Saturday, April 12, 2008

Notes from "Cutting, Tweaking & Rehearsing" with Guillermo Verdecchia

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER WHEN RE-WRITING YOUR PLAY
  • Does every line do some work for you?

  • Can it do more work?

  • Does every line move forward?

  • Are you telling too much?
  • Are you telling us enough?

  • Does the character need to say this or does your audience need to know it?

  • Are you walking us through the thoughts or allowing us to join the dots, make leaps of intellection?

  • Would a transition be better replaced by a pause or silence?

  • Are you showing SIGNIFICANT ACTION?

  • Is your inarticulate dialogue eloquent or simply inarticulate?

  • Is your spare dialogue rich or empty?

  • Is there a payoff?

  • Does the payoff work?

  • Do these words belong to this speaker?

  • Do these words belong in this play?

  • Has the play outgrown this idea, image, line, metaphor, scene?

  • Do actors thrive, grow, struggle productively with this text or do they wilt under it?

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