By Brian Robin
One Person’s Journey from Conservatory to Stage
Diana Burbano’s first request to first-time Introduction to Playwriting student Mark Whicker was as simple a request as it was familiar to Whicker, an award-winning former Orange County Register sports columnist.
Just write.
“Having lived within the space-and-time confines of sports writing for so long, this was a very freeing concept for me,” he said. “Because she is so encouraging and yet knows how to steer you away from mistakes and bad habits, this approach really motivated me. She is an advocate of taking risks and pushing limits, which is not natural for me, so it has been good to be emboldened.”
Whicker became so emboldened that he’s written 10 one-act or full-length plays. His latest, Ted Turner and The Last Round Up, will take the Long Beach Playhouse stage Jan. 10-19.
The play, Whicker’s first to be produced, tells the story of the man who brought satellite television and 24-hour cable news to the world spending his waning days in Montana, dealing with a degenerative mental condition and trying to figure out what it all meant with the help of his interlocutor.
“I had always admired Ted Turner’s audacity and vision and how he went from almost a cartoon character to one of America’s most respected innovators,” Whicker said. “My wife, son and I had seen John Rubenstein’s one-man show about Eisenhower, and I began thinking about doing a one-man show. Ted Turner came to mind. It turned out to be a two-person show with the interlocutor playing a major role.”
Of Whicker’s 10 plays, five have had staged readings at theatres all over California and in Hendersonville, N.C., Whicker’s native state. Two of his works—Bailey Drakeand Bless This Divorce—were read at Grand Central Arts Center in Santa Ana. His Vote for Herbert, about a retired pharmacist who decides to run for office in his 80s, enjoyed readings at Newport Theatre Arts Center and at the Hendersonville Theatre. His Seven Hundred Square Feet, about a couple dealing with the death of their son amid the pandemic, had a reading at Murphys Creek Theatre in the Northern California town of Murphys.
While some of Whicker’s plays veer toward the writer’s dictum of “Write what you know”—involving sports—he said most of his plays “deal with ordinary people thrust into unconventional situations.” Which describes Whicker himself.
A three-time State Sportswriter of the Year, two-time national Top-10 Columnist as voted by the Associated Press Sports Editors, and member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, Whicker was intrigued by the Conservatory after seeing an ad in the program for A Christmas Carol. He enrolled in the Adult Conservatory’s Act I: Basic Skills acting class in 2019. He took Act II: Scene Study the following session, then took Burbano’s playwriting class during the Winter 2020 session.
Burbano’s approach of “just writing” to spur creativity helped Whicker, along with hundreds of other students seeking to become better, more thoughtful writers. The Winter Session of Introduction to Playwriting meets Monday nights from 6-9 p.m. beginning Jan. 13 and running until Mar. 5. It is taught online.