plays is the best kind of exposition is ammunition and it's this the concept that rather than have people in it if you've got 10 pages like to tell this story I want to immediately have some form of conflict and so those people yelling at each other and during that fight revealing like you do this every time we go to Denny's you like order this thing that you can't finish it makes me furious and I want to divorce well I just got a lot of information about their marriage in like two lines um especially if the person's response is but it tastes good like if there is a disconnect between them and so you're kind of getting this you exposition is ammunition is a great way to do it it's the sooner you can get people disagreeing about something the sooner you can like unspool the kind of exposition that could be like in a clunky way what is remember that dream I had or about that time to the lake like those kinds of things um and lots of people it seems like with 10 minute plays they want to write like two character pieces which is which is great I mean it's great there's a lot of value in that and there's a lot of stuff that you can do but also what's tricky about that is you can fall really easily in a two character play if you're just writing an emotional play if you haven't thematically decided what your play is about and it's just about like two people breaking up um then you can end up a lot of you could end up with a lot of like inert exposition like exposition that's not dramatically active and that's when the play starts to feel kind of languid and you're like oh it's so beautiful but I'm having trouble connecting to it and that's that's a lot of what that is I think um so let's see a couple of these questions since we're here let's thanks for all these great comments um all right so let's see um thanks for your question um you talked about leaning into oh this is um I was talking about having big emotions and trying to make your character what is the thing that's going to make their biggest emotion happen um so how does that change in a short play is your question so that it doesn't seem like melodrama or unearned can you talk about like I guess big characterization big emotions like how do you do that in a short form I think you have to decide right from the beginning you're on page one you're telling the audience how to watch your play like from the first from the first exchange that happens in your play and the lights come up and here's a lunch room or here's a boat or here's a you know if you're actors theater of Louisville a fully realized set of a city like whatever it is um you can you're telling people right away how to watch your play and so if you're going to have a play with big emotion you just let them know from page one this is a play that's going to have big emotion you you build the context for the emotion that you want to have and so there's two ways you can do that right if you have everyone speaking sort of very calmly and trying to stay calm and actively working to keep everything very naturalistic then if someone explodes into a big ball of emotion at some point they're doing that because they can no longer live within the it's the reason people start singing in a musical you know they can longer live within the constraints that the character has been given or you just write a play that has big emotions and after you write the first draft of it you go back and you do a shaping pass and you go okay how do I have these like kind of lips early in the play that let people know this is a capable this is a character capable of going to this place or this is a character with a lot of feeling but I never imagined that they would go to this place I mean some of my favorite short plays like when I was first starting to write short plays are Christopher Durang short plays and they're they're you know borderline absurd they're hysterical but also he's doing something there where you can have a woman whose only function in the play is to scream at the top of her lungs every time she hears anyone else mention jumping I don't like there's one of those plays where they're all standing like the one woman's like going to jump off the edge of a building whatever I'm not going to go down that road but that character was originally played over by Bonnie Grace the American rock singer so I think I think it's just you have to you're responsible for letting people know right off the bat um what what world they're in yeah and if it's if it's a play if it's a world where big emotions can happen then it won't feel melodramatic it will just feel like the play that you have started in motion but I also think that's that's great I mean for full-length plays too if you get to a point where you write like the most amazing aggressive monologue and she's throwing crap and and you kind of haven't seen that in her that her before ask yourself is is that the same character like did you mess up should that be somebody else doing it or how do we plant it exactly as you said like how do you drop seeds little clues that this that this character can do that and maybe that's you learned your play when you wrote that monologue and you're like oh that I want to write the whole play getting me here and that's great you can go back and you know have somebody be like well as long as you don't break you know freak out like you did last week or just little little tiny things to go oh without giving it away of course but that's I think part of what you mean by a shaping pass or kind of how do you earn the thing that you suddenly go this is what I was writing about I mean the great thing about 10 minute plays is yeah sure there's there's there's actually a good bit of construction necessary for an effective 10 minute play but you don't when you when you watch it you don't feel that work like you don't feel that effort because you write a pass of your 10 minute play and then you go back and you say now that I have this thing and I think that this is the kind of right wall material of it it's so much easier to edit a 10 minute play than it is like it's daunting when you have to edit a full length play and you're like oh god if I change this one thing in the first scene I have to track it through this whole day of play and and then like you know you get six scenes into the rewrite and you're like it's not doing what I want it like it's like and and you and you get angry so I think it's it's fun for me to edit 10 minute plays because you really you really feel like you have a sense of you have your hands around the entire play yeah like it's not like I forgot what happens on page seven like you can just scroll and look like I mean it's you know it's not difficult in that way um this uh Karen asked how do you address the blank canvas of starting a piece do you always sit down with an idea or do you ever just write uh I'm not good at at sort of free writing um I sort of the way I approach play writing is that I usually have something that I that I want to write about like I've just a topic or a theme that I'm interested in exploring and then when I kind of get a glitch or you know with 10 minute plays in particular I've been commissioned to write like on a specific topic or the festival has a specific kind of entry point or the contest whatever it is that you're entering um and those can be really helpful so if they're helpful when you get them from other people then they're they're also helpful when you choose them for yourself right yeah give yourself a little little something um I mean a blank is always intimidating so a blank page is always intimidating if nothing else I'll just like make up a character page of things that I don't even know are going to be in the 10 minute play just to like be writing something and then be like oh this this this character dot that I just described sounds fun I'm going to throw her into this and see what happens and then I start on page one but you there's all kinds of tricks we everybody's got their own tricks they play on themselves right right yes yes um okay so let's see maybe for a second can you talk about um where you tend to have your 10 minute plays um produced who do you work with who does 10 minute plays like if you have some great ones what do you do with them it's weirdly getting it feels like it feels like it's getting smaller like the number of places well the number of places producing theater in general but we won't get into the like larger macro conversation that would depress everyone but um city theater in Miami is a real standout for me uh for two reasons one they take unsolicited submissions it through their contest that they have every year um and two whoever wins that contest gets produced along with nine or ten or I think this was going to be their 25th anniversary so I think they were going to do two full programs of nine plays each um but they produce this thing called summer shorts every year and uh they've commissioned me for the past eight years maybe and um and and it's fun for me because they get a lot of two character plays so they're always like can you write something that uses our entire cast and I'm like I would love to um but uh because most people write two character plays yeah um but so city theater and I would just look them up their contest is amazing and um the best thing about them I think is they fully produce plays at a level that you would expect to see in New York yeah their productions are amazing yeah oh because you've had yes okay so because we've been there together yes I they didn't do a ten minute play though they did it was one of my children's festival but we were there together yeah and I got to see it it was it was amazing so like city theater obviously the Humana Humana theater festival does um that's three um I think well I think they stopped I don't know if they're still having the contest but they stopped doing the tens for a little bit um I I know they still look for a place for the apprentice program to do so there it's a good place to submit but I don't want the Larry manager ATL to be like Steve Yockey shut up because I don't know if they yeah I don't know how how how much that's still happening right now with the leadership change um and there are always you should find local because like when we were writing for dad's garage and they were doing eight and a half by 11 with when Kate Warner was curating it they did eight and a half because there was a half play that that the whole company created together but they did eight ten minute plays and they commissioned specific writers so my thing is always and I know there are theaters that do that in different communities it it comes down to the same thing for me whether it's a permanent player or a full-length play you need to get to know the theaters in your community and develop a relationship with them because they are going to be the kind of gateway to the larger American theater community you're like going to move through them to out into the field which you know you get in the field and you realize it's like this big but it feels like gigantic when you're first when we're sitting in our apartment in Atlanta going like how do we get out of Atlanta like that you know Steve and I actually had an apartment together in Atlanta and had this conversation so right next to it looks down on dad's garage yes true true story true story um yes okay so a couple of questions you have a lot of fans on here Steve is literally the best I agree um my so his question Shaya King's question is my question for Steve is when do you know if a short play wants to not be so short or vice versa I think it's like have you ever had a short play that you're like oh no this is a big play or the big play and you're like this is actually 10 minutes I have a piece of a I have a piece of a monologue in it in a short play that ended up kind of inspiring me to write a much longer play but it was sort of in a different context um for me because I'm such a structural junkie I feel like when I have a 10 minute play idea I usually it's usually is what it's supposed to be my longer ideas tend to be things that thematically need a bunch of different layers or entry points whereas if thematically I'm like here's an idea here's a visual image that fits with it and here's the person that connects those things okay 10 minute play go do you know what I mean but honestly like one of my favorite writers in books is Murakami and he uh he has a ton if you read his short stories he has a ton of short stories like there's one about a guy making spaghetti that turned into the wind up bird chronicle like I mean there's like he takes the short stories and then they blow out into full like insane novels so lots of people have that um for me I tend to think if it's a if it's a strong theme but it is a sort of simple idea not simple as in dumb but simple as in easy to render then um it's a good 10 minute play and if it's more complex and it requires like more points of view to get into it and kind of layers that you're going to explore and like build a house on then that's probably a one actor a full length play although I I I don't know Lauren like my my experiences there aren't many people in the American theater that are looking for what people used to call one acts because now one acts are like 90 minute plays you know I mean yeah I think one acts kind of disappeared as a yeah I don't know what that is there um let's for a second go into since you are a structure junkie which is why I am one as well um can we talk a little bit about that 10 minute play structure the kind of essentialized version of dramatic structure um we talked about the beginning and kind of doing that exposition really quickly jumping in what is your kind of midpoint halfway point kind of the the math of that for you and then what is an ending how do you know that climactic ending is there um you described a little bit earlier but can you kind of walk us through how you kind of go oh yeah that's exactly what I want this to be or whatever choice that is at the end I mean honestly the big kind of there's like it depends on on what the topic that you're writing about is and and so I don't I this is not custom fit I mean it's it is custom fit to every play but generally you're going to reach your climax like at the bottom of page seven or somewhere on page eight and then have a little bit of room for a day-new-maw unless you're writing a play that ends like a seared like a cliffhanger or something like like if if if the big reveal at the end of your play is well I buried him alive blackout you know and then the audience is like oh like then that's like you know that's amazing like um but I tend to I tend to like what I'll do is I'll tend to start the play I'll write the first page write the second page once I get into like a rhythm I'll be like okay but I need to know that I can get where I'm going so I'll just jump further into the documents like I'll just get down like space bar space bar space bar space down onto the next page so there's space there and then I'll kind of attack what I think is going to be the the moment of the play whether it's a man in a tiger suit walks in and throws glitter at everyone or whether it's you know junk falls from space crashing onto the stage like whatever that moment is and then I'll start working backwards from there and then you kind of realize as you're working backwards from that point you're like oh god I've only got two more pages to connect like where I am to where I was and it kind of it starts to like flesh in and and feel like it and you may end up like it's a little longer and then you have to pull back but I think it's that and then I I don't think there's any point in writing anything past the climax of your play until you write the climax of your play because that kind of like beautiful ending that you kind of see in your head that lovely moment where they just needed to hold hands or like whatever it is um if you write that first you might fall into a trap which I see lots of my students fall into which is that you do a soft curve like you you basically and if you're looking at an Aristotelian model right there's rising action climax and then Dana Ma they'll do this kind of soft curve where they're so focused on the beautiful moment at the end that they kind of don't really write the climb they kind of dodge the climax which is the hardest part of the play um and lots of 10 minute plays do that um even 10 minute plays that that we know and love or that we you know have seen up on stage um kind of suffer from that problem so it is it is kind of like getting it going and then like looking ahead and making sure you know what that kind of big turn is that's going to make this 10 minute play worthwhile for an audience um and when your plays when your 10 minute plays have that they tend to stand out and they tend to be the kinds of plays that when people are reading for festivals are reading for and I don't just mean like like I write crazy weird shit like I just write crazy plays apologize for my language but I I'm not saying you have to write a crazy play you just have to you have to have an event there has to be an event in your 10 minute play um whether that event is like you know your happy couples one of them just spins around and is has after being like yelled at for like eight pages she spins around and it's like that's why I killed my last husband like whatever I mean I don't know that didn't feel that was awful that was great but anyway that's that's the idea but it's true though I mean even what you were talking about with the soup play the climactic moment is her continuing to eat which is a big that's huge like it may be small and soft but it is a massive decision that defines who that character is and that's again that's what we've been talking about in terms of full-length plays that character defining moment in the climax where we go oh this is who you are okay so something that does that whether it is an explosion or a reveal or an exit or a punch in the nose or something that kind of you know makes it um but yeah that's that that's what we're watching for we're waiting to see that and usually you tie it to what I mean just like in a a full-length play I mean you tie it it's recognition and reversal like that's what something has to change in your 10-minute play right so at some point your main character has to recognize something new or some new piece of information or that the world is different than they thought it was and then make a decision or change in course off of that right exactly and so it it's the recognition and reversal and then making sure that whatever that moment is is tied to the event of the play like what the play is about you know what I mean if if the plays about oh my gosh we live in a we live in a weird country where it rains frogs every like two days but it hasn't rained frogs and now everyone's freaking out about it because they think that means something bad and you're thinking to yourself it's going to rain frogs in this play and it it whenever if it does if it rains frogs or if it rains birds for some reason I don't know I'm giving you all the Aristophanes references I love it I love it if it rains birds for some reason instead of frogs at some point in the play and no one knows what that means it needs to be tied to like like the main character like suddenly realizes oh the reason it rains frogs all the time is because we treat each other this way and then it starts raining birds and it's like oh fuck or you know what what the decision is but they need to be they need to be tied together because it's always super fun when you're hearing someone talk about their 10 minute play then you're like or you're at like one of these because after being as I mentioned totally destroyed in college at the american cobs theater festival now I do that drama skilled foundation will like send me and I always volunteer to go to the act of regionals so that I can respond to 10 minute plays and tell them that they're good writers and try and help them tell the story they want to tell and so when I do that it's it's always like you ask students sometimes what is it like why is this in here and they're like I just thought it was really cool and that's a good answer but then you have to but then it has to be tied to the emotional journey of your character you have to you have to you have to connect it um yeah your Aristophanes reference is a great segue to this question about working it um it was what is it mythology oh yeah so Riley Smith says how do you go about incorporating lores and mythologies into your world and your stories I think specifically your plays how do you I do it I I mean I do it a lot I grew up reading those delores um like the greek myth book and then the norse mythology book that had like the hand painted illustrations and everything um which I was like when you're a little kid and your mom gives you that book you read like then Zeus had sex with these three women you're like I'm too young for this but um but the murder part was fine um so I I usually think of it in terms of how do I want to use a certain device a theatrical device like in greek like so I have this play that they did it um actors theater of Louisville and they did a maritth mcdonough directed a beautiful production of it and the set gets covered with blood and destroyed every night so they built two completely different versions of the set so they could do it both nights um called joshua consumed an unfortunate pair and that has very greek undertones to it but it was really informed by the fact that I wanted to use a greek chorus and attend that play and I wanted to have this like group of people who had all been killed in some strange and unusual way standing off to the side commenting on what joshua did in the play a lot of greek play and then like a lot of greek plays joshua was aware of the chorus and could hear their comments and uh was interacting with them and so that just meant for me like all right well if I'm going to do this and I'm going to dip into this form I should go ahead and like work some mythology into it I should like fully embrace that idea sometimes when you want to tell I mean look myths are stories that people told themselves to explain the world around them we still do that right I mean like I'll give you a good example because it was on the other day um I pointed on my tv you can't tell where I'm pointing I'm sorry um it was on the day but um there was like a a jeep commercial that was on and it was like you know they showed a jeep like driving through the woods and it looked really cool and like it looked very like you were in it with the jeep and like and um and it was right it was pacific northwest just painting the picture for you so there was splashing water and manly and this deep voice is like in america we build things that's what we've always done and that's what we do that's a myth that we tell ourselves like that's a that is a myth that is a story that is perpetuated from like the 1930s and 40s 40s 40s and 50s like we don't we're a service-based economy like that's not a true thing but we still buy it because it's on tv and tv is like our modern version of like here's how I reinforce how you think about yourself um and so that's all myths are and you can reappropriate greek myths norse myths any kind of whatever cultural thing or religious iconography that you want you can that was given meaning by people you can give it a different meaning you just have to do the work to do that but if you kind of lay it into your even in a 10 minute play you can do it yeah well I think some of your plays like minute the minotaur play where you can use that as a way into telling a grand story but then you also use it to talk about something different to talk about something that's really resonant now that's modern now that's you know so it it's a really kind of fun way to to time hop a little bit between the accepted um mythology and what our mythologies are now that we're trying to to break out of or to challenge absolutely because you can you can use you can use ancient stories to subvert people's ideas of what is happening right now absolutely um for a second let's talk about or maybe not for a second for some amount of seconds however long you choose um let's talk about the um uh so you've you've done this a couple of times where you create evenings of short plays some of which you have curated I was a part of one called bread and circuses uh that we did in a bay area which was so cool um yeah that was really really fun so can you talk about for those out there who like love this form and producers who love the form what is a successful evening of 10 minute plays um look like how do you how did you choose it I mean and you kind of worked with each writer and kind of commissioned each writer um each of us to build a a play that was kind of our own idea but also a part of the whole can you talk about that that process yeah that was a two-fold inspiration one was that impact used to do the shows at these short play festivals and I think it was called how to I wish Joy Meads was here because she when she was at cal shakes she also was curating these evenings for impact and like doing that kind of and Joy Meads is a hero of the american theater um but uh I uh I was inspired by that so I know impact was open to the idea of doing short work because some theaters aren't um some people just kind of look at 10 minute plays like why would I waste my time with that even though it's incredible for an audience when it's done well I mean the audience gets so much out of it um and the other thing is dad's garage when Sean Daniels and Kate Warner were at dad's garage and when they took eight and a half by eleven that festival I mentioned earlier and they kind of took it from all the theaters in town can kind of make a 10 minute play um and they changed it to the theme this year is punk rock will never die the theme this year is the birds and the bees the theme and the commission playwrights were given like you can have no more than six actors you don't have to use six actors it has to be 10 minutes long and the theme is the birds and the bees do whatever you want with that I think that helps like it helps to give a focus to an evening because then you're getting to see all of these different playwrights lenses all of it all people are paying us for his playwrights like if you're lucky enough to get paid as a playwright it is because people are paying for the way that you personally see the world and how you reflect it back to them through your lens right that's what's special about you the only thing that's special about you is like how you tell a story that everybody else is telling right and so when you get to kind of have a theme like bread and circuses when that was about like that I basically was like can we please do a 10 minute play about the decline of western civilization and like all of this like all the ways that were distracted um from the real issues and all of that stuff and then and people like you wrote a post post apocalyptic play about women putting on makeup that turned out to be like a war party and it was very feminist and powerful and I I think but then like Declan Green from Australia wrote that 10 minute play where the every time the guys uh every time the guys um maramba it was called maramba every time his iphone alarm went off he had to restart telling the story of his life and go as fast as possible to try and get to the end before the maramba thing went off again and each time it got more violent each time he told it um that's a good play that's the best one of the best ones Eric Kerr did the acting in it oh yeah that's right plays I've ever seen so um you know I think when we're for theater producers that are out there and interested it there's one thing that feels very like like like if you're doing the 24 hour plays or whatever it's amazing what they do because they do it in 24 hours you know what I mean but if you're going to produce an evening of 10 minute plays um I think having some type of thematic lynch pin helps the audience uh invest and also uh engage um and then I also think it helps the writers too um because then you go and you see all the different ways and you see the way someone else interpreted and you're like oh my god that's so amazing I never would have done that and that's what's great about a 10 minute play is you're getting to see all of these different lenses on a particular topic I wonder if that form will come back for some reason I've been thinking about is that what we're going to be doing when all this is over like short bursts big ideas and big emotion and big characters and then like here's another one and here's another one and here's another one for some reason I was like maybe that's where or somebody make I don't know somebody out there take that run with it bring back the 10 minute play the evening of 10 minute plays because you think about Beckett and Albie and there were so many of these incredible writers that have just breathtakingly exciting 10 minute plays and maybe that's a way I will say thank you for talking about Dad's garage so much because that was when I was a young writer Steve and I were both um writing a lot of these 10 minute plays um for Dad's garage and that was such a gift to me as a writer to be commissioned you know it was a small commission but it was a small play but you had a professional production work with some of the best actors in town and and you were in community of all these other writers like Dave Holstein remember Dave Holstein did one one year um there was like all of these incredible writers on Alice I wanted to write I wanted to I wanted to write full length plays instead of short plays because of Alice Twan's short plays yeah so amazing she's so amazing and writers that you wouldn't we wouldn't have been exposed to if Dad's garage wasn't commissioning these people from all over the country to write 10 minute plays where they were a theater company that couldn't afford to commission full length plays and produce full length plays the way South Coast rap does or some of theaters but they could commission 10 minute plays and do an evening of them and your audience then in your city is getting exposed to a a bunch of writers from their own hometown that maybe aren't ready to have a full length play put on the stage but know what the fuck they're doing and and can deliver in a big voice yeah and meeting them with more established writers that an audience might recognize or more established writers that they won't recognize but that you know can deliver a 10 minute play is a good way to kind of like enrich your your own community through 10 minute plays I that yeah that's such a great point because that is what it was it was so exciting to have a play in the same evening as Alice Twan and all of us are just like so so so excited like one year it was Lisa Crone and I was like what the okay the crown yeah so that that's a really interesting way also to kind of spread the wealth of a great production and and audience eyes and ears and souls that are there to see this this work is to be able to say instead of commissioning one writer will commission 10 and then I don't know like more plays more actors and more directors get involved and it seems like I don't know I'm getting more excited about this America ten minute play festival remember the most what I remember the most about those those nights with eight and a half by 11 was it was always like funny funny funny and then they get to yours and it was like oh and then funny funny and then they get to mine and they'd be like oh and then it's funny funny and then everybody gets to leave right like that you know and we have we have crystallized into those career paths I don't know I when I think of your stuff I think of it as funny and I think my stuff is funny but then has the it's like funny till it's not that's definitely my world sorry my cat yeah yours is funny until it's heartbreaking and mine is funny until it's traumatizing it's fine yes we're fine high five perfect balance the world is in balance all right so a couple more questions from folks out here um one was about if your ten minute plays taught you anything or prepared you for tv writing in any way if you don't mind talking about tv for a second uh yeah um there's a whenever I'm asked like by an mfa program or something to to to teach a class I always want to teach this short form class and it's short form which is like I have to write a ten minute play they have to write a seven minute film they have to write a seven page comic book story um it's like that kind of thing like it and the whole lesson of the class right which is not hard to decipher is like story is story but I do think a ten minute play prepares you for a more condensed um you have to get to it quicker and the thing about television is like I remember I wrote my first television script and I was so proud of it and it was a 34 page like cable dramedy and I gave it to my friend Ross Maxwell who was writing for glee at the time um you know yeah our friend Ross maybe like my friend Ross um who's now on Sabrina but he he um he took it and he's like hey man I don't want to I know how you are and he meant like testy and defensive um he's like I know how you are but um can I can I please uh just just take a take a pass on this and editing past to kind of give you a sense of what tv actually looks like and I was like yeah that would be okay and he gave it back to me and it was it had been 34 pages I guess and it was 18 pages and it was all the same scenes but they were all much much shorter no scene longer than two pages everything communicated clearly but there was it's just you know you never have a scene longer than two pages unless you're Aaron Sorkin or the like um and so it's like it does get you used to the the idea of getting getting into it quicker yeah like starting later and getting out fast that's that's what you want to do with every single scene anyway but that's definitely in television and I think 10 minute plays I'll put that I also think 10 minute plays help you with your normal playwriting normal I think we keep you said it and now I'm saying it normal I know with your full length playwriting in that um if you can do a 10 minute play that's a sustained 10 minute play that isn't broken into scenes because that's really hard for an audience that's true that's a good tip like usually 10 minute plays don't have scene breaks yeah if you do scene breaks it it's difficult for an audience to kind of get their brain around that um unless it's like something where it's starting over and they're seeing the same thing again um like a la quiero chocho um so if you if you can write that sustained 10 minute scene then you then you're in good shape when you have to sit down and write scene three of a full length play and scene three has to have just as much interest just as much dynamism just as much engagement and just as much going on even though you can't have the climax of your play at scene three has to have you know that shape and and stakes and conflicts and all of those things so if you can do it in a 10 minute play then you can do it for each scene within your full length play if that makes sense yeah that's such a great note I mean I always prefer to start start way farther in than like she opens the door yawns another day donning and you're like oh god I want to start with her being like what the hell just happened you know put me there start the scene there so I'm like running to catch up to it instead of like and then she's gonna get coffee and then she's gonna check the newspaper and oh something happened but I will say yeah but and and that's very much my taste also my taste isn't like hello welcome to the theater but sometimes sometimes people's personal like all of this you take with a grain of salt right because your personal it all goes back to your personal lens as a writer like if you are a writer who knows that you can spend one page with her being like oh this coffee is so delicious yeah this is the most amazing morning I'm by myself in my house I'm my husband went to work early this morning and I'm all alone I think today's gonna be a really great day and it's just going and you're like what is this and then someone who's on fire runs in like then you know what I mean then you've done your job like then it's like you have your basis disruption yeah the phone rings and she goes to answer it and she screams and all of a sudden that tableau freezes and like a marching band walks on this like whatever it doesn't have to be insane like that I'm sorry I just go to that place but um but I do think that you you know if you don't have to you don't have to jump right in but you do have to you don't have to jump right into ah but you do have to jump right into your storytelling yeah you have to jump right into something that is like clear decisive yeah and I think that's the lesson over and over for all of these forms of storytelling is decision you have to be the one with the decision you can't wait for the play to decide for you you go here's a character and now you can do whatever you need to do talking to yourself walking around taking a shower and iterating you know whatever you need to do to figure something out but then once you start the play like it has to be clear so that you know I know I know this character so I know how to destroy them I know this character so I know how to make them happiest they've ever been in their lives and we can we can simplify it even further and say your character has to want something and every single thing that they say in the play has to have a playable action attached to it that is trying to get what they want I mean that's very actorly like that's a very like actorly way to think about it but your your protagonist is the person who has a goal that drives your play and in moving towards their goal they're pushing the action of the play right and so even in the 10 minute play everybody has to want something yeah it can't be like and want something like real real bad yeah like yeah um yes exactly all right so let's see a couple more oh one other um question was about writing for a specific actor which I know you've done a lot and I will say when I I mean I'm as you all know I'm very much about women in the women's stories female writers but I always use Steve as an example of a male writer ally who writes incredible roles for women so the feminism in theater isn't always just let the women write it's support anyone who's putting women forward as the carriers of the story so I always talk about you because um because you do that so well so um can you talk about writing for specific actors and how that I don't know does that help do you prefer to do it that way how does it change your writing or I mean I think it depends honestly most of my I still I think it's it's formative it's formative basically like when you have an experience with an actor that you're like oh oh wow this person really gets what I'm doing and they've really kind of like brought this to life in a way that I didn't have to say to them okay what I really was hoping for is there are a state of the director not to them sorry but you didn't have to say to the director oh could you ask her to do it like so I think that I I think when you have that experience and you find the right people um or if there's an actor that you have admired on stage who you you know that they do beautiful work then it's really really fun to write for someone I mean honestly I have there's a few actors in Atlanta um Joe Sykes Kate Denadio Kathleen Wadis there's a few actors that that I write all of my plays for even if those people are never going to be in the plays those are people who understand my work in Atlanta was my artistic home for a very long time and still is one of my artistic homes my parents are still there and I go back all the time for work and for family and like those those people I have their voices so clearly and how I imagine they will execute these things then I will kind of mentally put them into my head but the only trick to that is that then when you get the actual actors who are going to be in it like sometimes there's like a little bit of a like moment of like oh because that's not you know I mean we all know that it's not going to be like what we excuse me once you've been through enough productions you kind of take it as a given that it's not going to be at all what it was in your head it's going to be something else and that thing can be beautiful but what you had in your head was just you and now there's a whole lot of people involved right like um and so that's kind of the beauty of theater the collaborative process but I think writing for specific actors can be helpful whether or not those actors ever end up playing the role yeah yeah I love to do the like fantasy casting game sometimes halfway through a skip to go like I'm writing this for Ewan McGregor just to see I don't know what that does and why not I have like this but I but I'll say this like for this most for the television show right now like when I was hired um they already knew that uh Kaylee Cuoco was gonna be the lead and so I spent some time with her and I have to tell you that like she made writing that character like infinitely more accessible to me and easier to me because it's a character that has to do some not great things but you spend 10 minutes with her and you're like oh I can get away with murder with this character because the charisma on the other side of it I mean like you really like learn those things when you sit down with someone and so um I think it can be really kind of like it can open your perspective a lot if you're writing for someone specifically um because it kind of in a weird way it's sort of like when you're given a prompt to write when you're given like you can only use two characters you have to have a lamp somewhere you know it has to be about a natural disaster like I don't know whatever and then it rains frogs but like when you're given those things and it can be oddly freeing because you find all of these new ways to interpret those things or approach the story and so I think that's true with actors too like it can be you know whatever I hate saying whatever works for you when we're in a class situation we're trying to be helpful to people but you should never feel like there's a wrong way to approach it I do want to say this just real quick because it occurred to me earlier one of my favorite things about 10 minute plays and and this has been throughout my career so beneficial is that they are the perfect laboratory like it is the perfect place for you to try something like if you want to write a play where three people stand on stage and talk to the audience at the same time overlapping the entire time and see if it works do it if you want to write a play where it you know everybody's talking about it raining teddy bears and then it does do it if you want to write a play where the dead guy that's buried alive is buried on stage and then a giant flower springs up like seracane style at the end do it like because in 10 minute plays it's the old hat that I'm now beating it it's the horse it's the dead horse that I'm beating again as I combine all my things you can do and if an audience knows it's only 10 minutes they will sit through almost anything except being bored but they will sit through almost anything right we we went to that top where tony kushner was like you cannot bore people like that's the problem I've told them and I thought yes I was like Steve and I we saw tony kushner and he was like you're killing the child's worth of lifespan with the amount of boring theater out there oh it's emotionally scarred me forever um but I do we did not forget the cardinal no boring effective um the way I like to say it is if the audience is bored that's not their fault it's your fault yeah absolutely and I think like look you can do something that makes absolutely look my Alice Vaughn writes some of the best time that plays that I've ever seen I don't know to a play if I could tell you what any of them are about yeah do you know what I mean but she knows what they're about and so her characters are moving with motivation they all have once there is conflict there is action happening bizarre crazy things are happening on stage and I at the end of it I have this like it's like impressionism in a way like I like I'm I have a feeling from having watched the play without understanding fully what it was about so don't be afraid to use a 10 minute play to like try every crazy narrative approach that you want to try because that's what they're there for and you might find your thing and it might become a cornerstone of your fulling place you know what I mean I mean I will say that's actually quite true because a lot of the stuff when I did when I when Steve does make me write 10 minute plays I often find myself returning to a theme or a circumstance and a lot of this was violence against women or women survivors women resilience and kind of going all right well I can play with how far I can go in in in these plays and play with what did it play with direct address versus every other kind of form play with musicality play with poetry and kind of use it exactly as you said as it as a laboratory to figure out what what do I care about like what do I really want theater to do in this way which is great one last thing before we go I have we have person Charlie code hi Charlie who is from Atlanta he's an Atlanta bass writer and wanted to talk a little bit about that which both of us are from Atlanta and yes we've had different career paths but I think both represent a way that Atlanta really brought us up quite well yeah and we still consider it home and artistic homes we've both worked at certainly a dad's garage at actors express a theatrical outfit you know all of the all of the synchronicity that there's so many so so so many essential theater who certainly gave me many of my very first commissions first awards first productions so I'm grateful and very proud of being from Atlanta how is there young there's a lots of young companies there right now too but I'm embarrassed to say I don't even know the names of but I know my friends are like going to see this work and being like have you heard of this company they've done three productions all of them are amazing so there's there's like an out of hand is still putting on crazy things and oh gosh out of hand is the greatest yeah they're doing amazing kind of adopted they've kind of adopted this like the theater in your home model where they're taking the show into people's living rooms and like that that's sort of like kind of social justice issues in a really interesting way I've kind of never seen theater do that before so yeah I mean it's it's it's kind of crazy what all the there's a lot of great stuff going on in Atlanta I remember when we were there that you know I sort of said this we would sit like we'd sit there over coffee or over drinks many drinks and be like I don't know the the larger theater community this is something good for people to know whatever town you're in whatever community you're in it can feel like the larger American theater is like very it's Moscow and the three is just like we're never going to get there like how do I connect to that thing and I don't want to just be this character that's always like one day we'll go to Moscow and then we don't go like but it's this it's this idea that you you can do it it is accessible you you submit to things it feels far away you build theaters you build relationships with your local theaters and then you start to find out about organizations and then you start to find out about programs you can apply to and then you start to find out and there are different ways to get out of it and the entire time you spend all this time trying to get out of the town and then I remember we were in it was one day in San Francisco we were having lunch and both of us were like I'm gonna have another play in Atlanta and I was like this is so dumb all weeks like the grass is always greener bullshit but like yeah we spend all this time being like one day I'll get out of Atlanta and now we're like one day I'll get back to Atlanta basically um well yes and I will say that it's also true that these theater companies that you develop relationships with and they know you they know your work they're like on your team no other theaters and they're like you know there's a theater that's exactly like synchronicity in San Francisco there's a theater that's exactly like Actors Express in Chicago and they share you know recommendations and so it really is a way to kind of look at where you are and who you are in your local place and then use that as a way to make relationships beyond that and certainly as a way to work on your work I mean that's the first thing you're not going to have a career to play right until you have plays and plays you can say this is what I mean this is who I am this is exactly what I'm about and that you only do that with you know readings and workshops and productions um to to know to know that about yourself I will say just real quick plug at the end for um I have no personal stake in this but for MPX the new play exchange um because if you are trying to get your 10 minute play published or not published produce and um you know you can put it up on I I have a 10 minute play up on new play exchange right now um called adorable kitten image collapse oh my god this play is so good y'all have to go read it it is yes ostensibly it's about who are these people who cyber bully but whatever the the the idea is you put your 10 minute play up you check all the boxes and stuff and then rather than you having to like apply to everything that you get alerts from MPX where you're like your 10 minute play may be eligible for this it might be eligible for this it could be eligible for this and it really kind of like in a way that I never expected kind of gets your work into the mix because now you're not digging through those books that they used to put out but like a source book I loved it so highlighted and dogged and sticky and when it's watching this it probably has nine MPX pages and knows exactly when I'm just behind but and Steve means a new play exchange you go newplayexchange.org we've talked about it a couple times but it is such a great resource and a place where if you go I don't know where this play belongs that's one place to start and the other thing you can do is a great place to read you can find people who really get um get your style or get your taste or writing in a similar way or about similar things and build a little cohort of it really has become it really has been and I know this was the intent of it but I was always like it's not going to happen like it really has become a forum in terms of like a place where you can go to read plays and share plays so I just think that that's exciting and and good for people who have like three 10 minute plays but they can't figure out how to get them produced or where to send them or like stuff put them up on MPX build your page put your little bio up there and then check off all the things that apply to your play and then you'll start getting those notifications yeah I think it's a great that's a fabulous tip to end on um and so let's start we have to end I miss you so much I hope this was helpful I feel like this was so great well you have I will say I will stop complimenting you eventually but maybe not maybe not ever um you just have given me such inspiration and clarity about my career and at a point where I was like I don't know I think I just write weird ambiguous ending to plays that are kind of sciency and that's what I do I guess Steve was like you don't have to do that so I find great empowerment in structure and in community and you're always a combination both very inspiring but also very just practical like here's the deal on page eight you should like think about having a climax so anyway thank you so so so much um thanks for all the questions y'all um yeah I'll go back and answer any other things and maybe I'll poke Steve and see if he'll answer if there's any other stuff and thank you and I love you