Advice on the use of a ?pen name?
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URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1989
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Topic: Advice on the use of a ?pen name?
Posted By: Playwright
Subject: Advice on the use of a ?pen name?
Date Posted: 8/27/06 at 11:28am
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Hey, I recently attended my first Fringe play. Wouldn't have gone to see it except the leading man from my last play was in it. The play was an interesting one. The two leads performacnes (not my friend, thankfullly) were lack-lustre and carried no depth. There wasn't any layers to the characters at all. It was just actors saying lines. It would have been an entirely different play had the leads been cast differently. Anyway, I've been thinking of writing a fringe play. You know, going way outside of my usual genre and comfort zone. Well as it happens, and I know this sounds crazy, a play came to me in a dream last night. The entire thing basically I dreamed like it was actually on stage. And boy oh boy, is it way, way outside of my confort zone. It's so different from what I write that it will shock people I know. It's somewhat graphic in parts. I have no idea where this play came from becasue its topic is not based on anything that happened to me. At least not that I'm consciously aware of. I'm sure it would be accpted at this fringe festvial. I know I can cast it. Only two characters. I'm thinking, if I go ahead with this, I might do it under a pen name so nobody willl know it's me. This play could generate a lot of press and I'm not sure how that would reflect on my other works. I have a certain fan base and I'm sure that 99% of them would not approve of this new play. I guess most of them wouldn't see it so if I use a pen name they would never know. But it just might reflect back on me, you know? |
Replies:
Posted By: castMe
Date Posted: 8/27/06 at 12:00pm
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Sondra, I see no reason not to use an alias or pen name if you so
wish. It's a time honored tradition to not use one's real name
when crediting a work. Steven King becomes Richard Bachman, Evan
Hunter wrote as Ed McBain (and others), Agatha Christie used the name
Mary Westmacott for romance novels and, my favorite assumed name, Dav
Pilkey (who wrote Captain Underpants) used the name Sue Denim
(pseudonym). Anagram your name, use the name of a favorite literary character or pick a name from the phone book for your alter-ego, other-genre play. Whatever strikes your fancy. (check out http://www.writing-world.com/basics/pseudonym.shtml One thought, though..........don't assume you will be able to remain anonymus forever. ------------- Investigate. Imagine. Choose. |
Posted By: castMe
Date Posted: 8/27/06 at 12:26pm
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addenda to the above post.... My lovely, talented and brilliant wife informs me that in French "sous" (pronounced "sue") means "under" therefore, the psuedonym Sue Denim is not only a homonym but also a play on words in two languages since underpants are often found "under denim". You gotta love that name! (and my wife) ------------- Investigate. Imagine. Choose. |
Posted By: Topper
Date Posted: 8/27/06 at 1:10pm
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Favorite pen names: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) Ellery Queen (Frederick Dannay & Manfred B. Lee) William Shakespeare (Edward De Vere)
(Okay, so maybe that last one has never been proven, but I just thought I'd toss it in to the mix.) BTW the author of "Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage" is credited as being Jane Martin. However, nobody has ever seen her, met her or interviewd her. It's obviously a pseudonym that has been keep secret. ------------- "None of us really grow up. All we ever do is learn how to behave in public." -- Keith Johnstone |
Posted By: castMe
Date Posted: 8/27/06 at 1:17pm
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Yes, Topper, I meant to mention Jane Martin since the others I named
are authors and Martin has written a number of plays. It is a
well-known fact "Jane Martin" is a pen name, but only a few people
associated with the Actors Theatre of Louisville actually know who he/
she is. And they're not talking. The oft-repeated rumor (I
learned from a director who worked there) is that Jane Martin is two
people (ala Ellery Queen).
------------- Investigate. Imagine. Choose. |
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 8/27/06 at 3:18pm
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I've heard that Jane Martin is actually several different authors.
Particularly interesting, as when you read through a collection of her plays, they don't read as if written by different people! I love a good mystery! LOL I traveled for a year playing the man in her "Travelin' Show" - and kept trying to get information on her - and I didn't get a damn thing LOL. |
Posted By: castMe
Date Posted: 8/27/06 at 3:36pm
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Tristan...that's wonderful. I hadn't heard the numerous author
theory, but it makes sense when you concider the multiple monologues
she's(?) produced. I've directed Talking With once and would do
it again in a heart beat. Maybe we could get Don Foster on the case. He is a forensic literary expert who unmasked Joe Klein as the author of "Primary Colors". Foster claims that, like fingerprints and DNA, we each have one thing that distinguishes us from everyone else. Although we may disguise our handwritting or type rather than write or print, we have only one vocabulary and given a large enough body of work with which to compare, he may be able to discern who an anonymus author might be. Check out Foster's "Author Unknown" I found it fascinating. ------------- Investigate. Imagine. Choose. |
Posted By: slicksister
Date Posted: 8/28/06 at 1:16am
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This is a cool thread. A subject of which I have no knowledge but interesting none the less! ------------- The Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing |
Posted By: Gaafa
Date Posted: 8/28/06 at 9:48am
Actually your probably not that far wrong Topper! ------------- Joe Western Gondawandaland turn right @ Perth. Hear the light & see the sound. Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"} May you always play to a full house} |
Posted By: Shatcher
Date Posted: 8/28/06 at 10:11am
When ever I am asked (forced) to act in a show I always use a different name. Don't want people to think I've crossed over to the light side!!
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Posted By: Gaafa
Date Posted: 8/28/06 at 1:31pm
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Bewdy Shatcher! Here are some pseudonym used in the entertainment industry, when a part is not cast or a performer does not want their name in the programme or in the credits; Walter Plinge is traditionaly used in London theatres David Agnew on the BBC George Spelvin in US theatre Alan Smithee in Hollywood ------------- Joe Western Gondawandaland turn right @ Perth. Hear the light & see the sound. Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"} May you always play to a full house} |
Posted By: castMe
Date Posted: 8/28/06 at 6:35pm
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I'd always suspected that Gaafa knew Shakespeare's true identity.
------------- Investigate. Imagine. Choose. |
Posted By: Playwright
Date Posted: 8/28/06 at 8:28pm
| I might come up with adding my middle name. Though more and more I'm thinking I might use my biological dad's name and nobody knows what name that is except for very close family. He was never a part of my life and I've never been known under that name. That name was on my birth certificate but I had to change that later on for reasons that are too complicated to go into here. If I use my bio dad's name then no one would accidently figure out it was me if I actually use my real names in the form of an anagram. |
Posted By: Gaafa
Date Posted: 8/29/06 at 5:22am
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How did you know Castme? The Arden mob just lived down the road! [But bills dad John, who always would try & bung on side, preferred the toffee nosed spelling - ?Shakspyr?. But for a pen name Sondra I thought of old Bills daughters names, but they both signed with only a mark. So possibly the better name to use would be that of his wife Anne, who could at least read apparently! So how about Anne Arden after Ol? Wills missus & mum? {Although there again his mum was illiterate!} ------------- Joe Western Gondawandaland turn right @ Perth. Hear the light & see the sound. Toi Toi Toi Chookas {{"chook [chicken] it is"} May you always play to a full house} |
Posted By: Joan54
Date Posted: 8/29/06 at 9:26am
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As fascinating as this discussion is I'd like to go back to the original question and suggest that you "come out" and write under your own name. What is it you are afraid of? That your friends and family and "public" won't like you any more because you wrote a shocking or violent or creepy play? What are you putting in the piece that you think is so offensive? I'll tell you what happened to me.....I am not a writer but I'm a painter and my work is almost entirely nudes...can't explain it but that is what my mind/hand paints. I had a dream about a painting of the Madonna...very clear, detailed and complete and in the dream the painting was hanging on my porch. The Madonna was clothed. Now you have to understand that I am not a church going sort of woman but I live in a town that has seven churches ( and no bars) within sight of my house. I painted all day and night (it happened to be Sunday) and by mid-week hung it up...on the porch. The church people loved it - they would stop by and bring their friends. My friends hated it...accused me of selling out by putting clothes on her. My kids thought it was creepy and ironic. To make a long story short the Porch Madonna has acheived me a recognition I had never looked for. She has been made into a small poster and Christmas cards. I had people from the city call me after 911 and tell me they clung to pictures of her. My point is that you cannot define who you are as an artist....you are wrong to hide any of your work or be ashamed of it. The really good stuff just flows through us on the way to a life of its own. Maybe this is going to be your best work but it just isn't what you thought your best work was going to be. The truth will set you free...maybe in directions you never expected. ------------- "behind a thin wall of logic panic is waiting to stampede" |
Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 8/29/06 at 11:48am
| great story, Joan |
Posted By: whitebat
Date Posted: 8/13/07 at 2:10am
| Hmm... CT actors acting under stage names... We did a melodrama, and the actress who had a certain part dropped out before rehearsals even started. So one of the HS actors (nominate him for sainthood) took the role. So we had a totally bogus female pseudonym in the program for him. One of the minor roles in the same play was an actress playing a guy. So she tinkered with her name so it would appear male in the program. They did an "unmasking" at curtain call. People asked if we had planned it that way... no, not really. Best quote from him "The last time I tangoed was with a guy." That would be in "Little Shop of Horrors". |
Posted By: eveharrington
Date Posted: 8/13/07 at 2:27am
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you shouldn't be afraid to use your real name, but wanting to use a fake name is perfectly alright too. I personally have a "stage" name all picked out just in case I ever get into one of the unions. I'm keeping my first name and adopting a last name that was on a list of known alias' in an ancestors FBI file. ------------- "If nothing else, there's applause... like waves of love pouring over the footlights." |