Danica 2/6/10 PEN Organization

Today, Catherine and I went to the Pen American Center offices to help set up  for a playwriting workshop. We were meant to do small odd intern-like jobs to keep the seminar going. (Such as setting up chairs, being in charge of the sign in sheet, setting up a breakfast corner etc.) We were told that a very small group of students were to show up to listen to a famous play write speak and have a crash course in play writing. Stacy ( a wonderful woman I have mentioned several times when posting and a very nice woman named Lynn told us that this workshop does not teach fundamentals of writing but inspires young people to write. I say this is a start to a youth writing revolution. The workshop, in my eyes, was created to not only give a taste of a different style of writing but to discuss topics that are intertwined within a writer’s mind when creating a piece. So you not only get to mix and mingle with interesting people that share a common bond but you can explore who you are as a writer. Catherine and I did all of our jobs and were expecting just to maybe get to eavesdrop on the conversation but we were surprised to find out we got to be a part of the seminar as well. Stacy gave us a notebook and basically said write it down. The first half of the almost 6 hour workshop (some of the coolest 6 hours of my short life!) was with a play writer and actor John Buffalo Mailer. That man is so nice and AMAZING at what he does. A little background on Mr. John Mailer is that he is the youngest son of American Novelist Norman Mailer and Norris Church ( a formal model, painter and writer). he has written numerous plays as well as screen plays and has a strong acting career. The workshop consisted of 6 or 7 people around a table just talking. We talked about everything someone thinks about theatre. It was so intimate and I wasn’t spoken to as a child just here to help, I was talked to as a young adult with ideas and contributions that don’t have to be thought of from a little kid’s perspective. John talked about how he wrote a novela and his first play focusing on a Columbine type situation. Mailer started his own theatre company and helped discover “In The Heights”. We also talked about how plays were written for certain audiences. Mailer also discussed how plays are almost like children and you grow up with them. It may be like a beauty pageant when showing your baby to the world. We also talked about a writer’s process. On how things can go up and down in difficulty, especially when trying to ask tough questions while being entertaining. The other half consisted of reading different excerpts from plays and discussing our thinking as the reader or what we think the writer was thinking. We read some Gertrude Stien and a bit of Suzan-Lori Parks. Not only did we discuss writing style but how race played a role in the piece. But what I think is one of the most important things I learned in this visit was about universal themes and how every writer uses them. We practiced this and I took an Alice in Wonderland theme.

Here is my writing from that day:

Wonderlands? Yes, wonderlands. And you thought there could be just one? One wonderland? A onederland. Wonder doesn’t have to mean amazing or fabulous in opinion, it just has to cause awe. My wonderland resides in a pen. A pen that creates worlds, uncanny to another. This pen holds mystery, suspense, happiness, rage or any type of things that come to the brain. With a pen and paper in posession, I’m allowed to create my own world. You could say that I live in a noebook. Lonely yet completely preoccupied in my own spiral paged world. I don’t know how I get to this world world of ink. It must be that I fall into some trap door hidden beneath the the words I am writing now. See this world dowsed with smeared blue ball point pen remains let’s me live somewhere else. Be someone different. Explore myself while wondering who I truly am. In this wonderland, I can be the main attraction against the gray and white lines. The splash of color or intrest in the book laid to rest on the black wooden table. I dance behind punction and ake shelter under capital Ts. I hide here, the one place I can let go and scream without making a sound, just using multiple exclamation points. I live here, I work here, I love here. This wonderland allows me to a perferrated facade. My second life, a starter wonderland.

Overall this was a great visit!