Fiction Meets Theatre in Interact's Writing Aloud
When David Sanders first conceived of the Writing Aloud program six years ago during a writing residency program in Minnesota, he never could have anticipated the response in Philadelphia. “We tried one evening to see if there was any interest out there,” he says, “and our first program was sold out.” There is still wonder in his voice when he speaks of that first night, with reason—InterAct Theatre’s Writing Aloud program has expanded to six productions per season, and it is renowned in the writing community as a prominent venue for contemporary fiction.
Those involved agree that there is no opportunity quite like this anywhere in the area for writers, actors and audience alike. “While it’s common for authors to read their own work, or for actors to participate in staged readings of plays, nowhere else are professional actors brought in to read fiction aloud like this,” says Seth Rozin, the theatre’s Producing Artistic Director.
While Writing Aloud is similar to New York City’s Selected Shorts program, broadcast on NPR, Rozin and Sanders are adamant that it’s not the same thing. In Selected Shorts, Rozin explains, “Professional actors read aloud for a radio audience. Writing Aloud is meant to be… for a live audience. The venue lends more focus and excitement to the reading.” In addition, adds Sanders, “[Selected Shorts] tends to present more classical work. We present contemporary fiction by authors with a strong connection to the Philadelphia area.”
“Short fiction reaches a small audience,” Rozin observes. “Writing Aloud really exposes these writers to a wider audience.” There is usually a strong turnout from the Philadelphia literary community, and the program does indeed provide new opportunities for writers.
Mark Lyons, whose piece, “Aaron’s Auto-Salvage and Restoration,” premiered in the January 2004 show, says he found himself approached afterwards by the managing editor of Bucks County Writer, who had been in the audience. The editor offered to publish Lyons’ story in the magazine’s summer edition. “The wonderful thing about Writing Aloud is it gives such an opportunity for the community of writers to get together and root each other on,” Lyons notes.
“Philadelphia has a very supportive writing community,” adds Seth Rozin, “and Writing Aloud has become quite well known both as a great opportunity to have work read and as a great place to hear great new fiction.”
Although the writers themselves are not involved in casting, their suggestions for readers are taken to heart. “David Sanders asks writers if they have an idea of who might be narrating the piece,” Rozin explains, “and we try to find somebody to fit their descriptions. Sometimes they don’t have an opinion… and in those cases we try to use our best judgment.” That judgment is sometimes profoundly appropriate. The protagonist of Mark Lyons’ January piece was the preacher at a snake-handlers’ church in the South.
“I’d done quite a bit of research, but I’d never actually met anyone who was or knew a snake-handler,” Lyons says. “It turned out the actor, David Dallas, who read my piece, was from Mississippi and had been a child preacher. His grandmother had been involved with snake-handlers.” Neither Rozin nor Sanders knew of this beforehand.
David Sanders selects about 30 stories per year from a pool of about 300 submissions. He stresses that he tries to present a variety of writing at each show. “I tend to look for excellent writing first and foremost,” he says. However, there is a certain kind of fiction that lends itself well to being read aloud. “A lot of the stories I select are in first person, which has a nice immediacy,” explains Sanders, who adds, “I look for stories that have a very strong narrative voice and a strong sense of plot.” Sanders also likes to pick stories with 2,000 to 5,000 words, which gives them a 15 to 30-minute reading time.
The program is popular among the actors who participate, as well. They rehearse together only once, meeting briefly the afternoon before the show, where readers receive short notes from Sanders and have the opportunity to talk over their performances with the writers. “They are very professional and bring all their skill and training to their performance,” says Sanders, who adds, “They put a lot of preparation into it.”
Reading fiction aloud can present challenges. “Sometimes you have to play up things to make them obvious on stage when they would be obvious on the page. A play on words, for example, is hard to convey in performance sometimes, and you have to do your best to make it clear,” says Maureen Torsney-Weir, an actress who has performed in several of Writing Aloud’s past productions.
Overall, the focus of each performance is on the words, not the visual spectacle, and actors do their best to honor the writers’ creative vision. The set is simple: a table with a vase of flowers. The background scenery for InterAct’s current Mainstage play is usually left up; actors have read from the middle of the desert, as well as from the Nixon White House.
For the writers, the experience is often both terrifying and wonderful. It can be instructive, too. “The voices you write in tend to be your own,” says Sandy Crimmins. Passages of Crimmins’ novel, Square One, were read at the May 24 production. “Someone else reading gives you a different take on your words on the page. It even gives you ideas for rewrites.”
As for plans for the future, both Sanders and Rozin believe that if it isn’t broken, there’s no point in trying to fix it. “What we’ve been doing has been working,” Rozin says. There are, however, a few new ideas being considered, including an International Folk Tales evening, as well as one chapter per night of a novel over a longer period. In the more immediate future, Writing Aloud’s next show will present work under the theme of “Life Anew.” It will take place on June 21st, at 7pm at the Adrienne Theatre’s Main Stage. For more information about the program, call InterAct Theatre at (——-), or e-mail (——-)@InterActTheatre.org.