Seminar

by Theresa Rebeck

Seminar a New Comedy originally produced on Broadway November 20, 2011.

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, Read For School, Comedy, School, Fiction

72 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 2, 2012

About the author

Theresa Rebeck is a playwright. She also works as a television writer. Her input went into popular shows such as Dream On, Brooklyn Bridge, L.A. Law, American Dreamer, Maximum Bob, First Wave, and Third Watch.
She also wrote and produced Canterbury’s Law, Smith, Law and Order: Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue.
Ms. Rebeck has an MFA in Playwrighting and a PhD. in Victorian Melodrama, from Brandeis University. She is a board member of the Dramatists Guild and has taught at Brandeis and Columbia Universities.
She currently resides in Brooklyn with her husband Jess Lynn and two children, Cooper and Cleo.

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to make of this one. Normally I love Ms. Rebeck's work-but this one didn't make me sit up and take notice. I think i may have missed some larger point she was trying to make-but I basically felt that "Leonard" was a prick, for the sake of being a prick, and the "students" were self centered, whiny children. There is no denying it is well written, and I was engaged enough to read the whole thing, but by the end, I just didn't care about anyone in the play.

[Libby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate the way the women were written. I hate how the pretentiousness is supposed to be mocked and laughed at by the audience, and yet, at the end, the pretentiousness is supposed to be accepted and is the main point of the play. Watching the production of this (while the cast and crew did a great job) made me physically sick and put me into a funk for the following two hours. I never want to think about this play again. I'm so glad I pirated it

Edit: Adding on an hour later because I'm still mad. Izzy's character doesn't pass the sexy lamp test and the play was literally written by a woman. I hate it here.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

You might get a hernia trying to drag any substance from this. It's indescribably trivial, but might have some good audition material for actors.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“It really is the only way to learn anything about writing, to have a decent editor go through it word by word for you. Help you see what it is, what you meant. What you didn’t even KNOW you meant...”

Goddamn.

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saw this play in 2012. Forgot how amazing the script was. ❤

[lucy walter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good material! Would be interesting to act in and/or see a production of.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purposefully saved this to be my first book of 2020 because it was one of my favorite plays of all time when I saw it back in 2011, and I wanted to make sure I truly loved the first thing I read this year.

It does play just slightly differently in 2020 than it did then for me, but I still love it very deeply.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

1/2/19
My familiarity with Theresa Rebeck started with watching a 2013 college production of Spiked Heels; and now this but the similarities between the two works are apparent: possible villain who may not be all that bad, using sex as a weapon, gender roles, etc

In Seminar, four 20-something elitists stand around and jack each other off with language. While you may feel smarter by reading Seminar, Teresa Rebeck takes interesting concepts and mashes them together. When you think there's a standard flow, Seminar quickly changes gears and goes into a brand new topic.

Cheers for creating a character I wanted to literally strangle. I would not be surprised if at live productions, audience members have attempted to fight the character of Leonard by leaping onstage.

---------------------------
2/24/20

Sometimes I need another go at reading a play. That doesn't mean I'm wrong. I'm NEVER wrong, just, going through a misunderstanding.

I needed to read Seminar again and despite it being labeled 'a comedy' on the cover, I disagree wholeheartedly. Sure there's wit being thrown out with barbed wire attached to it but when you plaster 'a comedy' on the title, it makes you think you're about to jump into a Ludwig piece.

Anyways, Seminar is filled with awful people and it's pretty interesting.

[Crystal Beran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why didn't I see this when it was in town? It's not like I didn't know. There were billboards with Jeff Goldblum's face all over town. Though I missed seeing it on stage, there is so much life in these words that I feel like I did see it. And does it ever speak to the painfully strained "friendships" that writers form with one another. If you write, whether prose, drama, poetry, screenplays, or non-fiction, I urge you to check out this play. It's so funny it hurts.

*Note: When I read plays, I read them aloud and you should too!

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hated this play. First of all, the idea that Alan Rickman played Leonard BAFFLES me. The character is described as fierce and brilliant, but his dialogue really does not reflect those attributes at all. The one character that I even remotely had good feelings for was Martin, and he was seen by the other characters as an ass hole! None of the characters were redeeming. They all felt bad for themselves and tore each other to shreds. The play had nothing but a tone that screamed "woe is me" and a two hour show cannot stand on that. Yuck. Yuck yuck yuck.

[Adrian Collins · Rating 1 out of 5]

A shit play with two shit female characters that feeds into the male gaze and a rhetoric of simultaneously shaming and misguidedly celebrating female sexuality. This play should not be performed ever.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written play about writers and criticism. Initially all the characters seem unlikable with some funny lines. By the end it's not as funny but more poignant.

[Aleigha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretentious as hell and it's WONDERFUL.

[sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was such a fun and easy read. literally burned through it in a night without ever looking to see how many more pages there were.

yes, the characters are soooo unlikeable but that's the mf-ing point!!! flawed characters are real character.

highlights:
- i love how writing itself was a subject made out to be so alive... "am i trying to construct a living breathing cosmos with language or am I just scratching on the wall of a cave?"
- "the truth is like a great fuck, it's one of the few remaining reasons to get out of bed in the morning. It's not for everybody, some people are so crippled they can't stand the truth, but for those of us who partake, nothing else really comes close."
- i want so badly to watch leonard's big ass monologue... and also to write one like it
- run on sentences are just the natural shape of thought and i need to embrace this more.
- "After I write, I want to evaporate. And you don't evaporate, you're still here, your body is just, it takes up so much space. Plus there's so much noise. Novels need silence. Trust me. It's not writing that's the problem. It's everything else."
- "EVERYONE THINKS ITS SO COOL AND FUN TO BE MEAN TO ARTISTS BUT IF WE WEREN'T HERE THERE WOULD BE NOTHING BUT ANARCHY AND IMMORALITY AND CHAOS. WE ARE THE SOUL OF THE CULTURE AND PEOPLE CAN JUST BE FUCKING NICE TO US ONCE IN A WHILE"

[louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

(kind of spoiler-ish)

what's annoying is that i really really enjoyed it, i loved acting out the dialogues and everything; but the characterization of the women... what was the point? that whole thing about izzy and the "sexy asian", kate being possibly in love with martin, them both having sex with leonard felt just?? so irrelevant??? maybe this is what happens in writing seminars what do i know but it just felt out of the blue and took me out of it so many times

ok edit: if this was about women being empowered through sexuality... it did not work on me AT ALL; maybe if the story was more focused on izzy and kate, and not being always described through... kind of the men? ik technically it was a play so no narrator, but the audience only knew what the men knew: we learn through douglas that izzy had sex with leonard and it gets confirmed through martin's deception (the confirmation), we had no idea izzy would be interested in martin but we know that he did, we learn through martin that kate had sex with leonard.... am i making sense?

[ica]

thank fucking god i do not have to live in the era of sexually exploitative and egomaniacally ruthless writing professors, or even in the era of romanticizing their abusive genius … lish & his kin are way overplayed but wait til the writers start romanticizing crit, the strength of which comes from the solidity of community, many small relationships adding up to a greater whole, at the soul of which is a teacher of great integrity, precision, and fearless intellect ! boo favoritism, yawn @ dramatizations of the workshop as this place of wrathful competition; what about its erotics & its aesthetics, the truly expansive possibilities of tunneling all the way into art?

all the same i’d cut off a pinky toe to see alan rickman originate the monologue that ends scene 8 … for all that leonard seems to be a caricature it would be absolutely chilling to see a great actor bring his tragic bitterness to life

[Laur · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did this as a live read through just with some friends with no audience -- and honestly it was really fun.

the characters all have a lot to them and some fun twists and turns and I felt like Leonard was really really written for Alan rickman, so even with someone else reading those lines I could hear him doing it and I feel like he would have been (and Im sure was) brilliant in this role, so it was nice to have that feeling there too.

It was a funny, well written comedy about a group of writers trying to get through this seminar with an asshole for a coach, and I think it really hit on some of the points lots of artists and writers go through when they get criticism especially from someone who may have been disgraced etc.

Would highly recommend if you like a little bit of pretentious chat with a comedy going on in the background

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit to being a fan already but this may be a new favorite of mine. Fast, funny, smart, and very very honest about both what it is to be a writer, and who writers tend to be, but what I like the most is that the twist is... they each find their community. And they do what they have to do to get one another there. What keeps me coming back to Rekeck is the incredible optimism that seems to flow under the facade of ruthlessness that is her aesthetic, but not her content. This play is a sterling example of that, and nothing less than a little masterpiece about how human writers really are, even as they aspire to be more than human.

[lordbyron · Rating 2 out of 5]

ugh the ending nearly ruined the entire thing (whyyyy do you hate your female characters, rebeck? what she did to kate's character was just sadistic), and the "sexy asian" orientalist gaze-y thing with Izzy's character was gross - but! there's some pretty sharp things said here about young talent and the destructive need for approval that i thought was done pretty well. also, jeff goldblum apparently was in this when it came to the ahmanson, and everytime i read leonard's parts, i just imagined his voice saying them in his characteristic purr

[Caden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mmm another pretentious literary play- (Is this just part of the brand when writing literary plays??) but there were parts of it I liked. Made me think a lot about being a creative and how to play unlikeable complex characters. Not really any surprises though. Sad the characters kind of all had a downfall but I felt a little hope at the end with Martin. Explored how dangerous seeking approval is- that the industry is going to treat you like shit but you have to keep going or you may end up like our dear friends on stage ha. I liked that memo.

[Hesper · Rating 1 out of 5]

Appreciating man pain is probably the only way to appreciate this. Some good audition pieces, especially for actors who can make fresh choices with said man pain. Or maybe just render a facsimile of it really well, which would be entirely appropriate for a show so unconcerned with saying anything new.

[Cailin Doran · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fun for its time (2011) but feels quickly dated and not timeless. It’s hard to hear or imagine anyone but Alan Rickman playing Leonard, so it makes sense that the show shuttered shortly after he was replaced. There are no great truths here (but good monologue materials) and it would still make a sense as a smaller scale palatable show for mid sized middle American regional theaters.

[liza! · Rating 2 out of 5]

it is so unbelievably easy for comedies, even those written by women, to fall into the trap of giving women the short end of the stick. this is one of those instances where the women are turned into vehicles for sex. one of them is allowed to shine briefly, but then her punchline is her inability to resist a man she hates.

i genuinely cannot believe a woman wrote this.

[Hrushikesh Vasuki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it in preparation for a Table Read at class. Funny play! It made for a good reading in class. It was interesting to observe the relationships between characters develop or come to light as we moved through the lines.

[Danah Hashem · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an odd, cyclical plot line that left me feeling unsatisfied and frustrated. The characters were frustrating and futile, but I think that might have been the point. That no one truly released themselves into their work?

[JackWilliamRtF · Rating 2 out of 5]

i think that Glenn Howerton would probably be the very best Leonard the world has ever seen but if he was in it that would mean anyone had chosen to produce this play again and that would really put a massive damper on the whole situation

[Shawn Aebi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Witty, timely, relevant discussion - just too short or somewhat one-dimensional. Some surprises but not a lot of depth in these characters. Plot twist was Obvious.

[Dísa · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOads of good monologues for men, none for women

[Kacey]

Really great and compelling story.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Fucking Good!!!!