Tag: eva whitney

My Experience with the 10-Minute Play by Eva Whitney

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Upon entering the Creative Writing Department at SOTA, I was surprised to learn that, aside from the expected Fiction and Poetry units, there would also be a Playwriting unit taught by a real playwright. I had avoided the choice to write a play for my audition portfolio—the thought of creating a whole, live scene on paper was far too daunting. I had never even considered plays to be included in creative writing. To me, they bordered film and entertainment—I never considered the fact that someone was behind the show, putting these characters into existence, and I certainly didn’t believe I was ready to do that myself.

It took me a year to realize what made a good ten minute play. Through countless exercises, examples of groundbreaking plays, and even attending live performances, I still couldn’t grasp what it was that made a short play. I wrote a mess of a play my freshman year, complete with strange characters with weak motivations in an odd setting. Here is an excerpt from my freshman year play, “To Reno,” which follows a couple on their way home from Burning Man who are bombarded by Ivan, a criminal:

POPPY: So, Ivan, tell us more about yourself. Where are you headed?

IVAN: I have to visit my parole officer, Vicky, in Reno. I fucking hate Vicky. She’s pale… so pale. And her hair is greasy and gray. Thinking about her makes me want to vomit.

ARLO: Why are you on parole?

IVAN: A few months ago I was in Reno, minding my own business. And then I had to piss, so I went over to a Chuck E. Cheese’s and asked if I could use their bathroom, as any gentleman would. They said no, the bathroom was “customers only.” What kind of bullshit is that? So I took a piss right on their building. Turns out Sharon and some other tight-ass mothers had an issue with that and I landed myself a week in jail. Now I’m on parole for the next three months and I have to visit Vicky each week. Honest to God, I’d rather be in jail than have to see that bitch every week.

POPPY: I’m sure Vicky isn’t that bad…

IVAN: Oh, she is! She tried to get me to interview for the position of a secretary at a law firm! Who does she think I am? Some delicate housewife? Give me a break!

While “To Reno” had a good back-and-forth between the characters, there was no movement on stage and the situation itself was unbelievable. The Burning Man couple, although self-proclaimed “open-minded” people, would never have been able to understand Ivan as well as I wrote them to. Looking back, I think this scene would’ve been more appropriate for a short story, where the audience is not so concerned with what it looks like, but rather how the characters are speaking to one another.

My sophomore year I was determined to write a play that was undeniably better for the stage than the page. I began to think of what I felt was missing when I read a story: the characters’ actual voices, how they physically interacted with each other, and the power of props.

The result of this list was “The Lord Provides,” which focused on an isolated, Mormon-like family who discovers a yam among their potato crops. Here is an excerpt:

GERSHOM: When I went to the well with Mother last week, she said that Gilead isn’t going to return home.

GIDEON: She speaks the truth. Gilead made the decision to leave and he knew that meant he was cutting contact with us and the rest of the community.

GERSHOM: Where is he?

GIDEON: Ecrin.

GERSHOM: Where’s that?

GIDEON: We took you to see horses there when you were younger. It’s hard to explain, but your mother and I knew your brother would not fit in from the beginning. He asked too many questions. I remember when Gilead was very young we took him to The Holy Rocks–– remember The Holy Rocks, Gershom? Well, Gilead ended up finding some kind of toy witch from the Outside, left behind from an Outside child and Gilead refused to give it up! A real Godly child would have obeyed us. Your mother and I had to put up with a lot of egregious behavior from your brother. He was a little too headstrong, you know? But God smiles on you, Son.

GERSHOM: Father?

GIDEON: Hm?

GERSHOM: This isn’t a potato.

What made “The Lord Provides” superior to “To Reno” were the characters. Not only were their names very unusual, but so was their way of speaking. They addressed each other formally at all times, the son always the one asking the questions, the father always answering. The rigidity of their dialogue showed more onstage than it did when read, and revealed how strict the made-up society really was. Beyond the dialogue the usage of a prop, a yam, also strengthened this play. In “The Lord Provides,” the yam symbolizes the brother, Gilead, who is the first person to ever have dared to leave this tight religious community. I used the prop as a means of showing how each character felt about Gilead’s departure—the son is curious and accepting, the mother more cautious but still interested, and the father completely rejecting it. It was also helpful as a playwright to have one, solid object that I could keep returning to. This was the first play I got into the annual playwriting show.

Finally, this year I knew I wanted to take a more humorous route with my play. I had to write a serious play in sophomore year in order to understand how a short play works. Adding humor on top is another large step that, at least in my case, had to be worked up to. From what I learned through writing and producing “The Lord Provides,” I now knew that dynamic, slightly unbelievable characters were a must, as well as keeping a quick pace, and having delivery that characterizes the speaker. With this new checklist, I produced “What’s Going On in Colchester, Illinois,” which centers on a town meeting where the kooky, small-town people politely testify against naming their park “Hugh Janus Monument Park” after the richest man from their town who was given an unfortunately vulgar-sounding name:

MODERATOR: Next!

VIVIAN: Hi, I’m Vivian, and I’m real big on tennis. I go to the park every day and just hit balls against the wall because no one else in Colchester likes tennis. You see, I had this one friend, Alice, who liked tennis, but she got real good and now plays in Springfield with the big guys. I’m not that good at tennis, but I’m pretty good, you know?

MODERATOR: Vivian, let’s get to the point, okay?

VIVIAN: Yeah, yeah, I know. Basically what I’m saying is that “Hugh Janus Monument Park” just doesn’t sound athletic, you know? Not your name, you look very fit, Mr. Janus, but as a park name, I wouldn’t be drawn to play tennis there. But if you ever want to have a match, just let me know, Sir.

MODERATOR: That’s enough, Vivian.

I was aware of the danger that came with centering an entire ten-minute play on one joke, so I was sure not to reveal the joke for about three minutes. As I watched the play be performed in front of its actual audience, I could feel everyone growing bored, believing that they were about to watch a normal town meeting for the next ten minutes. I felt that this initial boredom actually strengthened the reaction to the first time Hugh Janus’s name is said aloud. After Frances, the town’s nervous historian, gave a painfully long introduction on Mr. Janus, the moderator thanks her by saying, “Thank you for that eloquent speech, Frances…I wholeheartedly agree with this name change. I cannot see why anyone would object to the ‘Hugh Janus Monument Park.’” I then reinforced the joke by having every character repeat his name when they went up to testify; it would’ve been impossible to miss the joke. I thought that this play’s quick pace also kept it interesting to the audience, as there were about fifteen moving characters onstage, each with similar but slightly differing motivations.

It was so gratifying to sit backstage and hear the audience actually laugh at lines I had written to be funny. Unlike “The Lord Provides,” which relied on symbolism that likely went over much of the audience’s heads, “What’s Going On in Colchester, Illinois” centered on such a low-level joke that anyone could find some humor in it. I certainly have quite a ways from mastering the ten-minute play, but each year I see so much growth in both my own and my peers’ work that I have motivation to continue the search for the perfect short play.

Eva Whitney, class of 2020

Creative Nonfiction in Creative Writing II by Eva Whitney

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My first semester in Creative Writing II has proved to expand and challenge my writing like never before. Every sentence, thought, or mere word I wrote down was shared with the entire group, something I always struggled with. In our poetry unit, my work progressively got more and more personal as my peers began to feel more like a family, and I came to the realization that writing is a never-ending process, and no one will judge me for presenting a poor first draft, or for writing my truth is the rawest way possible. The result of our poetry unit was a chapbook of eight or so poems. Though I read through it and noticed countless edits I’d like to make, I couldn’t help but pride myself in this small, neat package of Eva.

However, even though I was comfortable with writing about my own experiences, when it came time for our next unit, I dreaded it. Creative Nonfiction sounded like embellished essays, or a heightened version of an English class assignment. I pictured prompts like, “what is the greatest challenge you’ve overcome?” or “what achievement are you most proud of?” I’ve written my fair share of these empty essays for applications, or in the dungeon of my freshman year English class, and I feared that they were following me into the one class I actually had creative freedom in.

I soon learned that Creative Nonfiction does not include essays that are just beefy on imagery, or chock-full of thesaurus synonyms, they are fiction pieces—that are entirely factual. Ploi Pirapokin, our Creative Nonfiction Artist-in-Residence, dished out essays daily—from the acclaimed epic of “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” by Gay Talese to “How Blac Chyna Beat the Kardashians at Their Own Game” from Buzzfeed News. I noticed that Creative Nonfiction was the most ubiquitous of all writing forms—once I began writing it, I saw it in Instagram captions of people wallowing in their insecurities, the newspaper that lives on my kitchen table, or letters from my grandmother describing her backyard.

But how do I make my own, boring life interesting to read? I had to teach myself how to shape my seemingly standard experiences into a narrative, creating characters, a climax, and a resolution, all while sticking to the truth. I began reevaluating memories I once overlooked or labeled as unworthy of sharing. Here is an excerpt from my very first in-class prompt in this unit, detailing the mundane tasks that my family adheres to without ever discussing them:

“What my parents and I don’t talk about is our household tasks. We’ve just sort of fallen into a routine. It is simply a fact that my father takes the trash out and weeds the front garden on Tuesday, my mother makes dinner, and that I do anything in between. Sometimes, after dinner, I find myself floating to the sink almost instinctively to wash the dishes. I’ll wake up abruptly in the middle of the night when the dishwasher completes a cycle, wishing that stacking plates wasn’t as loud as my uncle on NBA finals night. And I’ve been hearing my father open the laundry closet in the middle of the night—the creak of the door is very distinct. It is not often that we run into many issues with our tasks, but when we do, I become aware of the high level of order we are able to maintain without any discussion. When guests come over, my father retreats to the kitchen and my mother entertains. It is always so troubling to see my father emerging with a delicate tray of tea. For a moment, I think, “Gee, Mom looks different!” Or when there is a night that I simply cannot wash the dishes, I find myself unable to concentrate knowing some stranger is doing the rinsing. I’ve been known to burst through the door, prying the sponge out of my replacement dishwasher’s hands, admitting defeat…”

It is easy to take the more dramatic and humorous route in Creative Nonfiction, perhaps to shy away from revealing too much about yourself, or to show nonchalance about a situation. But my classmates have motivated me through their work to explore the memories that are more difficult to share. Slowly, I am approaching larger and larger truths about myself in my work.

Writing poetry in the beginning of the school year taught me how to explore personal topics covertly, but Creative Nonfiction has encouraged me to write about myself overtly, and it is one of the most liberating feelings ever.

Eva Whitney, class of 2020

Performance Poetry by Eva Whitney

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Between the two introductory weeks of Creative Writing where we swam, visited museums, attended readings and got to know each other better, and our Fall show, there is an empty period of time. During my past two years in the department, we have filled these weeks with Spoken Word and Experimental Fiction lessons in which we were introduced to niche genres of writing. Both lessons were fulfilling and gave me a new perspective to incorporate into my writing for the following months. This year, we had a Performance Poetry unit taught by Taylor Duckett, a local spoken word artist and MFA student. With our daily practice of writing to music and analyzing lyrics, she introduced the idea that popular music can have literary qualities and that words on a page can have musicality.

The class compiled a playlist with each of our favorite songs. From “Wigwam” by Bob Dylan to “Feel it All Around” by Washed Out, there was great variation in the choices. For the length of the song, we would all write in response to the music. In the beginning, I found it challenging to write in conversation with the song, especially songs I had never heard before. I soon realized that the only way to learn how to mimic rhythm in a piece of writing is through practice. By the last prompt, it felt more natural to write to music than to write in silence. I found it interesting to watch what came to while writing based off of what I was listening to. This is an example of a prompt I wrote in response to “In the Kingdom” by Mazzy Star, a song complete with an organ introduction, a swinging guitar melody, drums, electric guitar solos, and a mellow female vocalist:

In Hawaii, the whole island grows dark at night. People sleep with the sun, the animals too. Streets, unlittered with lampposts, are wide and welcoming for the late-night bikers. On the beaches, small crabs glow and the moon, like a stadium light, illuminates the sand. If you want to stay awake, you have to go to the beach. The water turns gelatinous, and the fish hold their position until dawn. Once, I tried to swim in the water at night, but it would not accept me. I wish I was one of those Hawaiian sea creatures, cradled nightly by the sea.

In addition to writing to music, Taylor taught us about our writing as music. We had various assignments in which we would write poetry to a beat. I noticed how, with the knowledge that the piece would be set to music, my content changed. I no longer tried to create a narrative but chose words that sounded nice together, typically ending lines in a rhyme. My group and I created a ridiculous rap that would have read awfully on the page, but, set to a beat, had a good flow. I realized how difficult it is to write music that both sounds good and reads well on the page, and now understand why most musicians prioritize rhythm over meaning.

The performance poetry unit introduced me to the importance of rhythm in writing. Even if the meter is subtle, the innate pleasure one finds in a beat will improve their experience as a listener and add a foundation the piece. As we prepare for the upcoming Fall show, I find myself returning to the lessons Taylor taught us about reading to an imaginary beat, and how to attract the audience by doing so.

Eva Whitney, class of 2020

Lucia Berlin: A Word for Word Production at Z Space by Eva Whitney

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Recently, The Creative Writing Department gathered at Z Space on the edge of the Mission to watch a Word for Word Performance of Lucia Berlin’s best short stories. We crammed ourselves in the small theater, eagerly watching the stories be presented as plays. It was a new experience for most of us to watch a story be performed theatrically, and to be performed word-for-word. This is the reading reflection I wrote in response to the performance:

On Thursday, the eighth of March, the Creative Writing Department attended a Word for Word production at Z Space. Word for Word is a performing arts company whose mission is to tell stories theatrically. The event consisted of five stories from Lucia Berlin’s A Manual For Cleaning Women, a collection of her best works. Nestled in the outer edge of San Francisco, Z Space theater proved to be an excellent location for a theatre production as its small size allowed for an intimate relationship between the audience and the performers. The performance was unlike any other reading I have ever attended as it was both a new take on theatre and in reading stories.

A Manual For Cleaning Women, published in 2015, eleven years after Berlin’s death, compiles the best of her work. The collection has gained massive popularity in the years after its publishing, something unfamiliar to Berlin during her lifetime. The stories in A Manual for Cleaning Women are all connected by the person who tells them and who has experienced them. Nearly all the stories are told in the first person, but, when third-person protagonists appear, they are a version of the first-­person narrator. What each story shares is their theme of extreme suffering. In “Here it is Saturday,” Lucia’s character visits her student in his prison cell, describing the cell with its “‘window broken, rain coming through. [It] stinks. The cells are so small and dark.’” In each story, the characters individually suffered, be it from imprisonment in a cell, imprisonment in alcoholism, or imprisonment in their life.

The Word for Word production was an entirely unique experience to me. The ensemble performed the stories word for word, hence their title. From reading the actual texts, it was apparent that they did not skip a single word. Characters would often refer to themselves in the third person, state the actions that they did, and, sometimes, a whole group of actors would say something simultaneously. While I appreciated how avant-garde the performance was, I found the odd way of speaking actually took away from the theatricality of the pieces. I was constantly being drawn out of the plot itself, hearing the men say “the men all laughed” as they laughed. Perhaps it is because I am used to seeing theatre productions where characters do instead of say, but the idea of performing the story word-for-word did not add anything to the actual production for me. It felt as if someone was reading the story to me as I watched a silent play, explaining every action. Though I did not particularly enjoy the formatting of the Word for Word reading, it introduced me to the many ways stories can be read and performed.

An aspect of the Word for Word performance that I enjoyed was the minimal use of props. A few boxes were used, laid out to make a bed, stacked to create a table, or set out individually to make seats. There were simple costumes and projections on the back of the stage that signaled where the setting was. I do enjoy elaborate sets, but I found it interesting to see how the group was able to create such a sense of place with so few materials. This proved to me how plays can be produced with a low budget and still be as vivid as intended to be.

As I watched the Word for Word production of five of Lucia Berlin’s stories, I felt my knowledge of readings grow. Never have I attended a theatrical reading of work before, and certainly not a play-like production that is done word-for-word. Though my immediate reaction was one of dissatisfaction, afterward, I recognized my feelings toward the production came only from a place of uncertainty from seeing something unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. While I may not use the word-for-word element in my own theatrical productions, I could appreciate the new take on readings and how it opened my eyes to genre-blending between prose and plays, a realm unexplored by me.

Eva Whitney, class of 2020

The Sophomore Poetry Lessons by Eva Whitney

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For the six weeks preceding Winter Break, the Creative Writing Department focused on poetry. We split into Creative Writing One and Creative Writing Two, or, more simply, the underclassmen and upperclassmen. In Creative Writing One, we spent the majority of the six weeks reading from The Discovery of Poetry, a poetry anthology edited by Frances Mayes. All sixteen of us would sit around a big table as if we were about to have a grand feast, and, with the hum of Creative Writing Two in the adjacent room, we dove into sestinas and sonnets and villanelles from an assortment of poets, contemporary and ancient. It was truly like the poems we read fed us! I felt full of words and ideas after each class.

The poetry unit allowed me to get back into the swing of writing as we wrote a poem nearly every night. Circling around that grand table and hearing how each person interpreted the prompt the day after was always fascinating, and I found myself able to finally find the same joy in poetry that I found last year and lost over the summer.

For the first week of December, at the end of our six weeks of poetry, the sophomores of the Creative Writing Department taught poetry lessons about our cultural heritage to our fellow sophomores and the freshmen. We heard lessons about Chinese Communism, Korean Commu- nism, the Beat Generation, Russian Communism, and Immigrants. A sophomore would bring in an array of poems of their choosing and we would discuss them and pick them apart, and even write in conversation with them. It was a way to learn about each other better, as well as hear po- etry that the six of us find beautiful and fascinating.

In my lesson, I hoped to introduce Zen Buddhist poetry to my peers as an approachable section of poetry. Buddhism is often revered for its difficulty, but many do not realize how accessible the religion, or even just its core practices, can be. I brought in poetry by Gary Snyder, Ikkyu Sojun, Philip Whalen, Stonehouse, Jane Hirshfield, and Ryokan. I created pairs of poems, alternating between a contemporary Buddhist poet and an ancient one. The poems of each pair were connected somehow; I did this in hopes of showing how constant Buddhist values are and how even poets from four centuries ago could share the same experiences or have the same ideas as a living Buddhist poet.

Teaching this lesson and experiencing my peers’ lessons was entirely rewarding. Know- ing that I may have made a slight impact on one of the students fills me with a simple joy! Zen Buddhism has been such a large part of my childhood, and now young-adulthood, so to share it with my peers was a special experience. It took some strength on my part to constantly share my ideas and keep everyone engaged, which is not something that comes naturally to me, but after- ward, I was glad I persevered. Watching my classmates do the same impressed me immensely, and allowed me to see them as real, capable people with interesting backgrounds.

Eva Whitney, class of 2020

Metamorphosis by Eva Whitney

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I suppose it is customary for there to be one blog post about the show each year, and this is it. Simply, the Creative Writing Department here at The School of the Arts puts on two shows a year: a cumulative performance in Autumn and a playwriting show in Spring. Although the cumulative performance is at the beginning of the year, it is a place for students to showcase their best work. In this case, the upperclassmen have the upper hand as they have endless amounts of work to choose from, whereas the freshmen have about three pieces. We workshop tirelessly for a week, memorize, and then endure a grueling rehearsal week. I have found this process rewarding both times; it was satisfying to see it all come together.

This year’s show, titled “Metamorphosis,” was quite a change for the Creative Writing Department as it was our first show in collaboration with our new pathway, Spoken Word. None of us knew what to expect, having a show with over forty performers, a new teacher, and a group of students that we had hardly interacted with beforehand.

On the first day of rehearsal week, Creative Writing as a whole crammed into the Literary Arts room like elephants in a closet. It was our first time coming together to work toward a common goal and I looked forward to see what was in store for the coming week. The days of rehearsal week blended together: we started with a warm-up each day, then split up for the next few hours while the first act of the show ran. I was one of the last people to go on, so I found myself staying until seven or later each night. In contrast to the chaos of the afternoon, the nights in the theater were relaxing. Few tech students remained, and only a handful of Creative Writers.

Colored lights danced across the stage almost hypnotically and one night, I even found myself drifting off backstage as the ocean-themed pieces were read. During those nights I stayed late in the theater I wished more than anything to leave, but, looking back, I realize this was the most meditative time of my week.

Rehearsal week truly was an important experience. Not only did it cause me to become more familiar with my own work and hear the voices of my peers, it was a time for me to grow friendlier with my classmates of both my pathway and Spoken Word. The range was remarkable. I heard everything from pieces about the Queen of Landfill to those about self-image and discrimination. There were pieces about anxiety, shape-shifting, and a skit following a girl trying to come into herself as an alien. The audience responded with wild enthusiasm and backstage we cheered silently for each other.

The experience of the show made me appreciate the beauty in having two pathways; Spoken Word gave me an entirely new perspective into how broad the term “Creative Writing” is. Both pathways have much to teach each other.  It is clear that this is the start of our metamorphosis.

Eva Whitney, class of 2020

A Dip into New Waters by Eva Whitney

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The beginning of the school year was filled with outings, such as going to the Museum of
Modern Art and the San Francisco Bay. These were to bring us closer together and build friendships between the Creative Writers.

On the Friday of the second week of school, the Creative Writing Department ventured to the tip of the city take a ritualistic dip into the water. We crowded on to the bus, huddled next to our new friends, towels and bathing suits stuffed into our backpacks. At the waters edge, we scrambled out of our clothes and barreled into the frigid bay. I was tentative, dipping my toe in at first to test the temperature of the water before fully submerging myself. I could only bear the water’s bite for a minute or so and then rushed onshore to join my peers. The freshmen stayed close to each other, whispering about the weather while the seniors balanced sophomores on their shoulders and splashed at each other. I reclined on the beach and watched as my new classmates rejoiced in the water. It was then I realized how fortunate I was to be surrounded by these people, not only as writers but as allies.

We parted ways, leaving on separate buses. I got on to my respective bus with new friends, and thought of the next four years of my Creative Writing journey. The first month left me feeling optimistic about what was in store for me. I could not wait to obtain the same confidence the seniors had, both with each other and with the world. On the Friday of the second week of school, I took a dip into the new waters of the Creative Writing department.

Eva Whitney, class of 2020