This sounds great, I’m enjoying the insights into the process. 7 designers! Wow. That’s also quite an innovate way of dealing with the text. I’m currently working on a show, which I’ve written the script for but no matter how how much we do, there’s still way to much dialogue. It’s so hard!
Thanks Paul! Yes we have the usual designers (scenic, lighting, costume and sound) and then we have some specialty designers (projection, music composition and puppetry) and really I should get an eighth to do props but… we will see. Yeah cutting dialogue down to the essence of a scene is hard. There’s a kind of improv-ish game in which you give two actors ten minutes to create a scene based on a scenario you give them. They go off and create the dialogue and staging on their own. Then they present the scene they created to the rest of the group. You all identify what engaged you as an audience and then you say, “OK now you have ten minutes to revise the scene and when you bring it back, it has to be half as long.” Then you repeat the process. You can do it a third time to make it even shorter. I may have some notes from grad school on more details about that activity I can DM later this summer if you want me to go look for it. Since you are a poet you could also try turning scenes into poems - do some scenes as a series of Haikus like the song “Poems” from Pacific Overtures https://youtu.be/i9GBLp4ptDg?si=ekHh-iP45vpy2LkO maybe that will cut dialogue down ❤️
Cheers for this Kevim, this sounds like a really useful, and vital, process. I’m often guility of overwriting, and the way I edit it down is just hearing how the actors deal with the words. This could be a much more effective way of doing it.
Sounds like you’re assembling a crack team if designers to put this peice together!
This is awesome! I love hearing about your process, Kevin! So inspiring!
This sounds great, I’m enjoying the insights into the process. 7 designers! Wow. That’s also quite an innovate way of dealing with the text. I’m currently working on a show, which I’ve written the script for but no matter how how much we do, there’s still way to much dialogue. It’s so hard!
Thanks Paul! Yes we have the usual designers (scenic, lighting, costume and sound) and then we have some specialty designers (projection, music composition and puppetry) and really I should get an eighth to do props but… we will see. Yeah cutting dialogue down to the essence of a scene is hard. There’s a kind of improv-ish game in which you give two actors ten minutes to create a scene based on a scenario you give them. They go off and create the dialogue and staging on their own. Then they present the scene they created to the rest of the group. You all identify what engaged you as an audience and then you say, “OK now you have ten minutes to revise the scene and when you bring it back, it has to be half as long.” Then you repeat the process. You can do it a third time to make it even shorter. I may have some notes from grad school on more details about that activity I can DM later this summer if you want me to go look for it. Since you are a poet you could also try turning scenes into poems - do some scenes as a series of Haikus like the song “Poems” from Pacific Overtures https://youtu.be/i9GBLp4ptDg?si=ekHh-iP45vpy2LkO maybe that will cut dialogue down ❤️
Cheers for this Kevim, this sounds like a really useful, and vital, process. I’m often guility of overwriting, and the way I edit it down is just hearing how the actors deal with the words. This could be a much more effective way of doing it.
Sounds like you’re assembling a crack team if designers to put this peice together!