Over time, I've been elbow-nudged both online here and offline for "hiding" behind my nom-de-forum, 'Cheerskep'. Other listers have been forthright in revealing their "civilian" names, and have even pointed us to their website, not just as a little self-advertising but as a kind of credential corroborating their qualification to speak about questions in aesthetics.
My feeling was I wanted to keep the two personas separate for this reason: They both involve writing, but two very different sorts. What I formerly did as a book publisher who judged and wrote about creative writing, and currently do as a playwright would, I felt, be accepted as no kind of corroborating credential by professional philosophers of art. I eventually found out we have few such philosophers on the forum. The great majority of our active members are visual artists. I then realized my "creations" were unlikely to be very persuasive to the visual artists either. I'm not, with that line, confessing I feel what I write is no good. Instead, what's on my mind is this: For the layman, and that's what all of you are in this context, reading plays is hard. The reason is that playwrights don't write plays -- they write scripts. The play is what the company puts on the stage, which is always far more than the writer puts on a page. Bridging the gap between script and play is the imagination of gifted professionals -- directors, actors, and others. I myself am not an optimal reader of numerous screenplays, because I lack the "visualizing" gift required to appreciate the script of a highly "visual" film. My wife, formerly an interior designer, had it, and my son and daughter, both now movie directors in Hollywood, have it. I've observed their visual imagination up close, so it's not delusion or false modesty when I say I know there's a talent needed to "get" a screenplay, and I don't have it. This isn't to bawl that I am talentLESS, it's just that I don't have THAT one. Thus it's no great put-down of either you or me when I claim that many of you, if you ever tried to read a playscript of mine, would likely shrug and say, "Eh? Feh." For all that, Brady, Conger, Baeza, Sullivan, Shoshensky and others of you have shown a courage and openness that shame me into now coming out of my peculiar closet. If you care to, maybe first go to: Wikipedia Thomas McCormack. If that doesn't exhaust your interest, you might go on to: http://tommccormackplays.com If nothing else, the Wikipedia entry will display the credential that has allowed me to adopt on our forum the pompous posture of an elder: my venerable age. -- Tom ************** It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here. (http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)
