I have two MFAs in writing for the theatre, and I still don’t know “how” to do it. Would that I had seen this video before spending all that time and money. (Warning: It’s one of those annoying ones that force you to watch it in YouTube.)
I wish it were parody. She should have gone ahead and entitled it “How NOT to Win a Pulitzer Prize for Drama,” because she tells you to do the opposite of everything Margaret Edson did. But in all fairness, she’s right: Wit did not play on the Broadway.
Don't try to win this. Ever.
I also love her palpable disdain for Disney, as if the imprimatur were some automatic guarantee of long-running success on the Great White Way.
Remember us?
And giving added support to her legitimacy as a theatrical maven, pundit, advisor, and sage, there is the subtly placed collection of books in the lower right corner of the frame, including Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, which also (so far as I know) has never been a Broadway show.
Feminist Theatre, Blood Meridian, and Virginia Woolf...hmmm, I sense an agenda.
She’s got other helpful tips as well. (Again, you will watch in YouTube, ’cause they say so.)
I want to do one about how to make a contemporary video look like it was shot in 1978 through the use of flowering plants, non-descript office space, and a hairstyle that looks like the youngest daughter on Eight is Enough.
Elizabeth Bradford explains it all for you.
But, hey, who am I to judge? It’s a lifetime of knowledge in six minutes of video! Go write that hit show, kids!
Damn! I was all set to a glitzy, comedic musical about a woman with cancer on the Broadway!
Why does someone this dumb own a desk? I can’t imagine her using it for anything other than Scrunchie storage.
Oh my god everything about this woman pisses me off. Also, can we just note that her recommendation on how to become a playwright is to take a playwriting class?
This girl pwn’d your little playwriter fantasy!
Seriously though, I think a musical about older adults with “the sugar” would be awesome. And yes, people would go see it. Especially people with “the sugar.” Which is a large and growing market. Literally.
I’m seeing over-the-audience flying sequences during high blood sugar episodes and all the drama happens in the crash. Throw in all the insulin needles and quaint americanisms and you got your self a show!
Diaberica, the musical