Webcasting is something that invites debate in the theater world, with the cons falling on the side that theater is a live event and always should be experienced that way, and the pros saying it spreads and promotes theater to places where theater can't reach. I'll come out and say I land squarely in the latter camp, which is why when Max Mondi, one of the founders of Interim Writers, asked me if I would be willing to be the first Accomplice--the guinea pig, so to speak--to stick a toe in the webcast waters, I didn't have to think twice before saying, yes. 

The reading took place Sunday evening, February 17 when the temperature in Boston was 17 degrees F and the wind was blowing 40 mph (these are important pieces of information from which I'm sure you can already infer some insight), and it was webcast over Howlround's #newplaytv through Livestream.com. You can see an archive of it here. 

The venue didn't have an Ethernet cable so Interim Writers had to stream it over the WiFi, which meant they had to broadcast it at low res, so the quality isn't the best. I know Max really had to scramble for a couple of weeks before the reading, figuring out the technology, finding the cameras and laptops he needed. We were definitely laying track before the oncoming locomotive. 

Besides the weather, there's one other little bit of information that I think is important: The script had had three previous readings--I knew it wasn't this big train wreck where I didn't even know if the scenes were in the right order. I mention this because i had two very fine actors who had to step out of the project because they belonged to Equity, and of course couldn't particpate in a reading that was being broadcast and archived. If the script itself wasn't at the point it was, I think I would have had to think hard about choosing between agreeing to the webcast and losing the actors who I felt would have given me a lot of insight into their roles.

So, theater is meant to be seen live, no doubt, no argument here. But here's what I got out of the webcast:

• People who said they could or wanted to come, still were able to see it. The weather was brutal; this must be what it's like to do theater in Alaska. Or Minnesota. I don't blame them for not wanting to go out. But one person had slipped and fallen on ice the day before, and she was still able to see the reading and give me feedback. 
  
• Those people who stayed at home still were able to give me their response to the reading, and some of these opinions were very important to me because they weren't "theater people." No concern over dramatic structure or rising action got in the way of them responding viscerally to the story and giving me some very interesting comments.
• People who wouldn't have been able to make it anyway because they were in different parts of the country were able to see it and tell me their reactions.
• It's archived so I can go back and watch it over and over, getting more out of the reading. 
• Did I say it's archived? I can point theaters, literary managers, actors, random people I sit next to on the bus to the site so they can hear (and see) the reading.
• It was on Howlround. At this stage of my career, I'll take any bit of promo I can get, even if it's my name on a calendar of events. 

My learned opinion on this whole webcast in the theater subject? My opinion based on working more than twenty-five years in the computer industry? Seeing the birth of the personal computer and watching it become a staple of our society? I was the first jgf at compuserve in 1988? Not jgf1, but the very first. People asked me what I was going to do with an email account, and frankly the first couple of months I emailed things to myself from work. At the same place of employment I started a network with another guy with about 15 users and a Mac with about a MB of RAM, and there were people who didn't understand why we needed to share files. Can't we just print them out and give them to each other? 

Here's what I'm saying. There are some people who get technology, and there are those who don't. There are industries that don't get it. The music industry--record labels, they never saw it coming. The newspaper industry saw it coming but still doesn't know what to do about it. Theater shouldn't be an industry, a business that doesn't get it. (Note: Get used to wrapping your head around the fact that your art is a business and an industry. It is.)

Webcasting is here to stay, folks. The technology is only going to get better. It isn't going to be all low-res for Interim Writers. It is the one thing that could "save" theater--grow it--by bringing it places where it couldn't otherwise be. Yeah, I know that's called TV, but I'm talking theater. Theater people could conceivably land theater on the moon. If you can't see it live, this is the next best thing. 

This past weekend I was one of the playwrights invited by Michael Haddad at the Hovey Players in Waltham, Massachusetts (he also wrote, and co-produced with Kristine Mackin) to participate in the theater's twenty-four-hour play festival. 

If you're not familiar with the twenty-four-hour structure that seems to be sweeping theater and film, a bunch of artist types meet, usually in the evening, and in twenty-four hours make either a play or a film. 

Crazy? Yeah, it is. I've done this one other time, and both times now I found myself quelling sheer panic, just wondering what the heck had I gotten myself into (with Hovey, it was the second time and I was thinking, You didn't learn the first time??) and how I was going to pull this off. As with anything, there's nothing like a little pressure to get the creative juices flowing.

It was a tremendously rewarding experience, and before I get into what was so rewarding, I'll throw out a few impressions.

First, I spent a few days before Friday lying awake in bed worrying. I tried to prepare myself, just to have something in my pocket, just in case, but the nature of the project pretty much makes this futile. The only thing I could think of was write a lot of action rather than dialogue so the actors's brains wouldn't explode trying to memorize a soliliquoy. (I ended up writing a rather wordy play, and the actors rose to the occasion.)

I got to the theater about twenty minutes early, and I knew one person. I was sort of sitting by myself when a woman walked in and immediately started talking to me. For maybe fifteen seconds we talked and I immediatley liked her. She was Wendy Feign, and we ultimately were paired up as playwright and director. This was a good thing, because in those fifteen seconds, I think Wendy used the word "collaborate" about five times, which was music to my ears. 

Down in the theater Michael gave us the ground rules, telling us we could write whatever we wanted as long as it loosely revolved around a dinner theme. For some reason this made me nervous. I suddenly felt locked in. 

Then playwright, director, and actors were matched up. We had a cast of four, and again, I had a moment of panic because for days I, for some reason, thought it would be a two-person cast. What the heck am I going to do with all these people, I wondered.

We all talked a bit, exchanged contact info, and I tried to glean as much as I could from the actors about themselves, their likes and dislikes. The one real tidbit of info I left with came from Wendy who said to me, You know, the characters don't have to be human. 

That's it! I thought to myself. Wendy, you're a genius. All I needed was that one little piece of thread to unravel the whole story. I left the theater, not having a clue of what I was going to write, but that little tip was what I clung to. 

By the time I hit the highway--maybe ten minutes--the scenerio was jelling in my mind. Animals, at dinner. A lion and a leopard. No, a cheetah. Yeah, there's something sexy about cheetahs. 

By the time I got home it was 11:00 (I had to stop for milk for coffee because I thought this was going to be a long night) I had the name the Serengeti Supper Club for the setting and the title, A Meating of the Minds in place. 

By 3:30 I had written a ten-minute play. Not a great play. But it was on paper. I emailed it to Wendy that morning, she met with the actors, I showed up around 11:00, we met some more, and for me, that was it until the show that night, which I can honestly say was very entertaining and amazing for the quality that was pulled together in twenty-four hours. 

Here's what I learned:

• Stop belaboring, you can write a fairly decent ten-minute play in a few hours.
• More importantly than hearing your play, a playwright has to see the play performed. I rewrote it today based on my observations that night.
• For a play to succeed, it is important that all the artists involved are invested in the piece. It was very flattering for me that the director and the actors really liked the play, even though I knew it could be so much better. But the other artists' enthusiasm drove the project forward. 
• I really question the current model of putting scripts through a number of readings. Plays need to be seen, not heard. 
• Conversely, readings are important, but I think we do too many readings, and should just put more plays up, even though they're not perfect. Playwrights, who are the initial catalyst, need that. I think we'd get quality theater faster in the long run.
• I am more nervous before one of my plays is performed than I've ever been before going on stage as an actor.

The play I wrote is called A Meating of the Minds, and you can read it here. 

It was directed by Wendy Feign Golden, and the cast was as follows:

Zebra: Jude Sabry
Lion: Vivian Liu-Somers
Cheetah: Marea Beeman
Human: Lou Fuoco