We call this workshop What’s the Story? because when we approach the raw material of personal experience, there is so much information.
We ask, What story do I want to tell, and why?
IT BEGAN WITH SOLO PERFORMANCE
Twenty-odd years ago, I set out to write a solo play about my great-grandfather—the family patriarch who first came to the US at the turn of the 20th century—about whom nobody would ever speak. Clearly something terrible and shameful and delicious must have happened, and I was obsessed with finding out what it was.
When Looking for Louie opened in LA in 2000, it got a lot of attention.
I was on the performance faculty at USC, so I was known as a teacher, and people started asking me if I would help with their solo plays. I worked with them one-on-one, and after a while, I noticed that—because it was just us—they were writing for me and that wasn't a good thing — for the work.
I was asked to teach an undergraduate solo class at USC. There were fifteen students in the room, and it occurred to me that I could invite and guide their response to one another's work — of course, in a way that made sure their response was constructive, generous and, above all, useful.
That approach, based on empathy and curiosity, worked. Writers got a broad spectrum of response—not just mine. I watched and listened and got a sense of what was important to each writer — what they wanted to say. And I offered my guidance through that lens. And they went places with their work that none of us imagined they'd go.
I stopped working with artists one-on-one, and invited them into a group process, which I called What's the Story?
PERFORMING SOLO IS AN ODD ANIMAL
Solo performance is an odd animal. Over the years, I've figured out ways to work freely in direct address with an audience that is honest and intentional, generous, and story-centric. And there are ways to offer even the strongest of personal narratives in such a way that they belong, not only to us, but to all of us. Our job is to work moment-to-moment, in real time, with a new scene partner every time we go out. That's something we sort out, as we develop the text, so text and performance are seamlessly bound.
VENTURING INTO OTHER GENRES
My expertise was originally performance and writing for performance. As time went on, writers started bringing in work for the page: memoir; novels; songs; screenplays; poems. And we used the same process, because the question is always the same: What's the Story?
Since that time I, too, have expanded to writing for the page. In 2016, I got an MFA in Creative Writing: Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry (Antioch University, Los Angeles), and am nose-deep in a book-length memoir about the time I spent working in Rwanda.
Twenty-odd years ago, I set out to write a solo play about my great-grandfather—the family patriarch who first came to the US at the turn of the 20th century—about whom nobody would ever speak. Clearly something terrible and shameful and delicious must have happened, and I was obsessed with finding out what it was.
When Looking for Louie opened in LA in 2000, it got a lot of attention.
I was on the performance faculty at USC, so I was known as a teacher, and people started asking me if I would help with their solo plays. I worked with them one-on-one, and after a while, I noticed that—because it was just us—they were writing for me and that wasn't a good thing — for the work.
I was asked to teach an undergraduate solo class at USC. There were fifteen students in the room, and it occurred to me that I could invite and guide their response to one another's work — of course, in a way that made sure their response was constructive, generous and, above all, useful.
That approach, based on empathy and curiosity, worked. Writers got a broad spectrum of response—not just mine. I watched and listened and got a sense of what was important to each writer — what they wanted to say. And I offered my guidance through that lens. And they went places with their work that none of us imagined they'd go.
I stopped working with artists one-on-one, and invited them into a group process, which I called What's the Story?
PERFORMING SOLO IS AN ODD ANIMAL
Solo performance is an odd animal. Over the years, I've figured out ways to work freely in direct address with an audience that is honest and intentional, generous, and story-centric. And there are ways to offer even the strongest of personal narratives in such a way that they belong, not only to us, but to all of us. Our job is to work moment-to-moment, in real time, with a new scene partner every time we go out. That's something we sort out, as we develop the text, so text and performance are seamlessly bound.
VENTURING INTO OTHER GENRES
My expertise was originally performance and writing for performance. As time went on, writers started bringing in work for the page: memoir; novels; songs; screenplays; poems. And we used the same process, because the question is always the same: What's the Story?
Since that time I, too, have expanded to writing for the page. In 2016, I got an MFA in Creative Writing: Creative Non-Fiction and Poetry (Antioch University, Los Angeles), and am nose-deep in a book-length memoir about the time I spent working in Rwanda.
What students say...“Stacie has the touch of a magician in her ability to extract the very best from her students. She is unwaveringly supportive and has a keen eye and ear for “what works” dramatically.” |
“My writing coach Stacie Chaiken, helped me find the story’s structure and define its characters through her “wild brain” exercises, which freed me from my mental cul de sacs and allowed me to turn out a remarkably clean first draft.” — Gina Keating, Netflixed. |
It's like no writing class I've ever taken... It's not about words, or technique; it's about you. What do you want to say, and why? |
