On Saturday October 19th, nine members of the Manitoba Association of Playwright, representing an array of experience-levels, were treated to an afternoon seminar on the theme “A Road Map to Creativity” led by award-winning playwright Vern Thiessen.
We asked some of those participants to share their experiences with us.
“Let me start by saying,” says Cairn Moore, “Vern Thiessen is a gifted teacher and has the ability to make every participant feel comfortable, regardless of experience. Although I have taken workshops with Vern before, this workshop offered something new.”
“Vern led the discussion through a series of questions,” says Jenny Gates. “The questions invited us to explore not only where we are now as playwrights, but also where we have been (‘It’s important to look back’) and where we want to go.”
Cairn remembers questions like: What was the first thing you wrote? What was the most embarrassing? “After hearing responses,” she recalls, “it was obvious that things we wrote in the past are connected to what we write in the present.”
“It was interesting to hear what drew other people to writing,” recalls Muriel Hogue. “It made me think back and remember why I’m still doing it. I appreciated Vern’s thoughtful consideration of all comments and questions.”
“Who are your mentors? What kind of playwright are you?” Oddly enough, Cairn says, these are questions many of the participants had never really thought about.
“These are tough!” Jenny remembers one participant commenting. And as tough questions are wont to do, she recalls they elicited “heartfelt stories of passion and enthusiasm, frustration and struggle, and individual journeys that stirred and inspired. Apparently, it is the combination of luck, life experience, and skill that will help us create a meaningful body of work.”
Armin Wiebe describes Vern as “candid and confessional” in the way he shared his own struggles with participants and showed possible ways to get past some of their hurdles. “We could have made a weekend of it.”
Vern also read examples of his work, including the embalming scene in his dark comedy Lenin’s Embalmers. Jenny wishes there could have been a discussion on “the importance of always having vodka on hand.” Next time, perhaps.
The six hours of lively discussion covered many topics, including “How do you know who to listen to?” (People might not always like what we write, plays can be over-workshopped, and it is up to us to “take whatever comes to us and turn it into gold.”) “Is this my best work?” (Doing whatever we need to make sure the piece is exactly that.) “How do we deal with failure?” (Good days and bad days are part of the process.) Even Vern had some stories to tell about failure, Jenny recalls. The suggestion to “Get over ourselves and get on with it” definitely resonated with some.
“I cannot speak for anyone else,” says Cairn, “but what I walked away with was inspiration from other playwrights and a new way to access what is buried within all of us. When we look back, we are able to incorporate the past into the present and the future. In short, it is in our past that we find the Roadmap to Creativity.”
For Sue Proctor, the workshop sparked her sense of value as a writer and reminded her that “there is an audience of thinking people that reflect on and benefit from engaging in differing perspectives.”
Jenny Gates appreciated the “loads of suggestions, support, and encouragement for playwrights at any stage of their career,” as well as “the opportunity to connect with and get to know a little more about others in our vibrant playwriting community.” Sue echoes Jenny’s sentiment, saying, “Manitoba is clearly rich with gifted writers. The more connections that writers can build, the more likely their work is to find an opportunity to be produced, published and brought to an audience. The more that we have workshops like this, the more writers will feel confident to take risks, explore and develop their art to the fullest.”
Participants were grateful to MAP, the Canada Council for the Arts, and especially to Vern – for his receptivity and interest in all the participants, for his tough questions and candid sharing, and for providing an opportunity for playwrights to connect – with each other and with their own creativity.
(Thank you to Jenny Gates, Muirel Hogue, Cairn Moore, Sue Proctor, and Armin Wiebe for contributing to this article.)
