Playwright Les Leiter and wife Marilyn
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By Les Leiter
Many theatergoers watching James Kirkwood Jr.'s A Chorus Line could identify with the dancers auditioning for a new Broadway musical production. Each of the 17 dancers strove to be selected by Zach, the director, and Larry, his assistant. Songs such as "I can do that" and "I hope I get it," highlight the basic human need for recognition, for some validation that what we do is worthwhile.
That need was fulfilled for me in February of 2009 when I answered the phone and heard that I had won $500 – the first prize in a one-act Jewish playwriting contest in Boca Raton, Florida. The theater director told me that my 13-page play The Dimple had been selected from more than 60 entries. My wife and I flew to Florida for the stage readings of the winning plays and spent much more than my winnings on airfare, car rental and hotel expenses. But it was worth it because of the validation - they had picked my play.
The Dimple was based on a letter to the editor of the Jewish Daily Forward in 1907, one of many collected from more than 50 years of letters to the Bintel Brief, a column advising immigrant Jews who settled in America during the 20th Century. The slim volume lay on my bookshelf for years before I finally read it and wondered what went into the mind of this long ago immigrant that convinced him he would die young if he married a woman with a dimple. He wrote the newspaper asking for validation of his superstition; the editor told him he had a screw loose in his head. His confusion led to my success.
Famed playwright Arthur Miller was keenly aware of this human need for recognition and illustrates it in his epic work The Death of a Salesman. The protagonist, Willie Loman, was adapted from the unfulfilled lives of two of Miller’s uncles, both traveling salesmen. Willie becomes the prototype of every failure, passed up and passed by, when he is fired by the young son of his former boss, a dismissal that leads to his suicide. Willie’s wife recognizes the tragedy of his life and tells their sons, "He's not allowed to fall into his grave, like a dog. Attention. Attention must be paid to such a person."
Theatre Artists Studio is a place where attention is paid to those who use their talents for the stage, on the stage and behind the scenes. This attention leads to something whole, something larger in every production. And for those not picked, there is always the next opportunity, the next play, where you, too, can say, "I can do that."
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