Writing Workshop: P.O.V. & Voice

P.O.V. and Voice (90-120 minutes)

Workshop Description: Using ethnocultural myths & folktales, family secrets & stories and Art & theatre techniques, we will craft scenes/narrators with unique voices.

The workshop uses rhythm, punctuation and grammar; objects, environment and weather to elicit character and narrative voice.

This is a general description. It is easily adapted to group needs.

Contact: thomvernon@sympatico.ca or evan@coachhousebooks.ca

All writing forms are welcome: fiction, dramatic, poetry, memoir, creative non-fiction, journalism.

We went to a "Wig" Party...I wore my novel! It turned out to be a popular read for the party goers!

Participants provide writing utensils and paper.

Pre-requisite: a willingness to explore.

THOM VERNON is a queer refugee and artist from Michigan and Los Angeles. He has shown up in film, television, and lots of theatre (The Fugitive, Seinfeld and so on). Aside from his writing and acting work, for most of his career he has helped to create safe spaces where youth and adults can stretch the limits of their creativity. Thom is interested in a visceral, crisis literature & theatre. He thinks that a piece should begin at one minute to midnight; midnight being the hour when the axe falls, so to speak. Having degrees in Philosophy and Gender Studies, Thom has studied with Hubert Selby, Jr. (Last Exit to Brooklyn, Requiem for a Dream, etc.)and playwright provocateur Donald Freed (American Illiad, Circe & Bravo, etc.), among others.

He continues to explore how Gender, History and Memory collude to shape everyday life. His short stories have been presented on stage to blushing reviews and he has published both scholarly work and short fiction. His screenplays have placed in several national competitions. His novel, The Drifts, will be published in Spring 2010 by Coach House Books (Canada) & Northwestern University Press (U.S). He and his partner live in Toronto.

Thom is available for a variety of workshops and consultations.  He maintains two blogs: American Refugee and Notes on Arts Education.

Portraits, Interrupted

I didn’t learn how to play until I was an adult. That is slightly disingenuous. Play flummoxed me like theorems would later. I wanted to be a part of the world where play was free and uninterrupted but I didn’t know how to get there. An exercise, Portraits, got me there.

I was constantly faced with the glorious neighborhood kids who jumped bushes, threw broom handles for spears and seemed to make up games by the minute. They are ‘glorious’ now; that’s not how I wouldv’e described them then. Being chosen meant possible failure. Peanut, my best friend, had my back always but when he wasn’t around I was terrified that I wouldn’t be picked for these exercises and terrified that I would be picked.

It got worse the older we became and it seemed odd that I was very jealous and hurt when Peanut walked to school with another friend. Hello!? I was gay! I was a little gay kid. But neither me nor my family had the experience or the language to know what to do with a kid who wore his grandmother’s wigs, listened to Abba’s Dancing Queen like a broken record and read the entire set of Little House books thirteen times! And, my god, failure filtered through the floorboards of our house clutching at our ankles and filling our spirits with lead. We couldn’t fail at our house – well, my poor brother did – or we would have been murdered.

With my mother’s increasing madness, and rage, it became imperative that the mistakes my brothers and sisters made had to be hidden. Little known fact – and who would know except my siblings – but I used to volunteer to take the blame for missing chocolate chips, the kitchen floor not being mopped or the dogs not taken out. Masochism. That’s all that was. That is slightly disingenuous.

Give & Take

This lack of play and oppression of habit (in the form of circles, etc.) means that we shut down a major means of knowledge and experience acquisition (see The Oppression of Circles). Another aspect of play is social development.

Part of social development – and a main goal of my work – is the nurturing of authenticity and spirit within the rules that make play and fun possible. Going further, the crazy thing about play is that it often isn’t as fun if the players don’t follow the rules. “Tag” isn’t very fun if three of the players are sitting in chairs, talking amongst themselves or if others refuse to move.

So, in terms of social development, play (as in many other things) teaches us how to be ourselves and find freedom and our own authenticity within the rules. In play, authenticity emerges on impulse, without planning and without self-consciousness. It is also a means to teach a fundamental principle of socialization: giving and taking freely and within the rules.

I’ve never had a class that wouldn’t try an exercise at least once. That said, I have never asked their permission. But, I’m also very sensitive to the reality that these human beings are different than they were the last time we met. And what worked last week, may not work this week. I stay acutely tuned to where the participants are, who is in the room and why they are there.

Here’s a great exercise, “Give & Take”, to develop impulse, play, agreement and authenticity within the rules:

Point of Concentration: agreement, impulse development, focus and so much more!

Originator: Joyce & Byrne Piven, the Piven Theatre Workshop

Directions:

Round 1.
1. Invite players to move through the space. Calls: Move Up, Down, Right, Left, Crawl, Jump, Kneel
2. Call Freeze. Freezes should be on a dime a la suspension with energy vs. a stoppage.
3. Call each player’s name one at a time. As a player’s name is called, she should move throughout the space creating a repeating, abstract sound and movement. Calls: Stay away from words! Use your whole body! Use the whole space! Breathe! Find the sound and Keep going until I call another player’s name!
4. Call another player’s name. Player 1 freezes. Calls: No movement! Every eyelash and every blink counts!
5. At some point, probably before everyone has created an abstract sound and movement, freeze them again. Explain that they are to Carry on until every player has moved throughout the space as you call.

Round 2 – Give
1.Same as above, except that now the game is only Give. Players are to Give only (and not take).
2. Players ‘give’ the energy and focus to another player by freezing with eye contact and a “throw” of energy. Players that are given to in the game, take the energy “thrown” to them and – on impulse – use that energy to make their own repeating, abstract sound and movement. Calls: Take the energy given! Don’t think about it! On impulse! Create your own sound and movement!
3. After everyone has been given to, move to Round 3.

Round 3 – Take
1. Same as Round 1 except that now the game is only Take. Players are to Take only (and not Give).
2. Players take focus with a strong, repeating abstract sound and movement. Another player may take back at any time. Calls: It is not a game of politeness! How strongly can you take? Take Strong! Take back at any time! Just because you were taken from doesn’t mean you can’t take back.
3. After everyone has been taken from, move to Round 4.

Round 4
1. Same as above, except that now the game is Give and Take . Players are to give and take.
2. Using the techniques of Give from Round 2 and those of Take in Round 3, players Give & Take. Calls: Use your whole body! Get it in your knees, your lower back, your shoulders! Give across the room! Take strongly! Playing isn’t for politeness! and so on.

Extensions; After players are comfortable with basic Give & Take, take them further by inviting them to explore ambiance, environment, sound – all sorts of elements.

Round Robin

So, more about story-telling. There’re a million versions of this but the principles of the exercise can be applied broadly to introduce story and physicalization. This version comes from Joyce & Byrne Piven, two of my teachers, of the Piven Theatre Workshop.

Round Robin
via Joyce Piven, The Piven Theatre Workshop

Point of Concentration: to build a story together; to run a story out in a way that makes sense; to bring stories to their feet

Directions: Round 1
1. Sit/stand in a circle.
2. S1 begins a story: “Once upon a time….”, “In a deep forest….”, “By a babbling brook under the yo-yo tree….”, etc. S1 speaks one sentence and a half of the story without ending on a conjunction (and, but, etc.).
3. S2 continues the story on impulse right where S1 left off. S2 speaks one sentence and a half of the story. S3 picks the story up…and so on.
4. After all of the players have added to the story in this way, continue story-telling until a logical – but sound – end emerges.
5. Continue with another round of story but this time ask the players to end in the middle of sentence (not on a conjunction). The player next to them picks up spontaneously.

Calls: No thinking! No planning! Pass the energy of the story to the next player! Keep the ball in the air!

Directions: Round 2
Point of Concentration: same as above but to add more story and raise the stakes; to physicalize storytelling; to create environment using empty space.

1. Same as above.
2. As players tell the story they may get to their feet or leave the circle to bring the story to life. They may become the babbling brook, the yo-yo tree or a ticking clock. They may become the characters in the story and when they stop, the next player picks up the story – on impulse – and continues its telling.

NOTE: most teachers and players will allow the story to be dropped (e.g. “…and he fell down a well and died.”). But if the story was worth taking time to tell, it is worth the respect of ending consciously. ‘Consciously’ means because the story is over not that we have given up on it. Not only will this encourage respect for the stories within us but it will nurture self-respect.