Guest author presents revitalizing new play

The second installation to the Visiting Writers Series, put on by the Department of English and Rhetoric, kicked off Tuesday, Sept. 27, with visiting playwright Micheal Wright.

Bringing along with him a rough draft of his newest play-in-the-making, Wright gave students a chance to act out and discuss the play, “Orphans of the Storm.”

The play is “loosely based on a woman I was involved with in the 60s,” Wright said. “The parents got killed accidentally leaving the two children to figure it out, both of them not doing well with mental stability. The play is kind of an exploration of that, very indirect.”

Wright, applied associate professor of creative writing, theater and film at the University of Tulsa, has been working in theater for 50 years, mostly as a playwright for the past 35 years, he says.

David Muschell, professor of English and script writing teacher at GC, invited Wright.

Muschell explains “we always bring in one writer from each genre (playwriting, nonfiction, fiction, etc.) at least each year.” Muschell says the he and Wright previously met at a conference three years ago. Muschell also uses Wright’s textbook “Playwriting in Process” in his scriptwriting class.

Wright has worked with film, but says he prefers theater because it is more expressive in a multitude of different ways. Wright teaches many classes such as playwriting, scriptwriting for television, radio and podcasting, as well as screenwriting film.

Martin Lammon, coordinator of the creative writing program, says, “I really thought it was the best Reader’s Theatre we’ve ever had.”

Reader’s Theatre is a narration of a play without full stage sets, full costumes or memorization.

“The reader’s play is a very hard to pull off,” explains Lammon, “I thought the play must have been a very good play to be appealing as a Reader’s Theatre.”

Muschell says Wright did something unusual that visiting playwrights generally avoid.

“Usually when I invite a playwright, they send me a play, but his was brand new. It is really so raw and usually a writer doesn’t like to expose to the public something not so crafted,” Muschell said.

However, the audience thoroughly enjoyed Wright’s newest work.

Sophomore criminal justice major Caroline Martin says it was an “interesting play; I definitely would come to see the second act.”

Freshman biology major Zach Cook agrees, saying, “I would like to see the actual complete play.”

Lammon tributes the success of the Reader’s Theatre to Wright’s ability to communicate effective dialogue.

“The writing and language was very lyrical at times, very precise and there was a provocative quality,” says Lammon. “Some plays’ dialogue is more flat and the actors are the ones who, with their pitch, tone and volume, make the drama,” Lammon explains, “but that play, I think the actual words made a strong contribution the dynamic quality of that script.”

Wright says he is “mostly interested in writing stuff that will hit people in a very direct way. I want to alarm them, I want to amuse them, make them squirm in their seats.”

Posted by Steffi Beigh on Oct 6 2011. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.