Your Artistic License

permission to go as far as you dream you might go

You have permission to write or make anything, to go beyond what you first conceive, to expect more of yourself, to push beyond what seems reasonable because we don't live in a reasonable world. We need more than the real on our stages and in our books and films and on our blogs—we need the potential for miracles.

We need to suspend our disbelief not because we can recreate the unbelievable as if it is real, but because there is more to our existence than can be reproduced as real.

We have the ability to transform and reinvent ourselves. That impulse must be allowed to exist again and again so that everyone comes to understand that transformation is the nature of humanity and our right.

We writers and other creatives must find the ways and means to show change, to show aspirations and dreams, to transcend the constructs we forget are constructs, to question the rules of engagement all around us that we accept without question, to see with new eyes what is normalized that must be destroyed.

We must be able to embrace the strange, the literal, the figurative, the metaphorical, the metaphysical, the incomprehensible, all of it! Because without the strange we are reduced to the homogeneity of consumers or automatons whose every action can be anticipated by the monsters of the market and the state.

We are all of us miracles! We must be so much our own selves, so specifically each and every one of us differentiated through our miraculous specificity that we stun and shine our strangeness to radiate inspiration on everyone we know giving them all permission to also be their own authentic selves.

Make simple promises to your audience. Connect with the love interest. Foil the villain. Sophisticated structures can also make big promises. Try introducing 2 storylines with separate characters in the same play; the audience instantly expects connections. Tension is created because the audience wants to know how. Use Exaggeration and Hyperbole - Raise the Stakes.

There is no reason to keep it real; give us Metaphor and Fabulation! Myth and the Compression of Time! Remember the Enquirer - Inquiring minds want to know! 

Go big! Go bold! Or go small! Go slow! Go sexy! Take risks! Speak your truths, your shames, your secrets! Tell! Show! Go for it! We will all feel less alone.

artwork by Scott Sherman on instagram at scottshermanstudio

Writing Prompt:

 Explorations in the Dark: How do we explore beyond the typical or ordinary? How do we find the most evocative ways of addressing our subject? How do we make it what only we can make? Like nothing you’ll find elsewhere? One way is a method of deep inquiry.

Add 2 distinct things together to make a third thing that never existed before.  
Pretend to be a 5 year old and ask WHY to the heart of the matter or its absurd end. 
Can you find your most emotional answer? 
Can you find your most ridiculous answer? 
Or the most emotional or ridiculous questions?  
Emotion can still mean funny. Don't be afraid to find your edge. 
How can research help you go deeper? I always look for homophones and check out etymologies/word origins. 
If there is something you are using as a theme like money/greed then one word that could be a homophone would be dear/deer, so maybe add a deer...  
Find the origin of the words or ideas and use anything adjacent to explore and deepen the resonance of the word or idea. 

Rachel Chavkin, in her work with The Team (her devising group), says, "If you're writing about the sun, how do you do that if you can't look directly at the sun?"

She's talking about defamiliarization (Viktor Shlovsky). How do you come at a thing sideways to make it new? How do you reframe and make something no one expects to be made about whatever you're making? Can you take a central image from your work and build off of it in a new and different way? Can you take 2 central images - perhaps from 2 different characters' points of view and combine them to make something new? If you write a word in the center of a page and let circles of ideas and images move out from that word in spokes (a mind map), can you create a new way forward? Can you rub two of those new outer words together to make a spark? 

Brave Space Schedule:

For the week of 4/15 - 4/20/24:
Monday at 12pm ET Brave Space 
Tuesday at 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshop & accountability
Wednesday at 1pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
(pre-requisite Brave Group Coaching)
Thursday at 12pm ET Brave Space for End of Play for All Humans
Friday at 12pm ET Brave Space 
Saturday at 4pm Brave Group Coaching

For the week of 4/22 - 4/27/24:
Monday at 12pm ET Brave Space 
Tuesday at 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshop & accountability
Wednesday at 1pm ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
(pre-requisite Brave Group Coaching)
Thursday at 12pm ET Brave Space 
Thursday at 7pm ET Brave Space for End of Play for All Humans
Friday at 11am ET - Brave Space, note earlier time
Friday at 2pm ET - Brave Sharing Salon! 
Saturday at 4pm Brave Group Coaching

Announcements:

You can livestream MEDEA or see it in person live in NYC at LaMAMA! With performer Sheree V. Campbell among a great cast and dramaturgy by Morgan Jenness. See it here.

If you’re in NYC, go see FISH by Kia Corthron, directed by Adrienne Williams on Theatre Row tickets here

Also in NYC, go see Las Borinqueñas by Nelson Diaz-Mercado directed by Rebecca Aparicio at Ensemble Studio Theatre tickets here

If you’re in Philly this April 14-15th, check out the MusiCoLab Spotlight Series of new musicals at The Drake! Including one with a book by Melissa Bell! More info and tickets here

I had a great time teaching Magical Dialogue for the Dramatists Guild’s End of Play last week. 124 people attended! If you missed it, and you want to take that class, let me know, and I’ll schedule another.

Onward,

Emma

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