The Discussion Begins. Guidelines for the playwright by Karen E. Lile
The purpose of discussions and articles posted in this section is to lead to the creation and understanding of intelligent and thought provoking theatre.
This will not be a live discussion board. Discussions are already taking place between participants in the OrdinaryEvil.info project by email and conversation. Participants in the Project can submit articles and excerpts from discussions for our review at any time. Publication on this website will be by my selection only.
Formal Discussion
My purpose in establishing guidelines is to limit the scope of my own involvement in these discussions. I have no intention of limiting anything that anyone wants to discuss anywhere else on the world wide web pertaining to the themes of ordinary evil and ordinary good. I will begin the discussion soon by submitting 3 discussions, each between me and another playwright in the project. Then I will not be participating in any further discussions and it shall be up to the other playwrights who are interested in doing so to contribute to ongoing discussion. What follows are the restrictions for this particular discussion.
- This is only for playwrights who are chosen as participants in the Ordinary Evil.info project in the first call for plays on a theme of ordinary evil, deadline ending May 30, 2006.
- Discussions are to be between only two participants at a time.
- Each playwright who participates can only submit 3 discussions total for publication.
- There is no limit to the length of the discussions. What shall define one discussion from another shall be the time it is submitted to me for review. For example if playwright 1 and 2 have a discussion and on April 30th they submit it to me for review and publication, that is their first discussion. It would count for one discussion for each playwright and if neither of them had submitted anything else for review, then they would each have 2 remaining discussions left, that they could have with the same playwright or any other playwright in the project.
- Review The Lile Circles of Human Experience. The intention of this discussion is to explore our ideas about ordinary evil. While doing so, we will inevitably call upon all our circles of human experience. When reviewing your discussions for publication, I will take into consideration if I see attempts made to show disrespect to a participants red circle of belief systems.
- Review the What this Website is Not and keep that in consideration when submitting materials to me.
- Please do not submit any discussions to me for publication unless both participants have reviewed and approved the content. I will need each of the participants to sign a consent form for me to publish their words. Each participant will retain copyright to their own words and can use them in any other publication, book, article, online forum or whatever they choose.
Discussions are be listed below in the order they are published:
Why Ordinary Evil?
Each participant can submit for publication one article on the subject of "Why Ordinary Evil?". This article can address the following questions: How did you come to be interested in the subject, even before you had the name ordinary evil for it? Why is it interesting to you? What significant experiences have you had in your life in relation to it? Why did you write about it in your play? What does it mean to you? Why does it matter? (and whatever other questions you feel are pertinent to answer). You can get as personal or esoteric as you like. You are representing yourself here, so introduce yourself as seems fitting to you. Also, this article will be published for the general public, so keep that in mind. All copyrights are retained by you and you are only giving us permission to publish it on this site.
Articles will be posted below in the order they are published.
The Online Publication of the Plays
If you want, you can choose to allow us to publish your play on this site, or give us a link to your own site where it is published. If it is already in a printed format, you can give us a link to where the play can be purchased. If we do publish it on our site, we will include your copyright notice and any terms of use you wish to impose on those reading it. If you later have it published in a printed format, then we will remove the online version at your request and replace it with a link to where those interested can buy a copy of it.
My hope is that your play sparks such an interest that people will want to produce, direct, act in it, crew it and see it. We all hope they will care about it enough to participate in the live experience that is the theatre.
There are a few reasons why you might be interested in having an online version of your play as a part of this project.
- It gives producers and directors an opportunity to read your play and consider if they would like to put it on their stage.
- It gives participants in the formal discussion a point of departure for their discussions.
- The play itself was chosen because it reveals something important about ordinary evil. Having it available for the public to read allows people time to think about and discuss the issues you have brought up. And audience members who see the play, can come back to the publication of it for further thought and discussion amongst themselves.
- It becomes available for educational purposes.