In For a Penny: Speaking My Language

Creativity

By CharlesAndHisTypewriter on Monday, 22 February, 2016 • ( 3 Comments )

In which I use Tony Kushner’s adaptation of August Wilson’s Fences to discuss playwrights adapting other playwrights for film.

*[2022 Update: If the original link (below) no longer works, the entire piece is available in the attached screenshot.]

San Francisco Theater Pub

Charles Lewis III, with thoughts on writing and voice.

August Wilson writing
CAPTION: via The Goodman Theatre

“I have to confess that I’m not a big movie person; I don’t go to a lot of films and I don’t know very much about the history of stage-to-film adaptations. [..] The way I see it, the stage tells the story for the ear, and the screen for the eye.”
– August Wilson, 2002 interview with John C. Tibbets for Hallmark

I recall Tom Hanks appearing on Inside the Actor’s Studio many, many moons ago and giving a pretty good Q&A with the students gathered. When one asked what it’s like to work in so many different mediums, his response was something akin to “Film is a director’s medium, television is a producer’s medium, the stage is the actor’s medium.” As I write this, I’m having a hard time finding a clip…

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Categories: Creativity, Film, Theatre

Tagged as: adaptation, adapting for film, Anthony Shaffer, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, Black History Month, Black writers, Bob Fosse, Cabaret (performance style), David Mamet, Death Proof, Denzel Washington, Dorothy Parker, female writers women writers, Fences (play), For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf, Girl 6, Harold Pinter, In For a Penny, Inside the Actor's Studio, James Lipton, Jean-Paul Sartre, John Logan, Lillian Hellman, Lynn Nottage, Norman Jewison, playwright playwrights, Quentin Tarantino, SF Theater Pub San Francisco Theater Pub, Sleuth, Spike Lee, Stephen Sondheim, Suzan-Lori Parks, Sweeney Todd (musical), The Crucible, The Object of My Affection, The Winslow Boy, Tim Burton, Tom Hanks, Tony Kushner, Tyler Perry, Viola Davis, Wendy Wasserstein