The Playwright's Craft - The final polish

There's one last process before you hand the script over to the director and cast- this is the final polish.  You've done everything you need to make the play work: you've got the narrative structure right, you're telling the story in a crisp, stylish way, you've got the scenes in the right order and the overall dynamics look good.  You've edited out all the dross and you've got the characters speaking in their own voices.  The interchanges of speech and action flow naturally and easily. You've done your grammar and spell check (making sure it's set on UK English if it's for the British stage). The play is finished. Except for the Final Polish.

The Final polish is that last little bit of tweaking time.  It may be a couple of hours, a couple of days or, perhaps, if you've finished ridiculously early, a couple of months. The best thing is always to put the thing away and come back to it with as fresh eyes as you can manage.  Now read the play for one last time.  And make sure you read it it closely, not the sort of skim that you've given it up to now. You're on the look out for those little anomalies that the actors will pick up straight away; little solecisms of speech and character.  Ask yourself "How does this character know this?" "Where did that piece of information come from?" "Shouldn't this character be aware of that fact before now?" and so on. Actors are notoriously good at spotting these errors and inconsistencies.

If there is time in the rehearsal room you may be able to make these adjustments but don't count on it.  Rehearsal time, as I've said before, is for rehearsing not for rewriting. And if you iron out these little glitches beforehand you will appear that much more organised and the actors will have more confidence that the rest of the thing is going to work.

At this stage I am not suggesting rewriting anything, you should be far beyond that necessity.  No, I'm talking about tiny details that can be rectified with one or two words or, at most a sentence. I've just finished polishing a piece that relied on two characters knowing each other but I realised I hadn't made that clear.  It only took a "I think I've seen you in the Co-op" when they first meet to settle that.

So there you go.  Final little tweaks and it's ready to go into pdf for sending off.  Good luck.

Plays for the Future (Part 3)

So I've written about rescuing old scripts and how I'm trying to make them available for a new age of readers and performers.  Now another tricky step.  Preparing them or publication.The problem here is that every publisher has a different way of formatting scripts for the page and they will want them prepared in their format even before considering them. Over the years I have developed my own style which works well in the hands of the actors.  This is not unlike the way film scripts are formatted with plenty of empty space .  for actors to write notes and to insert text small text changes in the rehearsal room.  And with the use of scripts on tablets it looks clean and easy to read on the screen. So  I prefer now when writing a new play is to write directly in this format, and as I'm updating old scripts I want them in this format too.

Here is an example of the way I like to do it from "She Opened the Door":

THE MOTHER

Did you ever feel this place was haunted?

THE MAID

No.  No.   Only by the Missus....  she has a weird presence.  She shuts herself away in her bedroom  in the attic for most of the day but sometimes....  she haunts the house like a ghost

THE MOTHER

When they were digging the well they found a pile of skeletons six foot deep.   All piled on top of each other.  They come from Roman times so they weren’t Christian.  That’s what they’ve built her home on.  Heathen foundations.

She says it again Louder

Heathen unnatural foundations this house has.

THE OTHER WOMAN returns arguing with EMMA.  They are carrying costume hats and scripts

EMMA stops

EMMA

What?   What did you say?   This is a Christian household.

THE OTHER WOMAN

I though your son had eschewed all that.    I thought he had become a humanist.  We have had many discussions on the subject.  I wish I could agree with him on every point he makes

EMMA

Humanist he may be but he still accompanies me to church on Sunday.

THE MOTHER

All I was saying that there were skeletons buried in the garden.   They found them when they were building the house.

But publishers tend to follow a format that saves space and paper. Thus(from Sherlock Holmes and the case of the Vanishing Author):

Budd: Well, what do you think?  
Doyle: It’s a bit grim.  
Budd: Nonsense. It’s a room of great character. You’ll do well here. Look at the height of the ceiling. That’s grandeur.  
Doyle: It’s a mausoleum. I can hear the voices of the dead.  
Budd: That’s just the plumbing, Old man. By jingo, this is big enoughto be a second Lord’s. Here bowl me one of your famous googlies.
(Budd seizes a bat. Doyle bowls. The ball eludes Budd.)
Doyle: Howzat?  
Budd: All right. No need to be a Clever Dick.  
Doyle: It was only a dolly drop, old man.  
Budd: I didn’t want to pull it through the window.  
Doyle: See if you can get your bat to this.
(He makes to bowl a fast bumper. Budd pulls away)
Budd: Oh look there’s a separate room for all your equipment.


I suppose they both have their advantages but for me it means I have to format everything in at least two styles and that is very time consuming as no software however sophisticated can change one into the other.



So, which one do you prefer? Is one better for reading and one for working in the rehearsal room as I suppose or do you have different views?