Adapting a "True Story" to a Play or Movie

Recently this question was posted on a theatre industry chat site:  Would anyone have any advice on how to proceed with getting a book made into a play or a movie? A friend of mine wrote an award-winning true account about having been a hidden child during the Second World War and the characters would lend themselves to a fantastic movie. I'm trying to get the word out about it.  This was my contribution to the discussion. 

 

Your question is difficult to answer because you mention adaptation to a "play or a movie."  The processes of writing, developing, and producing plays and movies are different.  Nevertheless, there are some thoughts I can offer. 

First and foremost (and forgive me for saying so), if I were a producer and you pitched to me the project as described above, my answer would be "been there, done that."  What I mean is there are lots of stories of people being hidden to save their lives during WWII, not the least of which is "Diary of Anne Frank."  Does that mean you're dead in the water?  No.  You, as the writer, need to be very, very clear on what makes your story different from the others out there.  What's your "hook"?  In other words, it's not the sameness of your story (no matter how worthwhile) that will interest a producer, it's the uniqueness.  And you need to identify and be able to speak passionately on what is great about your story and what sets it apart from the others. 

Second, execute an agreement between you and your friend, the book author.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, "but we're good friends.  Why do we need a contract?"  Why?  To stay friends.  Memory can play tricks on people, particularly when it comes to who has final say in a disagreement or how money is to be divided if the project succeeds.  You don't need a lawyer.  The Dramatists Guild has a collaboration agreement that can be customized to your needs.  Or you can probably find an adaptation agreement template on the Internet.  The agreement should specify these things:  you have exclusive rights to make a play and movie adaptation of the book for a certain period of time (24 months is common).  You should specify how much you're paying for the rights to do these things (you can put down $1 if you like).  It should be specified who (you) has final say if you disagree on something in the script (the considerations for writing a successful play or movie script are different from those in writing a book, and book authors sometimes forget this.  Which is one of the reasons why savvy script writers do not give script approval to the book authors).

Finally, that the story happened does not carry as much weight as you might think.  The fact it is the "reality" can sometimes hinder progress.  You can't allow yourself to get stuck on the facts.  The writer of a play or movie needs to have the flexibility to fictionalize.  Sometimes events need to be changed or dramatized (events in life, while powerful for the participants, are not necessarily a compelling story for others); events need to be created to make the story flow more smoothly; tons of characters (okay in a book) need to be pared down or combined into fewer characters (especially for a play).  If you want a lesson in the freedom to make things up, read the factual news accounts and then see the "based on a true story" movie "Argo."  Much of the film script, particularly the ending, was fabricated to make the movie a nail-biter.  But who cares?  It was a whale of a ride.  In other words, don't let the facts get in the way of creating a great script.

Musicals: They Ain't Just Plays with Songs

Recently, a novelist who is writing a musical based on a book she wrote, asked for general advice from those who've written musicals.  What I told her is this ...

While it is possible for folks to give you a valuable pointer or two about writing the book (script) for a musical, if you've never done it before you'll need more than a handful of tips from colleagues.  The expectations and constraints that relate to the writing musicals are different from those concerning the writing of a play.  As the author of the critically acclaimed show, The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith, and Playwriting for Dummies, I would strongly suggest you go to Amazon.com for a book or two about writing musicals.  There are lots of them, like The Musical Theatre Writer's Survival Guide by David Spencer or Making Musicals by Tom Jones.  If you're a beginner when it comes to musicals, it almost doesn't matter which book on musicals you read, but do do your homework. 

All that being said, I do have one important piece of advice:  remember that the songs in a musical are part of the storytelling.  Songs (and dances) are not thrown in randomly for the purpose entertainment only.  The songs in a musical are, in effect, musical dialogue, and must either reveal character or advance the plot.  If you can take a song out or move it to another spot in the show with no impact on the show, then that song is superfluous.  If you were to take "I Feel Pretty" out of West Side Story, you would not understand the depth of Maria's elation and the validation she is experiencing over having connected with Tony the night before.  And the song helps explain why she is willing to so quickly and fully commit herself to Tony.  In other words "I Feel Pretty" is a wonderful song and dance, but it serves an important dramaturgical purpose. 

The Seductive "Jukebox" Musical

In recent decades, there's been a proliferation of the "jukebox" musical, a musical show that takes a collecton of songs of a group or of a period, and tries to wrap a story around them.  Unfortunately, what might seem like a simple way of creating a musical is not at all simple. 

Most musicals fail because of a weak or non-existent book - the play/story component of the show (dialogue and stage directions).  In other words, creating a viable story for a group of songs that were never intended to be part of a show is a real challenge.  (See pages 244 and 311-312 in Playwriting for Dummies.)  I speak from experience (www.thedevilsmusic.biz). 

And then there's the 800-pound gorilla in the room:  the unavoidable necessity to get (and pay for) the rights to use any music created after 1923.  Never assume music rights are readily available and easy to acquire.  Check it out before getting to deep into your project.  And never ever stage a show using someone else's music without written permission.  You will be sued, "you" meaning you, the show's creator. 

The bottom line is, it's not enough to have a collection of "can't-miss" songs.  Audiences go to musicals for the music, yes, but also for an engaging and entertaining story.  Resist the temptation to skimp on the latter.  For every Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia, there are dozens of jukebox musicals that crash and burn.  When it comes to jukebox musicals, many are attempted but few succeed. 

Is My Play Idea Comedy or Drama?

Professor, is my idea comedy or drama? 

This may seem like an odd question, but, more often than you'd think, I’m asked by my playwriting students if a play idea they want to work on ought to be written as a comedy or a drama. 

Well, you can deal with almost any issue or storyline as either a comedy or drama.  Take, for instance, the story of a man’s startling discovery that his old-maid aunts have poisoned a dozen or so lonely old men, and had their bodies buried in the basement of their home.  Mass murder hardly seems a likely subject for humor; drama would appear to be the right genre for this material.  Yet the preceding is the storyline of one of the funniest stage comedies ever written, Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring. 

My comfort zone as a playwright is somewhere in between drama and comedy, but closer to drama than comedy.  To date, though I fancy myself as having a robust sense of humor, I’ve not been able to write an out-and-out comedy.  Because I tend to see life as a mixture of dramatic situations and humorous moments (hardly a philosophical breakthrough), when I’ve tried to write a pure comedy, the play inevitably ends up drifting back into the sphere that comes naturally to me — the drama with humor, or dramedy as the hybrid is sometimes called. 

 

The choice between comedic or dramatic treatment of an idea rests in good measure on your slant on the story.  Is your exploration of the idea primarily serious in nature, or do you see it as mostly ironic and humorous? 

As indicated above, another important factor is your particular gift as a writer.  Do you have an inclination toward envisioning and creating dramatic situations, or do you have an unrelenting sense of humor and the knack for writing witty lines?  In the final analysis, the subject matter, along with your writing skills and propensity will take you in one direction or the other. 

Don't Downplay the Director

Recently, a playwright posted online the following amazing statement:  "Playwrights should ... self-direct at least once, if for no other reason than to see that directing a play isn't the rocket science some would have you believe."  That playwright followed up with this:  "Most of directing is finding good actors, a good script, and getting out of the way." 

Yipes!  How could anyone who knows anything about theatre make such assertions!?  Directing is a specialized skill set that involves artistic insight, many hours of script study and preparation, the ability to conceive of a stage picture and blocking, excellent people and problem-solving skills, the knowledge of the different approaches to acting that actors employ, enough knowledge about set design, costumes, lighting plots, sound design, etc., to pass judgment on the designs presented by the various stagecraft people, and more.  

I studied directing for years, not because I wanted to direct, but because I wanted to know what goes into directing so that I could prepare my scripts in a way that directors would relate to and to understand what it is that directors do.  You don't learn to be a dentist by pulling your own teeth.  To put down directing as not being "rocket science" does directing and directors a grave injustice.  I can tell you that I'm personally indebted to directors who, working with actors, have elevated my work to levels even I wouldn't have imagined. 

Theatre is a collaborative medium.  Everyone brings something to the table.  And to deprive oneself of the skill and insight of one of the team players - the director - arbitrarily deprives you of a talented mind and shrewd pair of eyes.  And why would you want to do that?  To have it all your own way?  Not wise.  Directing, like acting and playwriting, is not something one does lightly and without training and learning.  Not if you respect the various disciplines.  Not if you respect theatre.  Not if you respect yourself. 

Exposition: Who Needs it? Storytellers, That’s Who!

Concerning exposition – the bugaboo of all storytellers, especially scriptwriters – someone I know floated this description:  “I would define exposition as anything that the actors* and the audience can reasonably be assumed to already know.  New information to all is not exposition.  Information that the actors should already know is the worst offense.”  (*By “actors,” I’m assuming he meant “characters.”) 

Unfortunately, there’s a lot wrong with this definition.  First, it’s a mistake to lump the “characters” and the audience together.  In most plays, there are many things the characters know that the audience does not.  At the beginning of Hamlet, Hamlet is majorly bummed.  He knows why, but the audience does not (unless of course, the audience is familiar with the play).  Before Shakespeare’s play begins, Hamlet’s much beloved dad dies and mother-dearest quickly remarries Hamlet’s uncle.  Enough to give anyone a migraine, but, the point is, our boy Hamlet knows these things – the backstory - but the audience does not ... that is until those influential events are revealed through exposition. 

Then there is the reverse situation, which is the hallmark of suspense stories: the audience (or reader) knows something the main character doesn’t.  That causes us to worry that the protagonist will fall victim to the apple we know to be poisoned, the armed murderer we know lurks just beyond the squeaky door, etc. 

“New information to all is not exposition,” the definition continues.  Au contraire: good exposition is exactly that – new information, information new to the audience.  Here’s my definition of exposition in plays:  exposition is the strategic revelation of information (backstory), usually through dialogue, that the audience needs to know to understand what's going on.  Exposition is an essential component of storytelling.  Meaning it’s far from a bad thing in and of itself; how the revelations are handled is the issue.  The challenge is to trot out the information when it's relevant – "information as ammunition" – and not when the writer feels it's convenient.  The best exposition is that which comes out when a character needs to bring out the information to achieve a purpose (at the same time providing information that pays off later).  Knowing that Hamlet is in an emotionally turbulent state over his late father and “o’erhasty” mother easily explains why he’s willing embark on a journey of revenge that ends in a body count rivaling any action-adventure film. 

Lastly, “Information the [characters] should already know is the worst offense.”  Here our friend is onto something.  When characters in a story stand around telling each other information they both already know just to bring the audience up to speed, you’ve got clunky exposition.  Think of it this way.  It’s probably very rare that a person and his/her significant other sit around recalling mundane events that they both experienced together and, thus, both already know.  However, when one is trying to best the other – as in an argument – past events come rolling out as evidence for one side or the other.  In other words, the information comes out in an organic and motivated way.  And that’s the difference between good, purposeful exposition and exposition that’s randomly placed and draws yawns. 

What good are one-act plays, anyway?

Someone in a Dramatists Guild discussion on LinkedIn asked the playwriting question:  “what good are one-act plays, anyway?”  The implication being, you never see one-act plays being done on the Great White Way or in major regional theatres around the country.  Consequently, what’s the point of short plays?  The first thing that needs to be addressed is “never.”  I would substitute the word “rarely,” because occasionally you do see a collection of three or so one-act plays presented as an evening of theatre in major venues.  In 2011, Relatively Speaking, a collection of one-act plays by Woody Allen, Elaine May, and Ethan Coen, ran on Broadway.  And, of course, you have the fine compilations of one-act plays by Neil Simon – Plaza Suite and California Suite – also on Broadway.  But those are the exceptions that prove the rule, and, of course, such accomplished writers as Woody Allen and Neil Simon are in a class of their own. 

So what good are one-acts to mere mortals such as us?  One-act plays are very valuable to new playwrights.  One wouldn’t likely run a marathon without having tackled shorter races first to learn the technical aspects of running and to build up to the longer distances.  That’s also true of playwriting.  Working on short plays before attempting full-lengths helps new writers learn the essentials of playwriting – storytelling and plotting, character development, and dialogue writing – without the burden of having to turn out 100 pages of script. 

Another advantage of one-acts is that they can serve as calling cards for new writers.  One-act plays are perfect for national playwriting competitions.  These contests of short plays provide new playwrights with exposure and maybe even a production of a play in one of the many one-act play festivals around the country.   Not to mention the possibility of winning a prize that would look peachy on the résumé. 

And, finally, I quote Sigmund Freud who once admitted, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”  By which he meant, often a thing is just what it is and nothing more.  If the subject matter you want to write about can be dealt with adequately in the one-act format, then it’s a one-act play.  In other words, like it or not, a one-act play might be all that’s needed for the amount of material in the story you want to tell.  So, don’t knock ‘em.  One-act plays can be very useful ... and rewarding.