Perspectives on Albee's statements are being spun all around the blog-wires.
The Guardian
Parabasis
Rob Kozlowski
Mr. Excitement
Scott Walters
Mirror Up To Nature
Now that, my friends, should provide us with hours of entertainment.
What do I think? I think he's pretty much hit the bullseye... but I don't think it's some revolutionary challenge or surprising sentiment. In fact, I'm surprised at how much resistance that statement has found. It seems fairly obvious that writers have this problem.
About Me
- Freeman
- Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.
4 comments:
I'm pretty surprised at the resistance to it as well.
Me too. If anything, it sounded like he was advocating for playwright's rights in the commercial world.
He's right in many ways. All the movies of the past 30 years are being made into stage plays or musicals. Musical legends and bands are allowing their work to be made into jukebox musicals. Instead of digging deeper for richer original material and untold stories, the commercial theatre world keeps recycling and bastardizing old hits and casting them with anyone they can find with name recognition (even if that person has never performed onstage before).
The other thing to consider, is a lot of our truly talented playwrights are writing for television to survive. Alan Ball wrote for "Six Feet Under". Aaron Sorkin wrote and created "West Wing" and "Studio 60". Warren Leight and Diana Son write for "Law & Order". Theatre producers should start taking notice. That people are getting the kind of writing they used to hear onstage on their televisions. Can you blame them if they stay home and watch cable? It's pure economics.
TV is even worse for writers than theatre, as far as respect for the text goes. Dialogue get rewritten entirely, the murderer changes from x to y, actors refuse to perform scenes or story arcs...I guess the bigger pay day makes the disrespect easier to swallow.
Word verification: urphhf, which is the sound of objection a rewritten TV writer makes, as they stuff the filet mignon in their mouth.
Right. Well, that's the weird payoff with being a TV writer: your stuff gets butchered left and right, but you end up making more money than God...
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