For the Right to Act, Write to Act

In order for me to ensure that I would have the opportunity to act, I became a writer. I had always been a storyteller, but I was embarrassed by my grammar and my spelling. I first started by writing monologues, then I wrote scenes, and then 1-act plays, graduating to full length plays, short films and feature films. I hear that there are many great books on writing out there that work for many writers. For me I learned to write from reading plays and screenplays. I think a book on writing would bind me up. I didn’t want to have a lot of rules about what should happen when. I then incorporated writing assignments for the students in my group. This would be come a new chapter in the development of, The Artist Theatre Group, as we would now put up original works. I believe actors make good writers, especial Meisner actors because of our relationship exercises and how it teaches us to listen. When I give my students a writing assignment, they bring in the writing with enough copies for those that will be doing the reading. It is important to make copies rather that work off their phones. For the first readings, I have the actor that wrote the piece, sit and listen to what they have written. Later on, they can work on the material that they have written, but in the beginning it is important for the writer to hear their words. Early on I had my class do a reading of my first screenplay, The Cleaners. From there I would go back and do rewrites. At the time I had a student in my class that liked my script, told me her father was a screenwriter and asked me if I wanted her to, she would ask her father to read it and see what he thought. Of course I said yes and asked her if she had any of his screenplays that I could read? She said she didn’t have any of his screenplays, but if I wanted I could rent some of the movies that he had written. I asked her what they may be and she told me that her father had written, The Omen, Table For Five, Lucas and Punchline. A week later I meet with her father, David Seltzer who has since become a friend and a mentor. To date I have published 15 books of my writings on amazon.com. I have had 4 short films produced that I acted in and two feature films. The feature films I wrote first as full length plays that I had the wonderful experience to realize on stage, and then adapted them into screenplays, that I found the money for and produced. My first feature, The Last Night Inn can be found on Amazon, iTunes, VUDU, Microsoft, Google Play, dish network & INDEMAND. My second film, The Last Train just Won the 2017 Vanguard Award at the IFS FILM FESTIVAL. I got the Right to Act, because I Write to Act. And you can too!