New Play Project

NPP Play Earns Top Honors at AML Awards

Adam Stallard — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 04:48:26 +0000

James Goldberg’s play, “Prodigal Son,” part of the Lost & Found set from last year, was awarded “Best New Play by an LDS Playwright” for 2008 at the Association of Mormon Letters award ceremony.

Congratulations, James!

2009 Season

Adam Stallard — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:33:32 +0000

Check out the season page to see what’s happening at NPP for 2009.

We have show dates, audition dates, and writer submission dates.

Writer’s Block

Arisael Rivera — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:29:13 +0000

As I have taken the last two years to improve my writing ability by attempting to write a play for every ten minute play festival and work on full length plays on the side I have often stumbled upon the awful creature known as writer’s block. It’s a perfect name for the inability to come up with the next line, the next character who walks into the room, or the next stage direction (does the character sit on the chair or the stool?) as a block is like a road block or a stumbling block placed in your way. It’s just as bad as starting a conversation and four lines later wondering, “What’s this conversation about? What is this character’s movtivation?” So as a writer who is currently (and has many times in the past) struggled with this formidable beast, here are some suggestions to get out of your head and into your story.

1) Take a walk: There’s nothing more relaxing to me than taking a walk with a notepad or index cards or whatever suits your fancy and just allowing the different environments to influence me. Sometimes a short trip to Wal-Mart to “people watch” will suffice. Taking a walk distracts your mind or focuses it depending on the play you are trying to write. Either way when you sit back down in front of your computer, your mind may be ready for round 2.

2) Listen to music: This is one of my favorites. I know what I want the characters I’ve created to feel and want. So I usually decide to listen to music that I think reflects either the message of the play or the intentions of a character. Maybe a song that represents a character’s relationship to another. Music is powerful in its ability to evoke emotion and sometimes a little bit of “Coldplay” can go a long way for your play.

3) Scrap the play: While I was at BYU, my play-writing professor Eric Samuelsen, referred to this method as “killing your babies” - I know, morbid, but the principle is real. Many times I realize that the reason why my play is no longer progressing is because there’s too much in it that I really like ( I’d even go so far as to say love) but that are impeding the story from progressing. Sometimes “killing” these precious lines, moments, or characters are the perfect solution to a clogged play.

4) Lastly - Workshop, workshop, workshop. I believe that this last suggestion is more of a reminder for myself. Nothing beats bringing a play to workshop and hearing actors read it and fellow playwrights, actors, and dramaturgs give their suggestions, constructive criticism, and sometimes, thankfully, off the wall ideas. It helps shape your play in ways you never saw or imagined. Workshopping the play with others is always a good offense for writer’s block. That’s why we hold workshops every Tuesday night at 7pm at Provo Theatre Company ( I know, a shameless plug, but why worry about creating your own group when NPP’s already got one for you).

I hope that these suggestions have been helpful, I know they at least were for me. Till next time, Happy Writing.

Welcome to the new site

Ben Crowder — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 20:38:44 +0000

We’re excited to unveil our new website, redesigned from the ground up. We’ve switched to WordPress which will make updating the site a lot easier (which in turn means the site will be updated more often :)). And we’re also pleased to announce that we’ve started uploading more videos and photos so you can get a feel for what NPP is and what we do.

The road ahead

James Goldberg — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:36:02 +0000

Wow. It’s been a while since the last entry, when I decided to write about the influence Pres. Hinckley has had on me as a writer. He died a week ago.

The only thing I can think of to add now as that I also want my work, for the most part, to reflect the same spirit of realistic optimism he always had and taught. Life is tough, but it’s also a beautiful, wonderful thing. The road ahead is long, but we’re further along it than we’ve ever been before, and there’s not just light at the distant end of some tunnel–there’s enough light, if we have eyes to see it, all around us.

Gordon B. Hinckley

James Goldberg — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:35:31 +0000

Since we just had LDS General Conference, I wanted to write a little bit about a man who’s had a great influence on my writing: our prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley.

President Hinckley succeeded President Hunter as the prophet about the same time my family moved to Ohio, right as I was coming out of elementary school into middle school. He did visit Columbus once, but otherwise the way I know him is mostly through General Conference broadcasts.

I remember the first time I was convinced I was listening to a prophet of God speaking. It was in the priesthood session of conference, I can’t remember which year, and Pres. Hinckley was telling husbands to treat their wives and children right. I just remember this 90-something-year-old man standing straight up and saying, with power and clarity, that if any man abused his wife physically or emotionally, “Amen to the priesthood of that man” (meaning that the authority of God departs when we do such things.)

I’ve been struck since then how the greatest recurring concern of God’s prophet in our day is not to discuss abstract theological concepts or petition God for new commandments. The thing he cares about most and has emphasized again and again is the need for greater love and kindness in our lives, and the eternal tragedy of our casual mistreatments of one another. Those are the issues that fill a prophet’s heart.

When I write, I do so with the intent to communicate something. I’m not nearly clever or witty enough to justify a script purely on the basis of its entertainment value (I have to give audiences at least a little meat, you could say, because my milk isn’t all that good). More often than not, the types of themes that occupy my mind are those I learned a special concern for from President Hinckley: how do we treat each other? Why do we so often fail to be loving and good and how can we find healing and retain a belief in our ability to change?

Another manifestation of this influence comes in the way I try to be kind to my characters. Rather than vilifying them, I try to humanize even the ones I disagree with. All my characters make mistakes, but I try to give them credit for wanting and trying to do good and make things right at least much of the time.

My hope is that through my most of my plays, characters and audiences can search for healing and struggle for repentance together. I like to think President Hinckley would approve.

Why we write

Arisael Rivera — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:34:51 +0000

There are a lot of reasons why we write. Writing is a form of therapy whereby which the writer can take the time to express their own personal questions, doubts, and beliefs and display them in such a way that others will be able to get involved. Now this is obviously only one way of viewing writing but I think it’s an important one and one that I use many times when starting a new project. Since my play 6is currently greeting everyone as they enter our website I thought I’d let you know a little bit about my life as a writer and a resident of the great city of New York. Sure I’m currently living in Provo but 9/11 still rings in my mind. The play is very biographical though not particularly in its specific events as in its specific emotions. As you read through the play the different characters (mom, dad, cousin, etc) explain the situation from their own point of view. The dialogue is derived from the feelings I received from them and from other members of my family. Knowing where all of them were during the attacks I began to fictionalize what happened to each individual while not taking away the emotion. Some of the characters thoughts were my own but most were derived from conversations with my family. In the end 6is a look back at 9/11 and a collection of thoughts and prayers from those who lived to speak about it. From that point of view I can say that after returning from my mission in Mexico I began to think a lot about playwriting and this last year I kept feeling that I needed to write a play about 9/11. I didn’t want to but I kept feeling that I should. I’m really glad I did and I hope all those who have read it have been able to get something out of it. There’s a little bit of me, until next time, live it up ‘cause life is beautiful. Peace.

Values-driven theatre

James Goldberg — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:31:36 +0000

It’s been almost a week and my sleep schedule still isn’t back to normal after the conversation I had with Adam Stallard last Saturday. Around 11 pm, we got talking about just what the “values-driven” in our new tagline means. After all, everyone has values…what makes us unique? And how do values drive our kind of theatre? Our discussion stayed lively until we looked at the time and realized it was 5 am…
Here are some thoughts from that conversation:

What do we mean by “values”?

“Values” is a tricky word…anything anyone values is technically a value, but the word usually implies more than that. Google the phrase “values-driven” and you’ll find articles on values-driven business (where fulfilling your purpose in life and treating people right is more important than making money, and “the spiritual dimension of life doesn’t disappear when people get together for a business venture”), on values-driven families (how to “share a heritage of faith with your children”) and even values-driven healthcare (giving moral, ethical, and religious considerations greater priority in medicine). Wherever we looked, “values” went beyond the relativistic, subjective definition. Our deepest values seem to be spiritually-rooted: they have to do with living in harmony with our fellow human beings (who are, in any religion, spiritual creatures) and God (or our “conscience” when it’s phrased secularly). The principles these deep values emphasize are seen as inherent in the world, not just a human invention. They are either discovered by people or revealed by God, but never just artificially created.

New Play Project’s goal is to develop writers who are committed to creating plays rooted in these deep values. There is, of course, room for producing things that are simply entertaining, but the heart of our work is producing new plays that help keep audiences grounded and connected to a life of harmony.

How?

Most of our writers are LDS, so putting values first in writing often just means being true to our identity more than to prevailing artistic ideas. But how, specifically, do we encourage values-driven theatre? A few keys:

Inspiring, thought-provoking plays: when selecting scripts, we look particularly for scripts that combine good writing with good messages on important topics. We also find try to develop scripts that don’t just preach values, but help the audience think about them.
“Safe” theatre: A values-driven business, says Ben Cohen, cares more about the environment and surrounding community than about extra profit. Similarly, New Play Project puts the cultural impact of entertainment above the common artistic ideal of 100% free expression. We respect the prevailing Utah County standards of what is and is not appropriate as far as language, sexual content, etc.
Focus: Most Disney musicals, Adam pointed out, have positive messages and are “safe” as far as content standards, but the average production of, say, Beauty & the Beast is more focused on visual impact than on values. We’re more interested in getting people to think about values than in getting applause or a standing ovation. Through a combination of our traditional pre-show essay, our program notes, our talkbacks, and our workshop program, New Play Project tries to emphasize the thought-provoking, values-driven nature of our plays.
Heritage: if the goal is to raise issues about how to live a good life, in harmony with others and God, we need to acknowledge past discoveries and revelations. Much of modern art tries to exist on the cutting edge of human philosophy, but we are happy to look back to our heritage and to time-tested principles of goodness as primary sources of guidance.