What Beginning Playwrights Could Tell You About A Pandemic

by Becky Boesen

Since 2012, I’ve found myself teaching playwriting to college students at various institutions. I’m not a traditional academic, but I am a good teacher and I know how to write a play and how to share what I know with others in a way that sticks.

I’m currently preparing to teach two playwriting classes at Nebraska Wesleyan University this spring semester. I’m also, like many others, preparing for a new year, and all the implications that come with transitioning from 2020 to 2021. I also have social media accounts where I see others’ stories play themselves out during this strange time.

I understand. Many are doing their best.

There’s no pill to take or “one size fits all” way to do the pandemic, but by the end of their first semester, almost any beginning playwright could offer some fail proof advice to all:

If the story isn’t over, you can’t jump the ending.

Jumping is such a temptation when you start writing plays. Sometimes there’s a moment in your mind that you know is soooo good, and instead of earning it by taking the time to work it all out along the way, you race straight toward it, ignoring the bumps along the way. It ends up not working, feeling empty and rushed, and ultimately disconnected because it’s not fully formed or connected to the moment before.

Basically, you cheated.  Mostly, yourself, but definitely your play and if you’re lucky enough to get an audience for it, your audience.

Beginning playwrights learn how to go through instead of around things. So is it with plays and with the pandemic. We can’t go around what’s difficult, or pretend it doesn’t exist so we can fast track to the all good stuff we love most.

If the story isn’t over, you can’t jump the ending.

Not for massive holiday gatherings, because we miss people.

Not for family vacations, because we’re bored.

Not for girls’ night out, because we deserve it.

Not for a quick flight to wherever, because we need to travel.

Not for the world, because the lives of people living in this world are exactly what are at stake.

As of today, there are 339,000 Americans dead due to COVID-19.

If the story isn’t over, you can’t jump the ending.

A play has a beginning, middle, and end. Last spring was the beginning of the pandemic for Americans. We are currently living through the middle. What we do here and now will inform the ending.

My beginning playwrights could tell you that.

I want the happiest possible ending for us all when it comes to closing the curtain on this awful pandemic. I know you do, too.

We still have hard work to do. I know we can do it.

Don’t jump the ending.

We’re getting closer.

Move forward with hope...but please don’t jump.