Episode 35 - Responding to Criticism

Welcome to the blog and show notes for Episode 34 of Sally's Performing Arts Lab Podcast. No interview today. Just me and some thoughts about criticism and collaboration... Oh, and some new music! Every week I talk to people about creating original work for a live audience. Send an email anytime to [e-mail]. You're my podcast collaborator. As always Concise Advice and Words of Wisdom from George are near the end of the podcast episode.

I recently posted an episode of SallyPAL on "Fear of Failure and the Imposter Syndrome". A couple of things came up the following week that made me realize I needed to do a show on seeking and responding to criticism. First I should point out that I have not always been very good at either seeking or responding to criticism.

Today I want to introduce a new way of thinking about it. Lately, I've started to recognize that critique can be really useful. When you get critique that you know is useful you're not always sure it's worth the effort to make the suggested improvements. You might accept that the appraisal is accurate and you've actually considered making a change to the work based on the unsolicited advice. But you balk because of the work involved in making the changes. When someone else notices the problem that you decided wasn't really all that noticeable, it's kind of a bummer. Now you have an opportunity to address the problem… or you can be annoyed that someone noticed the problem you thought wasn't noticeable, and take it out on the person offering the evaluation.

Here's a thought: Criticism is a contribution to your project. Rather than see your critic as someone who's slamming you, think of that person as a collaborator attempting to make a contribution to the work. A collaborator wouldn't say anything at all if they didn't feel they had something helpful to say. If you see your critics as collaborators, you can change how you respond to criticism. Sometimes all there is to say is, "Thank you," or "I appreciate you noticing that." But sometimes what a critic says will cut you to the quick. If your knee-jerk reaction is negative it could be because the criticism is accurate and that's a tough pill to swallow. I'll give you a couple of examples from my own experience, one from a couple of decades ago and one more recent example.

Back in the days when I was writing a lot of one act plays, I had several pieces accepted into a local festival. I was invited to participate in workshopping the plays. The director was someone I really admired. I was an actor writing on the side but I didn't really think of myself as a playwright at the time. But the company had accepted four of my plays.

I got a lot of good suggestions for changes from both actors and the director. Instead of really looking at these suggestions and considering how they would change the work, I ran home, made the changes and returned the next day with the suggestions incorporated into the script verbatim. I spent no time asking myself, "Is this what I want for my work… Is the suggestion valuable enough to make the change to the script?" The people making suggestions seemed to have a lot of confidence… and I… did not. After this happened four or five times, the director gave me some pretty good advice. He said, "Sally, when I offer a critique, I want to have a dialogue with you. I'm not telling you to go home and change the script. You have to decide if the change is right for your work."

My lack of confidence was weakening my work. I didn't put any thought into the changes. I wasn't thinking, "This is a really good idea, I'm going to look and see if it works for the story I'm telling." Look, everyone will have ideas for ways to improve your work, but only you have the original vision. If you become an automaton taking all suggestions and making changes without considering their impact on the story you set out to tell, the work will suffer. It doesn't mean you can't take suggestions. Many of the suggestions I got actually did improve the scripts.

The automatic acceptance of any and all criticism is no healthier than the creator who accepts no criticism declaring, "It's my work, dammit, and you can't tell me what to do with it!" Dismissing criticism out of hand is not much different than the automatic acceptance method. When someone suggests a change, let your mind rest on the idea of the change rather than the specific suggestion. It may be that the suggested change doesn't really work but the need to address the section is valid. Rather than assume the person who wants to improve your work is trying to control it, it's possible they see something you are missing. Step back from the piece and look objectively. Could an improvement be made?

I always like to say I'll try anything once. If it doesn't improve the work, at least I've tried it and it might provide a springboard to an even better idea. Something else you might consider i