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The cast has been chosen and we’re busy at work preparing for the world premiere production of Jones Hope and Wooten’s MAMA WON’T FLY. That’s right, world premiere; STAGE RIGHT has been chosen to present the very first production of a Jones Hope Wooten Comedy. Our audiences may recall that these talented folks are the trio that wrote some of our most popular plays: CHRISTMAS BELLES, DEARLY BELOVED, AND SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY. All three playwrights are going to be in attendance opening night on Sept. 9, 2011. By purchasing season tickets now you will be invited to attend a meet and greet reception with the playwrights the night before opening. At only $75 for the entire Season of En-chantment (which includes the world premiere of MAMA WON’T FLY, A CHRISTMAS STORY, BAREFOOT IN THE PARK, THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW, and CINDERELLA) plus a free Friends Ticket plus the invitation to meet these renown playwrights this is a deal you won’t want to miss!

We asked our favorite playwrights if they could write an article for The Dock Line so our loyal readers can get to know them and their work better. The following are their answers to some common questions they receive. Enjoy! - carolyn corsano wong

The question we are asked absolutely every single time we do an interview or en-gage in a “Talk Back” with a theatre audience is: How can three people write a play? And, although it seemed like a perfectly logical ar-

rangement to us, we do admit a three-partner team is fairly rare among American play-wrights. There are certainly playwriting duos, but trios? Less than a handful.

So here’s how we blundered into this

creative configuration: Jessie and Nicholas worked together in theatre in Texas, then migrated to New York, then on to California. Jessie was a busy character actress in the-atre, television and film and in 1992, co-wrote

FROM THE PLAYWRIGHTSJessie Jones Nicholas Hope Jamie Wooten

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a little play called DEARLY DEPARTED. In 2002, that play became the Fox Search-light film, KINGDOM COME. Nicholas had started out in college as a playwright but found his way into a career casting for professional regional theatre out of New York City. After a stint as casting director for Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, he was named Director of Casting for ABC Televi-sion. Jamie started out as a performer and eventually found his way into a career writ-ing and producing many television series, THE GOLDEN GIRLS being one of the more memorable. So, when the three of us finally linked up and realized we wanted to write together, collectively for the theatre, we knew how to do it and together we re-fined our method. We’ve written nine plays in the past six years, with over 1,400 pro-ductions across the U.S. and around the world … so far, so good.

So, how do we three set out to write a play? It’s a logical progression: someone comes up with an idea and pitches it to the other two. We chew the concept over a while, then all start adding on ideas and keep talking it over until we’ve come up with the general form of the plot and fairly concrete ideas about characters. Discus-sions rage for weeks as we hash out the minutiae – the location, the set, family re-

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lationships or lack thereof, the jokes, charac-ters’ back stories and so on. Then we start putting these ideas in a computer file. We work and re-work the story, we start adding di-alogue and this process can go on for weeks. Eventually we’ll wind up with anywhere from

fifty to one hundred pages or so of notes and by this time, we know the form the story will take and who the people in it are and we know it’s time to put these notes into dialogue form. It takes about six months to get through the first draft … and then we re-write and then

we re-write and then we re-write again. And we vowed from Day One, when we disagree on some point, the majority wins and we’ve stuck with it. Works for us.

Another favorite question that comes up is: Are the characters in our plays friends or members of our families? And our answer is always: Heck, no! We value our lives way to much to do something that stupid! Although we come from very colorful Southern fami-lies and have eccentric, wonderful friends our characters are always compilations of mannerisms, out-looks, senses of humor and at-titudes we observe in people we meet and know.

The next question that’s usu-ally lobbed our way is: What drew you back to the theatre? Our not-so-brief answer is because the-atre is relevant today and maybe more so as our culture becomes

more technologically dependent. It feeds the need for and benefit of human contact for which there is no satisfying substitute. When we go to the theatre, we meld ourselves into a community where the “human experience” is questioned, examined and embraced. This

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experience can delight, comfort, inform or anger us in a way that can’t be replicated by watching a screen or typing on a keypad. We go to the theatre to celebrate being human and, in the case of the JONES HOPE WOO-TEN COMEDIES, to forget our troubles for a couple of hours and remember how good it feels to laugh out loud.

The three of us began our careers in community theatre and over the years have met many talented actors, writers, producers, directors, et. al., who also started out in home-town theatres. For us there is no denying the great influence community theatre has on the arts in America. In local playhouses, audienc-es are introduced to the classics and treated to lighter, contemporary fare. Theatre enter-tains audiences and offers new ideas and concepts not readily available in day-to-day life or in the choice of sensational and mar-ginally-relevant topics produced in the mass media. We’re able to explore and develop our own creativity by participating in community theatre whether it’s onstage or backstage, writing plays or working in theatre manage-ment or by becoming an audience member. Theatre enriches and influences lives and we are proud to be a part of American community theatre today.

When we first started communicating with Carolyn and Steven Wong a few years

ago, we were impressed by their enthusiasm and devotion to making good theatre. When we met the Wongs and members of the Stage Right family, we felt a familiarity and a kinship with them. We had a hunch this would be a wonderful place for a JONES HOPE WOO-

TEN World Premiere. When we presented the idea to the Wongs, they immediately latched onto it and were rarin’ to go.

Hands down, it was the right choice. u