The inside of their heads The inside of their heads (April 29, 2005)

Stanford play reading program allows local audience to watch and aid the process of national playwrights

by Bill D'Agostino

Four Dean Martins were guests at a recent Stanford University Continuing Studies class.

There was the crooner in his prime, amusing a swooning national audience with his fake drunk swagger. Dean Paul, his son, was still full of youthful optimism, before the tragic plane crash. Old Dean Martin sat, Norma Desmond-like, reviewing his old movies in a red robe. And young Dino Crocetti, a boxer with a velvet voice, made brief appearances.

All four were characters in a staged reading of "Dean the Sublime" a new play by writer Toni Press-Coffman. The play was previewed in front of approximately 20 adult students and a few scattered other guests.

The eight-week class (Monday was week four) marks the inauguration of the National New Play Center at Stanford. Each reading, which is open to the public, concludes with a lively discussion designed to both help the playwright and educate the students.

The sessions, co-produced with the San Francisco-based Playwrights Foundation, are bare bones by design. No set. No props. Minimal lighting.

The seven professional Bay Area actors this past Monday wore evocative costumes, but performed in front of large blackboards and held newly polished scripts. Despite the obvious limitations, Phoebe Moyer was still especially affecting playing Grace York, Press-Coffman's bigoted and inhibited protagonist.

During the play's two acts, the aging New Yorker learns to leap out of her shell from the various Dean Martins (an equally poignant Dennis McIntyre) and an eccentric Puerto Rican caregiver (an amusing Valerie de Jose).

With no set, the audience -- who sat in the uncomfortably swiveling chairs of a university lecture hall -- had to imagine the play's various locales, including Grace's apartment in 1967 and the former star's soundstage.

David Goldman, a former CBS drama critic, founded the National New Play Center this year after his wife took a position in the university's Psychology Department.

The class' goals are twofold, Goldman explained in his small office. On one hand, it is a tool for established writers of national-import to get sharp feedback on budding works. It also teaches the students how to look analytically at new plays, by revealing the process of their development.

At the beginning of each class, the night's playwright introduces the work and asks the audience to focus on a particular issue for the later discussion. Press-Coffman wanted her audience to consider the balance between the fancy of the play's time-traveling, rule-bending Dean Martins and the gravity of delicate parent-child relationships interlaced in the plot.

"I want to see what happens to the audience when I hear the piece," she said.

The criticisms the class gave at the end were mostly on target of the writer's request, even as they debated the play's merits. "For me, perhaps the whimsical got in the way of the deeper message," one student said.

An older gentleman questioned whether the four Dean Martins would confuse an audience unfamiliar with the crooner's life. A younger female student responded that she could easily keep track of the various characters.

The conversation had a give-and-take feel. One student asked Press-Coffman about the inspiration for the piece; she said it began after she watched a marathon of Dean Martin movies on cable.

Reached by phone the next morning, Press-Coffman was ambivalent if she would use much of the class' feedback. But she was impressed with the discourse. "I felt there was a high level of understanding of what plays are," she said.

The eight full-length plays presented in the class are each on various tracks, but all are early drafts, Goldman said.

"Dean the Sublime" seemed nearly ready for a full production. Press-Coffman, an Arizona-based playwright with a national reputation, said afterward she intended to do one more rewrite and then submit it for full production. Structurally, she noted, "It does feel like it's working."

There are four weeks left in the continuing education series. It will conclude on Monday, May 23 with "Ashes" by Chinese-American Bay Area playwright Cherylene Lee. That reading will be co-presented by TheatreWorks, which produced Lee's "The Legacy Codes" in an earlier season.

In late June, the center will also be hosting a five-day new play conference along with San Francisco's Magic Theatre. Press-Coffman and renowned playwright Athol Fugard will be among 18 writers presenting new works.

Staff Writer Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com.

What: New play development at Stanford.
When: Mondays at 7:30 p.m. through May 23.
Where: Stanford University's Ceras Hall, 520 Galvez Mall.
Cost: $5 for students, $20 general audience. For reservations call (650) 724-5796.
Info: Please visit www.playwrightsfoundation.org/stanford.shtml.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.