Wednesday, March 7, 2007

A RASH rewrite

I'm spending the month of March rewriting parts of RASH. I have now done 7 performances of RASH and received really great feedback from folks from all over. In fact, I can't thank enough friends, theatre folk and audience members who have been sharing their thoughts and ideas on the play. You are helping to make this play even stronger. I am realising the difficulties of performing a play to multiple audiences. The people coming to see my show are a mix of folks - from those who are just curious to see the play, to high school and university students, to human rights and humanitarian workers. And so the types of feedback I receive are often quite specific to the needs of the audience. The general public want to see more photos of Rwanda, aid workers prefer to see less images, students want more details about what the life of a human rights observer is like. And feedback varies according to cultural sensibilities. Americans want the gaps filled in, more clarity, a clear beginning, middle and end. Non-Americans like to fill in their own gaps, and are more comfortable with some things being left up in the air. So now, me the writer, I have to distill all of that, listen to the feedback and then ultimately decide what I want to say and how I want to say it. So that's what I'm doing now. It feels good to be writing again but I'm also looking forward to seeing the changes in action. If there are any other writers out there reading this, I am curious to know how you absorb the feedback you get on your material. Look out for the RASH outbreak in April, there are four performances scheduled.

2 comments:

Water (H2O) Podcast said...

Hi,

I'm in the process of starting a podcast on Peace. Actually I want to help to give voice to the thought that if people only listened to their Mothers then I just have to believe that the world would not be in such a sorry shape. Afterall what mother wants her child or the child of another mother to die fighting each other. More to it than that, but I've heard that in Rwanda that the Women in the country are occupying a major role in the government so this is the reason for my interest in your play.

I'm wondering if it would be possible to record the audio part of the play and use it for the podcast? Will the audio be able to stand alone and give the meaning your play intends to give? I'm in the Durham, NC area and would like your permission to come to the April 4th presentation and record the audio from the play AND the discussion afterwards. Is that okay?

thanks,

joseph
WillYou@PleaseListenToYourMom.com

====================

Joseph Puentes
http://PleaseListenToYourMom.com (Podcast for Peace Coming Soon)
http://H2Opodcast.com (Environment Podcast)
http://H2Opodcast.blogspot.com/ (Blog for above)
http://NuestraFamiliaUnida.com (Latin American History Podcast)

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.