Save long-distance running, there’s no activity so notoriously solitary as writing. Yet, as pages of ads in magazines like Writer’s Digest and Poets & Writers attest, there’s an entire economic sector devoted to the communal production of scribes: MFA programs, retreats, workshops, even boot camps. But playwright Lisa Rosenthal champions the collective do-it-yourself approach to individual success: form a group where writers can get the benefit of thoughtful critique without conceding authority to someone else, or paying an institution for the privilege.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Largely self-taught, Rosenthal has written seven full-length plays and has had work produced at Stockyards Theater and Circle Theatre as well as on the east and west coasts. Next spring a California company will present her 2003 play Under Our Clothes, and Chicago Jewish Theatre has given an earlier work, Just the Sweet Stuff, a slot in its 2004-’05 season. This month she’s publishing The Writing Group Book, her guide to getting the most out of working with other writers.
Rosenthal’s conversation about writing often includes the word “we.” Almost all of her plays investigate group dynamics: Just the Sweet Stuff considers how four old friends respond to aging, while Under Our Clothes follows the lives of half a dozen women who meet in college. This preoccupation predates her work as a playwright, and sustained her through graduate studies in sociology. Her philosophy of groups may be idealistic–asked about competition within the collective for productions and honors, she says, “I try and practice that what’s good for one writer is good for all writers”–but her onstage portraits of them are unsparing, revealing the intertwined elements of affection and rivalry, support and sabotage.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Joeff Davis.
