Visual Playwrights Retreat
Journal

July 5th-9th

The Visual Playwrights Retreat which began on Monday, July 5th, has been a truly unique collaboration. Three playwrights, three visual theatre experts and an ensemble of actors are working to develop three varied and highly visual works of theatre.

The first meeting of the group was infused with enthusiasm. Willy Conley, the retreat’s director, presented a change in the normal sign for playwright from “play-write” to “play-maker”. The change was introduced because the word “wright” really means “maker”, and it fits the nature of the retreat and the work created here. The basis of the retreat is to help the playwrights develop their stories in a highly visual, less verbal, way. As Michael Ralph, one of the playwrights, described it he wants to be able to create not just a piece of visual theatre without a story behind it but rather a visual story, something that can be universally understood regardless of language differences.

Each day begins with a seminar by one of the visual theatre experts. The first day had two seminars:  the first was on the basics of using I-MOVIE on the Mac Computer presented by Gallaudet Art professor Tracey Salaway; and the second was by Willy Conley and Tim McCarty with an overview of various visual theatre styles.  Tuesday began with a tour of the multi-media center led by Jackie Lally, Wednesday was a study of examples of visual theatre in text by Mark Jaster, and Thursday brought Juanita Rockwell with a look at the driving forces behind plays.  On Friday, the Slava Klimov presented a seminar on using multi-media tools for playwriting, and Eric Beatty’s seminar on Saturday was a presentation of the work he learned and performed at Jacques Le Coq’s School of Mime, Movement and Theatre in Paris, France.

The afternoons have been devoted to the playwrights’ and experts’ development of the individual scripts. Playwright Shanny Mow and expert Eric Beatty are taking an absurdist bent in the development of Bell in Hell, the basis being Alexander Graham Bell paying retribution for the sins he committed against the Deaf while on Earth. Playwright Monique Holt and expert Peter Cook are working on The Night Was so Hungry That it Ate the Moon, the story coming from the idea that each month, the night devours the moon made of cheese but is forced by the Mother Sun to put it back. The planets, moon and sun are all embodied by the actors and many lighting aspects are being employed in the early stages. Playwright Michael Ralph and expert Juanita Rockwell are collaborating on The Meditation Room, the story of a Deaf woman and a meditation instructor who communicate without words, find a connection in their practice of Buddhism, and the inner and outer turmoil that ensues when an interpreter shows up to “help” them communicate.

With the first week behind us, the playwrights are beginning to shape their scripts, the actors are doing less exploratory improvisation and more scene work, and the experts are really refining their ideas on how each script will become a piece of visual theatre. 

Stay tuned for future entries on the process of the visual playwrights….