I stumbled across an interesting article yesterday. John Kolvenbach, the writer of the play Love Song (which Dragon produced last fall), is directing his own work, five years after its London debut. Fun fact: Cillian Murphy and Neve Campbell originated the roles of Beane and Molly in the West End premiere. Then the play moved
And what struck me as interesting is that now, as a director, the playwright is confronted with such things as budgetary issues in producing some technical effects. And as a result he may rewrite the script. As a stage manager, that kind of cracks me up.
My question is this: if you're a playwright, do you consider the technical needs of producing a script? Or do you just write what needs to be written and leave it up to the techies and directors to implement it creatively within their budgetary constraints?
[Via @stagedirections]
For the most part, it sounds like he was unsuccessful:http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/theater/reviews/love-song-by-john-kolvenbach-at-58e58-theaters-review.html?ref=theater. I had to laugh about his budgetary problems. Welcome to the real world, Mr. K!
ReplyDeleteAnd, for the record, I don't think writers should ever direct their own work. They have no perspective on it.
Dave - I thought you'd get a kick out of this.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the perspective problem, he's indeed to close to the source.