Advice To New Playwrights: The Gentle Art of Accepting Criticism

In the course of learning a thing or two about writing a play, I have been to a number of informal readings and staged readings of new plays. (Sometimes my own!) The usual format of such events is that after the reading, the audience critiques the play, asks questions, and gives feedback to the playwright. This is a critically important part of the process by which plays are crafted. Now, in these situations, I've sometimes seen the playwright react in ways which struck me as not useful or not helpful. On the other hand, I've sometimes seen the playwright act in ways which I thought were exactly right, ways which advanced the process and helped improve the play. So let me share with you my take on The Gentle Art of Accepting Criticism:

Don't come simply expecting praise. A reading isn't a performance, and the Q&A afterward is supposed to be more than the audience taking turns telling you how wonderful the play is. If it is perfectly wonderful, then you don't need the feedback anymore; it's time to get it produced. Seriously! If that's what you came for, you're wasting your time and you're wasting your audience's time. Conversely, if you can't stand to hear people telling you how they think the play isn't working, then if you only want to hear about where it is working, then you're not ready to have it read.

Do listen carefully. Listening to a new play is not necessarily easy, and it's not usually entertaining. Your audience listened to your play, and now they have something to tell you -- something which may be valuable to you. Give them the courtesy they gave your play.

Do recognize the unique opportunity that a reading affords you. You've got a chance, possibly for the first time, to hear real people speaking the lines you wrote. Now's your chance to know whether it sounds as good in real life as it did in your head, as you think it does on the page. You're doing this in front of a small and mostly sympathetic audience. Now is the time to find the rough patches in the script, the parts that don't work, the stuff that doesn't make sense. Far better to do it here than to wait and try to do it in front of a larger and rougher audience. A reading is your chance to get potentially valuable contributions from a diverse bunch of other people (usually other playwrights). It's like they're your collaborators, only you don't have to credit them! Make the most of their time, and yours.

Do ask questions. It's important to come prepared to your reading. You should know where you think the holes in the script are, and you should be prepared to ask pointed questions of the audience, designed to elicit whether they saw the same holes. Be specific. Find out if they understand what you wanted them to understand, when you wanted them to understand it.

Don't dismiss your audience. They know, or should have known, what they were in for when the reading began. Now they are giving you the benefit of hearing what they're really thinking in the moments after the lights come back up. Don't let that opportunity get away by allowing yourself to discount the opinions you're going to hear.

Do screen out the obviously wrong criticisms. You know what? Some people just aren't going to get it. No matter how good it is, no matter how well it works, someone is going to have a problem with it. Maybe a particular audience member just likes to hear himself talk. Who knows? You have to have writer's integrity at this point, to recognize this when it happens, and to let it slide. Ah, but how do you know the difference between simple, stubborn pride and writer's integrity? That leads to the next point:

Do maintain your vision of the play. You wrote your play for a reason. Your audience may well (usually does) contain someone who will make suggestions about plot, characters, or even theme. Some of these might go well with your vision of the play, but some will change it radically; and even if a good and interesting suggestion is made which violates your initial vision, you should resist it. That initial animating vision, which you brought to the play, is what gives it integrity, and violating it risks killing the play. So: listen to suggestions, take them (mostly) seriously, but guard your vision.

Don't argue. It's very easy, when someone is raising an issue with your play, to take it personally, and it's natural to want to argue with the idiot and tell him why he's wrong. But what if he's right? Once that wall of defensiveness goes up, it's very unlikely that any useful information will get through it. Just remember that nobody is telling you that you're a bad person -- or even a bad playwright. Most people won't say anything at all if they think your play's irredeemably bad, so you don't need to argue with them. If someone's talking to you, it's probable that they're trying to help you.

Don't explain. If you have to explain the actions of your characters after the play, that means that they aren't being explained during the play. Once you know that some actions are confusing your audience because they don't understand why they're occuring, you know enough to note the problem and move on to the next issue. Don't explain the play that you meant to write; talk about the play that you did write, then go home and get it a step closer to what you wanted.

Don't lecture. The feedback session after a reading is your golden opportunity to be a world-class bore. Don't take it. Let the audience go home talking about your play rather than about you. My feeling is, if you've got something boring to say, say it in your blog.

Don't pontificate. They heard your play. You had your soapbox. If your play didn't say it, nobody wants to hear you say it. On the other hand, if your play did say it, nobody wants to hear you say it again.

Don't cave. It's possible, even likely, that someone will have a very strong opinion about something you need to change in your play. This person may push this opinion on you very vigorously, even to the point where you may waver in your own conviction about why this or that should remain unchanged in your own play. Don't go there. After all, the guy with a strong opinion won't even remember it next week -- he's really got no stake in it -- but you've got to live with your own play forever. So just thank whoever for his opinion, write it down if you can, and reconsider it calmly once you're back at your writing desk. The person may be right or wrong, but the force with which the opinion is pressed gives you no clue to that.

Don't be disappointed.

One final note, in case you think I'm being smug. You bet I'm smug! No, sorry. What I meant to say was this: I have violated every one of these in the course of time, and I probably will violate at least some of them again. I'll try not to, but feel free to call me on it when I do. Then perhaps someday, I'll have learned enough about writing plays that I can actually tell other people how to do it.