0003: THE PLAY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

I’ve arrived in Wooster, OH as planned. In the next two days, I will be giving a workshop on “solo performance” and preparing for the staged reading. 

The artistic director of Teatro Travieso is also a full-time faculty at The College of Wooster. His theatre company does a lot of collaborations with the drama department at the college. That relationship allows Dr. Noriega to use the college’s theater spaces for his own projects. The staged reading of Introducing Moderna Suspiros will take place in one of their performing spaces, the Shoolroy Arena, which is a performing studio that holds about 100 people in a “black box” theater-style space. The Shoolroy Arena Theatre is located inside their bigger theatre complex known as “The Freedlander Theatre.”

As I walk around campus I see a few posters announcing the reading.

One thing about the image is that the idea for the show came from me but the image helped me solidify what the character and their story needed to be. Before the reading, the director and I spent half the day discussing the script, talking about places I, as a playwright, felt the script needed some editing and focus. Once we discussed what needed attention, I read the script out loud for the director, who is also acting as a dramaturg. As I read, the director took notes and afterward we discussed where, why, and how to edit in order to connect one element with the next.

After the edits were done, I read the script out loud for the director once again. This second time around I felt more confident about the script. We both still worried about the “musical numbers” being too long, but we need an audience to see how they react. 

We are ready, and more than eager, to have the staged reading.