Florida Studio Theatre Prepares for the Future

"It's not good or anything," Jason Odell Williams opined about the first draft of his new play America in One Room. "I just kind of blurted it out."

Williams is one of 32 playwrights, sketch writers and cabaret creators now working as staff writers under short-term contracts with Florida Studio Theatre. Funding for The Playwrights Project was obtained through the Paycheck Protection Program. (Try saying that three times fast!) It's a creative way to keep theatre professionals working while giving FST a stockpile of new work to produce once it's safe to go back into theaters.

Writing for the Project is different than writing for a commission. With a commission, the writer works independently on his play, making a multitude of revisions before sharing a draft with the applicable theater. It's a solitary process and months typically pass before the initial reveal. For the Project, Williams and his new colleagues are under a five week deadline to produce first drafts. But they aren't just sitting in their home offices writing away alone. They have Zoom calls where they can bounce ideas off each other. As soon as a draft is done, a reading is scheduled so they can hear their work out loud and get to work on revisions. While it would be impossible to develop a ready-to-produce play during the short tenure of the program, participants will get a good start.

FST has a strong commitment to education, including of its audience members. Why let a little pandemic get in the way of that mission?  And so the Theatre is continuing its series of talks with  playwrights about their works' development and their processes -- virtually, of course. First up was a conversation between Williams and FST's Catherine Randazzo about America in One Room. It was fascinating.

Jason Odell Williams

When asked where his plays come from, Williams said he just "lives in the world looking for the spark of an idea." In the case of his latest work, that spark came from an article in The New York Times last October with the headline "These 526 Voters Represent All of America. And They Spent A Weekend Together." Sounds like a recipe for disaster, right? Wrong!  It turns out when people are face to face, they can talk about their differing views about hot topics without getting all inflamed. Their perspectives might just even shift a bit. This sounded like an idea worth exploring.

Williams realized the play wouldn't be very interesting if a bunch of people just sat around talking about issues in a calm manner. Where's the drama in that, as unusual as it might be?  In addition, he wants to create a different audience experience than the equivalent of sitting at our computers watching a performance online. (Please, no more!!!)  And so he's adding an improv element to the show, with audience members joining the cast onstage. Think The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee or Tony 'n' Tina's Wedding. While the comparison might not seem wholly apt given Williams' serious subject matter, his plays always include a healthy dose of humor. America in One Room will be no exception, and with any luck the audience participants will enhance that element of the show.

Even with some safeguards built in, it's easy to imagine an unscripted political discussion getting out of control. Williams acknowledged the open-ended nature of both the audience members' comments and the actors' responses will make the show "unpredictable" and "dangerous." The opportunity for something really exciting to happen will exist, though, and each performance will be unique.

Without doubt, it's an ambitious idea. But Williams believes the return to a world in which we sit in a room together and watch a live performance is going to feel momentous. It seems like the perfect time to take some additional creative risk.

Students in FST's Behind the Scenes class are delving more deeply into the Project. Over the course of six weeks, we will read some of the work that's being created and hear from writers working in four different genres. Even as I sit here, Williams' first draft of America in One Room is waiting in my inbox for attention. He will join our class to talk further about the play and to get our feedback. It's the closest I've come to having a real theater experience in what seems like forever. Thanks to FST for making it happen.

To read the article that inspired America in One Room, click here. And to learn more about Florida Studio Theatre's Playwrights Project, click here and here. Kudos to everyone involved in the Project, and good luck.

And now I have some reading to do.