Miller’s first play took only 6 days; it was 120 pages in length, so that’s just 20 pages a day. Not so hard. Apparently his main gift was his ability to use a single line to establish relationships and situations. I also learned that Rowe taught him how to write a scenario. I guess I need to do that first before going any further. I probably need to study Ibsen, too.
Stalking Arthur Miller
I dropped off my dry cleaning on Main Street today and drove past what would have been 122 N. State Street, one of the first addresses listed for Art when he attended U of M. I just began reading Gottfried’s book Arthur Miller: His Life and Work and decided that I needed to begin the process of trying to write my play, tentatively titled Black Sheep after one of SRC’s most haunting melodies. Since writing is such an impossible and lonely task, I decided to invoke Arthur Miller to help me–much the same way Julie and Julie was conceived. By focusing on Miller’s life and work, I can keep in my peripheral vision my own work. At least, that’s the theory.
UofM library has a special collection of Miller’s letters, drafts, etc. But I’m not ready for any of that yet. I’ll work first on the biography and work up to the primary sources. I looked up his professor’s book Write That Play on Amazon, but it’s almost $65. This should be my cookbook. I think it would be much cooler to take it out of the library than buy it. So I’ll try that first. I went online and got a “friends” account, but I have no idea how to use it yet.
So this is Friday the 13th– as good a day as any to begin.
stalkingart 