The New York Times: Making a new Broadway show is often stressful. At “Dog Day Afternoon,” a stage adaptation of Sidney Lumet’s 1975 movie about a Brooklyn bank robbery and hostage-taking, that stress became so intense that the production’s Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright was prohibited from entering the August Wilson Theater for three days over the last week.
Having worked with playwrights before, I understand the statement that producing a new play is always a passionate one. When you have been with a story for such a long time, it must be so difficult to pass it along to other people who tell you that you have to kill your darlings. Although, what many playwrights don’t understand is that the nature of theatre is that the text is being passed along to people who create a story. I think they know that but they just don’t understand – or maybe they do, and this passion for the original production is just a way of maintaining the last bit of control they feel like they have. In this example, I’m glad to hear that the solution was not to allow the playwright into rehearsal, so that he can practice not having control over how his text is interpreted.
ReplyDeleteIt’s very shocking to hear that a playwright is unwelcome to the production of their own play. I feel bad about this venue that couldn’t collaborate well. I feel that if a playwright is invited to join the production process initially, then the team should all respect the playwright’s original intent and then make new design changes. If the playwright is not involved in the first place, then it’s totally on the team’s overall decision to produce how much of the original piece. I am not confident about this production because it entered an unresolvable dispute that really harmed the relationship between the playwright who gave birth to the story and the production team who gave birth to the piece's visual environment and presented it to the audience. I think the article is very rational in stating the whole event, and mentioning that the show will not push the opening night schedule is crucial to the people outside of this whole event. Iwould like to hear more about this news and how the dispute will be resolved. I really hope that the playwright still supports the production version of their play.
ReplyDeleteThis makes me really sad, especially because I really want to see this show. The idea of not allowing the playwright into rehearsals is kinda crazy, especially since they were so close to opening the show. The hard thing, I think, with a show like this is the distinction between the playwright's and the director's boundaries and choices. It is also hard simply because it is based on a popular movie from the 70's with a very prominent tone. Normally, when producing a show, the playwright is not present, but because this is a new work, he just wants to make sure the show is being produced how he envisioned it when writing the story, which is completely valid yet can cause conflict with what the director is envisioning for this show. It is sad to think that this has and could happen, and I now really want to know the cause of the issue that led to the playwright's removal from rehearsal.
ReplyDeleteThe title of an article is an immediate hook. I'm so intrigued by this title that I just had to read it. After reading this article, I was kind of hoping for more details of this argument, which I only got a little bit of from this article. It seems like there was just tension between the producers and the playwright, which might be normal in the Broadway rehearsal room; I wouldn't know. But posting this on the New York Times makes it seem like it was a big crazy ordeal when maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, I don't know. It seems like this play has been through many revisions as well as cuts to make it fit in a shorter time period, which was probably part of the argument. Maybe it had to do with maintaining the vision of the play or keeping respect towards the play and the playwright's vision. It seems like this play is doing well right now on Broadway, and maybe I hope to see it in the near future, but I still think kicking the playwright out of the room is cause for drama and trouble.
ReplyDeleteEven though we don’t know what led to this drama between the playwright and the production team, I feel like these occurrences are preventable to a degree. Especially when this group spends as much time as they have on a production, changes in the week of opening are not the most appropriate. Guirgis had the opportunity to revise during previews, which I had no idea was a customary practice, so the expectation of significant changes likely should’ve ended. I was a stage manager of a production where the playwright had been invited to many rehearsals, and it often led to confusion and stress. That being said, I appreciate the structure of changes during previews. There should be a hard cutoff for changes, though, that may have prevented whatever conflict happened at the August Wilson Theatre. They’re given the opportunity to revise as needed, so they’re responsible for clear communication until the show is frozen. I hope that when they open, they’re able to be satisfied with the result.
ReplyDelete