playwright | The Direction of Intention

Go Glacial [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on January 31, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

The rain has washed away the snow. Our world this week is cold and damp. Our backyard is part lake, part mud pit. We’re feeling the lack of fresh air, the need to get out onto a trail. We’ve been housebound too long. Later today we’ll bundle up against the rain and walk the neighborhood. We’ll skirt the lake. We will breathe. We won’t be in a hurry to arrive anywhere.

The winter has always been good for slowing down. It’s not advisable to race to-and-fro on icy roads. It’s contrary to the message of the machine. The rule of more/faster.

During these past several months I have learned something about myself. I’ve been working on a new play though I’ve only had a few hours a week to dedicate to its development. The work has been glacially slow. In old times, in colder climates, people used to keep their water running a trickle so their pipes didn’t freeze and burst. I started writing this play for much the same reason: to keep my creative energy flowing so my pipes didn’t burst. I had no other expectation beyond keeping the channel open through this time of freeze. Much to my surprise, glacial is a great process for me. This play is good. I’m coming to believe that most of the really bad playwriting that I’ve done in the past – most of the atrocious painting – is the result of working too fast. And, now that I think about it, most of the pieces I am most proud of took years to mature. The Lost Boy took over a decade – and multiple iterations – to finally find the stage.

Last night as I lay awake listening to the rain patter against the window, I had a wild idea. What if…?

And, what if my wild “What if…?” was not a complete idea, a fully formed god jumping from my brain, but merely the tiny thought-spark that starts my ice age rolling? A little bit of light calling for my attention. I’ll let this one simmer for a spell. In the meantime, I have a walk to enjoy, some air to breathe.

read Kerri’s blogpost about RAIN IN WINTER

share. like. comment. support…thank you.

buymeacoffee is a trickle of energy capable of keeping the pipes from bursting.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, Energy | Tagged: artistry, creative energy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, expectation, go slow, ideas, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, movement, movement of energy, play writing, playwright, slow down, speed, story, studio melange, the melange, theatre | 1 Comment »

Work Forward And Back [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on January 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Writing the first draft of a play, I’ve just entered the “swimming upstream” step in the process. I’m working my way from back-to-front to make sure all the story dots connect. It’s detail work. It requires looking close-in. I used to hate this part of the process because I’d get lost. I’d forget what I was doing and prematurely rework sections. Painters ruin paintings when working too small too soon. Writers are subject to the same peril. Now, I adore this step. Life is funny.

A few years ago I realized that my change in process-love, my capacity to work in detail without getting lost, came when I stopped trying to race to the end. Now, I am in no hurry to finish. I want a full relationship with my story as it reveals itself to me. It is a child, holding my hand, guiding me to the wonders of the playground.

Working forward. Working backward. Stepping in and then stepping away, like the tides. Big brush washes first, attending to the overall composition. Structure. And then detail. It’s much like building a house. Foundations and then finishes.

I have learned from watching Kerri to use my camera to see detail. To step in and look. Seeing-as-a-relationship. To pay attention to the dew on the small pine, the reason it glistens. And then to step in further. The platitude: a single drop of dew contains an entire world. Beyond the platitude: step in and it’s possible to fall into another world. To experience the surprise available in the enormity of the minute. And bring back to the big, big world of hurry-here-hurry-there the astonishment that is found there.

Forward Back, 18 x 36IN, mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about DEW

like. share. support. comment. thank you.

buymeacoffee is a dew drop in a sea of possibilities, a tiny window into the realities of another reality.

Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Possibility, Seeing | Tagged: achievement, artistry, attention, backward, composition, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, detail, forward, hurry, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pay attention, playwright, presence, process, relationship, seeing, story, structure, studio melange, the melange, tides, writing | Leave a comment »

Join The Receivers [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 9, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

“…artists take delight in and care for their work, and we are thereby inspired to find delight in our own work.” – Alex Grey, The Mission of Art

Standing in front of the Atmospheric wave wall, an art installation at Willis Tower by Olafur Eliasson, I imagined how much fun he had creating it. Monumental. The colorful waves rolling up the side of a building. I wondered, if on visits to Chicago, he delights in watching the play his wave wall invokes in passers-by. I would. His work is spatial so it invites full-body engagement. I had to touch it and lean in against it. I had to put my face close to a wave and look up. The shock of vibrant red among the blue, purple and green made my eye dance across the vertical water.

It is one of the great joys of my life to be surrounded by artists: people who care for their work and find delight in it. David just completed a year-long project, a rewrite/updating of Six Characters In Search of An Author. He directed the first production of his new script. It was thrilling to witness his delight in the process. It was gratifying to watch how he navigated his doubt and fear. The delight and the fear go hand in hand.

It’s worth noting that caring so deeply for your work comes with a studied courage. There’s a very nice lie about bold artists throwing caution to the wind and creating without caring how their work is received. That, of course, is worthy of a press-release and works for image-branding but fully negates the point of artistry. In order for a work of art to be a work of art, it requires an audience. A giver and receiver. A loop of caring. The armor must come off. Expressing beauty or seeking truth is nothing if not a shared meaning and a shared truth. Artists may reach deep into themselves but the point is to engage and express meaning that comes alive beyond themselves and between others. Vulnerability is the secret sauce that connects the two into one.

I didn’t know about the Atmospheric wave wall until we rounded a corner and I saw people enthusiastically embracing it, standing back and craning their necks to take it in, gently moving forward to run their fingers along the wave ridges. The pull was immediate and I found myself joining the receivers of Olafur’s artistry. Armor down, hands planted firmly on the wall, we snapped a photo and I deeply appreciated his whimsy and moxie. Inspiration ripples to the sky!

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE WALL

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, Atmospheric wave wall, beauty, caring, Chicago, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, doubt, fear, inspiration, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, moxie, Olafur Eliasson, playwright, Six Characters in Search of an Author, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, vulnerability, wave wall, whimsy, Willis Tower | 1 Comment »

See The Action. See The Motivation. [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on February 15, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

“It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” ~ Noel Coward

Lately, I’ve been rereading books on playwriting. Put them on the stove, boil them down and you will have a fine reduction of action and motivation. The actions a character takes. The reason a character takes them. A playwright’s tool box is filled with words but a playwright’s creation is a sequence of motivated actions.

Tom McK told me that plays are about one moment. A moment of choice. A moment of revelation. A moment of truth. A moment of reckoning. All of the actions of the play lead to the moment. And the world will never be the same.

I began rereading my dusty old playwriting books because of the impeachment trial. I feel as if I am witness to an ancient Greek drama. Power falls. Courage fails. Morals collapse. Act One: the temple is sacked. The actions and motivations for the assault could not be more clear. Naked sedition. Act Two: the trial. The ideals of the temple are gutted. Blind justice is made a mockery as nearly half of the jurists fail in their courage, choosing personal gain over public good. They defend sedition. They kneel to it. Their actions and motivations could not be more clear.

Like every Hallmark movie, the end of this play was known before the actors took the stage. We watched the play to confirm what we already knew.

Doug had a saying: health was a measure of the distance between who-you-say-you-are and who-you-know-yourself-to-be. The shorter the distance, the healthier the person. By Doug’s account, the actions and motivations of the 43 jurors who protected sedition could not be more clear. Despite what they say. Despite what they proclaim. The distance between who-they-say-they-are and who-they-know-themselves-to-be is vast. They are unhealthy. Shiny suits that are rotten to their core.

The climax of the play. The one moment. The realization. Just as in a horror movie, the recognition that the person in the passenger seat is the murderer. All of the actions of the play lead to this one moment, this single recognition: their defense of sedition is not aberrant to this jury’s character. It is their norm. Their fall from grace, their collapse of principle, happened long before their vote to acquit.

Action. Motivation. Expressed through character.

“Character,” Tom McK taught, “is how you do what you do.” This is who they are. It is a matter of character. Their actions and motivations could not be more clear. And the world will never be the same.

read Kerri’s blog post about WORDS & DEEDS