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rndyounghowze · 4 years

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More As This Develops: Avoiding a Feedback Loop

When you join the Playwright’s Lab you’re going to get familiar with a specific style of feedback. Get this name tattooed on your forehead: Liz Lerman

By Ricky and Dana Young-Howze

Hollins University Roanoke, VA

When Dana and I were dating in grad at Hollins we dragged each other to a lot of each other’s events. The first time they came to a Wednesday Night Lab Reading they loved that they were allowed to participate in feedback. But one thing they positively adored was a very simple feature of the Liz Lerman feedback style: The playwright can’t talk back. You really do have to sit there on the stage with program director Todd Ristau and let people say what they’re going to say. You can’t correct them, you can’t tell them what you really meant to say. Your play spoke for you and now you have to let them talk. I sat in that seat three years in a row and I can tell you it’s a thrill and an absolute terror.

The feedback takes the form of four phases:

What did you connect with?:

You’d think that one would be easy but it’s actually quite hard. At least it is for Dana and I. If there was a camera on us watching these readings you could see us talking amongst ourselves the whole time and making notes but then you would see us scramble to find good things to say. Not because We hate it but because I have never found a run-on compound sentence that I didn’t like and Dana has to try to reign me in to one sentence of good feedback that will really help.

What Questions Do You Have?

At this point I start to feel a little bad for Todd as a moderator for these events. He always has to add the caveat that this is not the time to phrase a criticism as a question. It’s very easy to say something like “why does your play suck so much?” But it actually is hard to frame thoughtful questions that help the playwright. There are simple questions about continuity or blurred plot lines: “The maid comes in act one but we never see her again. What happened to her?” But you also have questions about style or function “what’s the message you want us to walk away with”? “Does this play HAVE to be in an elevator?” This is the hardest part of the night I think both as the giver and receiver of this feedback. But when you frame the perfect question and you see all the snaps as people agree with you then it’s a big thrill.

Whoops I almost forgot about the snaps…

Todd gives credit to Megan Gogerty for introducing the snaps. If one person is speaking at a time and you can’t talk to the audience how in the world do you know what kind of consensus a piece of feedback has? Well if a piece of feedback resonates with the audience they snap to signal agreement. If you hear feedback that gets fifteen snaps and another one gets none then you know where the opinions of the majority lie. Like I said it’s a thrill to give feedback that gets snaps. It’s also fun to see the chat feature in ZOOM come alive with snaps as agreement comes from across the country with you. Literally the word “snap” coming in over chat from different people watching with you. This is almost a feature I don’t want to see end when in-person lab resumes. I feel like the chat feature is a good analog for some of the live tweets Dana and I attend all the time.

What did you not connect with?

Okay you think this would be the easy one (and it is to Dana and I) but it doesn’t mean that you get to start unleashing everything that you hated on them. Frankly no one cares what you liked or hated. This is about what resonated with you as an audience member and what “kicked you out” of the experience. That is way more helpful to the playwright who is trying to compile all these responses together into a plan for rewriting. Knowing what took you out of that audience headspace and into a critical headspace is really important.

Playwright asks questions of the respondents.

Finally after sitting onstage and listening the whole time you get to asks some questions of your colleagues. I have found that I knew what questions to ask as I was sitting and watching them watch my reading. I could tell when they weren’t connecting or when they were scratching their heads. But you can also come up with questions as you start to receive feedback that you didn’t understand or if two or more people are giving you questions or criticisms that you didn’t expect. It’s only helpful to have one to three questions in my opinion. I personally think that a playwright that has no questions isn’t making use of all their resources. You only have so much time to extract as much data from your colleagues as possible. Even if it’s a stupid question you should say it.

And after that your Liz Lerman feedback session is over. But the night isn’t over. While most of us are calling it a night students registered for the Lab Class will adjourn for a little while and meet again behind closed doors for what Todd affectionately calls the “Abattoir”. It’s a much different scenario with much different rules. Want to know what goes on there? Well you’ll have to join the Lab because that’s the only way you’ll get inside.

You never thought feedback would get so complicated did you?

Go to the Playwright’s Lab Facebook page for tickets to Wednesday Night Lab readings. Remember that it is a classroom setting for them so please be on your best behavior.

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