9 Months To Birth Your Play
9 Months To Birth Your Play is a new series designed for artists to explore well-being-centred approaches to their practice whilst gaining a more rigorous understanding of the psychology of drama. 8 Well-being Workshops by neuro-psychodynamic coaching psychologist Anna Webster run alongside Writing Workshops from 9 exemplary artists working in the wonderful world of new writing today.
The next workshop to be published will be Well-being Workshop 5: How Do We Respond When Threat Overwhelms the Nervous System? on Friday 23rd August.
Look out for 3 recommended resources related to this article at the bottom of the webpage!
Story & Idea by Mia Chung
You bite into a cracker, chew once or twice—and then look at me uncertainly. I’ve just asked if you’ve thought about our last conversation. Your chewing grows slower and slower, then stops, and your eyes level concern at my expectant face.
I say, “I’ve been so looking forward to hearing what you—”
You raise a cupped hand in the air and tip it toward your dry, crumb-dusted mouth as if to take a sip. I realize I too could use a cup of coffee.
I go to the kitchen, race to find mugs, search for cloth napkins but settle for paper, pour milk into a dainty, seldom-used creamer, and then assemble all on a tray—because, after all, you’re a guest. I slop coffee into the mugs and return to where you sit, mute as a brick.
I can’t hide my impatience: “Look, sorry, there’s not much time. If you could just—”
I interrupt myself to bite into a cracker as you take a swig of coffee. Abruptly, you set the mug down, avoiding my eyes. At that precise moment, I register that the Saltines are past their prime and narrowly avoid spewing dry crumbs into your face by drinking coffee that I’ve just discovered is cold.
Your face wrinkles.
“You said you’ve been thinking,” I say. “Please, didn’t you say you had something really good to—honestly, it was such a chore to wrangle time on the calendar and—” and that’s when there’s a ping, and I take the merest glance down at an incoming text.
You push your chair away from the table.
“No, wait! You have my attention, I promise!”
You shake your head, but with a blush of polite, embarrassed disappointment as if to say, Maybe next time.
I know now it’s hopeless, but when you rise from the chair, I can’t help a reflexive grab: “Hang on now, you can’t just—look, I’ve some new projects that you might find—no, wait, wait, don’t go!”
You walk out the door with a gracefully sorrowful expression. But your decisive step telegraphs a proud defiance and even some righteous anger.
I gaze at the space where you were. I recall how you usually fill it: collecting and sharing a bounty of perceptions that keeps me alive to my daily experience. You are so much smarter than me. You routinely brave assassinating critique with plucky generosity. You often put an arm around me, whispering funny ideas until I laugh my way out of a funk. You stand by me against deadlines and grow wings to fly me over self-doubt. You trust me to hold you close. You know that I know that you are essential to me, so you share everything possible and impossible with me, always and already. My lifelong best friend. You save me. Over and over. And still I push for more.
I sigh with wry acknowledgement. Indeed, I had made this appointment fully expecting you to share something very private or richly complex or intuitively wise or, at the very least, heartbreaking—and moreover, expressed with original, poignant phrasing.
Cold coffee and stale crackers are frank evidence: I’ve taken you for granted. Again. And, well, you are not in the mood.
I sit down and consider the error of my ways. Then: I make a menu.
1 SOUP
Make a List of Objects that are in your closet, or that overstuffed drawer you’ll organize one day. You have 2 minutes. Set a timer. Write fast.
Now set the timer for 3 minutes: make a List of Values that you believe are worthy of a fight. For example: Achievement, Health, Self-Respect. (Resist the overthinking impulse; jot down as many values and ideas as 3 minutes will allow. And remember: a fight could mean bloodshed, but it could also mean giving someone a dirty look.)
Review the lists and underline all 5-letter words. Then underline all 7-letter words. Pick one of each.
Write a Haiku that uses these two words at least once.
(Reminder: a haiku is a 3-line poem. The first line is composed of 5 syllables; the second line, 7 syllables; the third line, 5 syllables.)
2 SALAD
Step 1
Create a Story Outline of a fairytale. Or a fable. Or a favorite family folktale. Or a work of fiction with a title that starts with the letter F.
Be brief. Focus on major actions. Use shorthand, abbreviated language, code—whatever makes short work of this. You can skip over parts that you don’t remember, or make pieces up.
Example:
- Three pigs build houses—1 straw, 2 sticks, 3 bricks
- Wolf knocks door Pig 1 straw
- Pig 1 chinny-chin refuses let Wolf in
- Wolf blows down straw house
… and so on.
You have 10 minutes.
Step 2
Take the List of Values (from the Soup Course). Count them. You need at least 25. If you’re short, take a minute now and jot down more.
Then:
- Circle 10.
- Kill off 5 by crossing them out.
- Stab 3 of the survivors with a line run through them.
- You should have 2 values still standing.
Step 3
Take the Story Outline (created in Step 1). Re-conceive the story as a conflict between Surviving Value 1 and Surviving Value 2.
So, for example, instead of a story about long-term thinking and prudent investment, consider how “The Three Little Pigs” could be reconfigured as a face-off between Freedom and Integrity.
Rewrite the Outline.
3 APPETIZERS
Here is a scan of a document I was given by a friend who said it was taken from a Paris Review interview with Wallace Shawn:
Think of a person you love (or hate or for whom you feel blank indifference) and write a Scene enacting a fake origin story of this love (or hate or indifference). What’s true about this false story? What do the lies you’ve chosen reveal about you or your love (hate, indifference)?
Then, take on the point-of-view of the object of your love (or hate or indifference) and edit the fake scene (a la Wallace Shawn).
4 ENTREE
Think back to when you were half the age you are now. Write that number down.
Think of a Person that you knew that was the age you are now. Write a few words to describe that person, as you saw them at the time. What sorts of things did they do or say?
Think of that Person Now. Where are they? What are they doing?
Think of a question that you would say to the Person Now. Write it down.
Imagine a statement that Person Now might say to your Half-Self.
Think of the Place where you feel the safest. Name it. Write a few words to describe it.
Think of a Place that you’ve been to and that you suspect you may never go back to again. Name it. Write a few words to describe it.
You now have characters, some pieces of dialogue, and a setting or two.
Write a play.
The timer is set for 20 minutes.
5 DESSERT
Draw your play.
Remember: a drawing is inherently an abstraction. So, in lieu of showing off your talent for photorealistic rendering, I encourage you to use squiggles and shapes. The goal is to create a pictorial depiction that balances story and idea.
For instance, you could sketch a constellation of the points of tension. Or create a diagram of the characters that tracks their relationships with each other, or perhaps their relative status shifts. Or sketch the emotional journey(s) of the play.
Consider how time moves through your play; then consider if or how time may shape your drawing.
Some examples of pictorial depictions of drama:
You ease back into your chair with dreamy eyes and unsuccessfully suppress a small belch—signals of nourishment that has also managed to please. I quietly clear the table of our simple repast, relieved that you’re not one to hold a grudge. I pour us hot cups of digestion-supportive tea and sit kitty-corner to you. Together we sip tea. And then: you look into the middle distance—that charmed dimension—and speak.
About Mia Chung…
Mia Chung received a 2023 Whiting Award for Drama and a 2022 MAP grant for a new music-theatre work. Her play CATCH AS CATCH CAN premiered at Playwrights Horizons in Fall 2022 (Off-Off-Broadway world premiere Page 73, 2018). Additional work: BALL IN THE AIR (NAATCO/Public Theater 2022). DOUBLE TAKE (PH Almanac 2021). THIS EXQUISITE CORPSE (multiple awards). YOU FOR ME FOR YOU (Royal Court, National Theatre Company of Korea, Woolly Mammoth, multiple regionals. Published: Bloomsbury Methuen.) Awards, commissions, residencies include: Clubbed Thumb, Helen Merrill, Loewe Award for Music-Theatre, MTC/Sloan, NYTW, Playwrights’ Center/Jerome, PH/Steinberg, Playwrights Realm, South Coast Rep, SPACE/Ryder Farm. Alum: Huntington Playwriting Fellows, Ma-Yi Writers Lab, New Dramatists. She recently sold an original TV show to FX and has written for THE DIPLOMAT and THE SINNER.
Like that? Check out these…
What Makes A Great Play? Podcast Episode – The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting (writeaplay.co.uk)