My Published Writing - Feature

The Happy Craftsman

Published in Winter 1997 in IUP Magazine,
the Journal of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania

        Dressed in blue sweat pants, a blue and red checked flannel shirt, and a "One Planet" t shirt from a fictitious environmentalist group from his play, "Top Of The World," Bruce Graham looks like just an ordinary guy, but his talent is far from ordinary. Over the years, the 1979 IUP graduate has carved out a niche for himself as a playwright and a Hollywood screenplay writer. That's no small accomplishment in the entertainment world. He may be slouched in a patio chair, with his feet in red slippers comfortably elevated on the table. He may look relaxed while he holds his unlit cigar, but we are, after all, sitting in the "Dunston Room." That's what he calls the recent addition to his home that he jokes is paid for by his first credited Hollywood screenplay for the movie "Dunston Checks In."

While the movie had a short run at the box office, it gave Graham his first long sought screen credit. His second screen credit will be the animated Don Bluth film, "Anastasia," due for release Christmas 1997.

During down time from screen writing this summer, he wrote his first novel, which he recently sent to publishers for review. He is currently re-writing a screenplay for Richard Dreyfuss, entitled "Good Citizen." Graham wrote the original about five years ago, but the project was never developed. Since the success of "Mr. Holland's Opus," it's back on again.

"I had a three picture deal at Universal, and ended up doing six scripts there," he reflects. "Now did they get made? Well, the Dreyfuss one may be in what they call turnaround. See they'll develop about 110-120 projects a year and make 12. So there are writers like myself who sometimes make a great living and none of the stuff ever gets made."

Still the playwright, Graham is also working on a new play, tentatively titled "Coyote On A Fence," based on a death row inmate in Texas.

"I wrote him out of the blue," he admits. "I saw an article a couple of years ago about how he runs a death row newspaper. Part of his job is writing obituaries (for the inmates). Sometimes he'll take these brutal murderers and try and find that one aspect in his life that is positive, because he doesn't want to write obituaries saying, 'Well, this guy was a SOB." When it's completed, Graham says it will be his 11th play.

Graham's intense interest in theater goes back to his youth in Ridley, a suburb of Philadelphia. There he began acting and writing his first one act plays for high school production. His time as a student at IUP was spent further developing his many talents, including his comedy writing skills. He and friends Billy Elmer and Mark Bernardo, worked up a comedy routine that they did at local coffee houses and for the IUP community.

"We kind of slightly, illegally booked Fisher Auditorium for a show and charged a buck a head," he says, chuckling. They hoped to sell three or four hundred tickets, but instead packed the house which seats about 1500.

"I was rehearsing Equus, and I remember I said, 'I've got to break, I've got an eight o'clock show.' I run across to Fisher and there was a line across the Oak Grove," says Graham. "And then it was, whoa! We'd better be funny. The pressure was on." They must have pleased the audience since they did another show the following year, and once again packed the house. After graduation, Bernardo went to work for ABC while Elmer has continued his career in comedy.

Graham sees his time at IUP as good preparation for his eventual career in theater. He was immersed in every aspect of production - acting, directing, hanging scenery, and writing.

"I really think every playwright should have some experience on stage. I've seen playwrights, and I've seen some plays, where I thought, 'this guy's never been on stage in his whole life," he says. "They will make the actors do impossible things."

"The funny thing is that I've always really been self taught, too, because I had no playwrighting course." reflects Graham. "There wasn't one at IUP while I was there. I did have one creative writing course while I was there. I think I got a B." The thought seems to make him snicker.

Graham does remember the encouragement he received from theater professor, Malcom Bowes, who urged him to continue writing. "We went out after he had seen two of my plays, and I think he was shocked because they were presentable," says Graham laughing. "He said I should really try to learn more, because I was just an actor then and it was taking up all my time."

After IUP, Graham ended up teaching English at the Penncrest High School in the Rosetree Media District until 1986. It was during that time that he wrote his first two plays,"Early One Evening At the Rainbow Bar And Grille" and "Burkie." He claims that he actually got the idea for the former during his senior year at IUP while taking a world religions class with Dr. Joel Mlecko. The published version acknowledges Dr. Mlecko. Graham says he set the play in his head in a bar like Patti's Bar in downtown Indiana. He also used his memories of Indiana as the setting for his play, Minor Demons, which is a compilation of murder cases from the Harrisburg and Philadelphia areas.

"Burkie," was his first professional production at the Philadelphia Festival Theater For New Plays. He was 26 at the time. The theater has produced all of his plays since, and he has developed quite a local following, serving as playwright in residence since 1989.

Graham tackled writing his first screenplay after he left his teaching job. He gave himself two weeks to finish the screenplay as he figured it would be a writing exercise rather than a salable piece. Surprising even himself, he sold "Room Full of Candles," a spoof on "North by Northwest," optioning it for six months. The option, however, was dropped after the initial period. "So I re-wrote it, and changed the title, and sold it again," he says. "Then I had what's called a writing sample to show to show them that yes, I could write a screenplay."

After he sold a script to the Roseanne TV series, he was offered a job as a staff writer, a position he turned down. He values his current independence as a writer and prefers to live near family and friends in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Graham who has worked as a writer for Universal and Fox says there is a difference between writing plays and screenplays.

"The biggest difference is not to fall in love with what you are writing." He has been in the writers' pool for movies like the upcoming Harrison Ford/ Brad Pitt movie entitled "The Devil's Own." He spent four weeks in a Manhattan hotel suite doctoring the script. "I don't know if there are ten lines of mine in there," he admits. " Movies are not for labors of love unless you are producing or directing it yourself, because you just have no power."

Don't be surprised in the future if Graham does get into directing as he spent time studying the process while working on "Dunston." He'd also like to get back into acting, and he enjoys teaching. But he admits he still loves the theater.

"It is funny because the theater is always going to be a little more important," he says. "And it is so funny, because that disappears. A movie stays there forever, so your mistakes are really there forever. In theater, your mistakes disappear, but so do the really good things." For him, those good things are the intense comradery of cast and crew and the power of the playwright to exert control over his own vision.

"I'm a craftsman, or craftsperson. I know the nuts and bolts of how to do it," says Graham. "I'd rather be a happy craftsman than an artist. Look at the great artists, they're all nuts or miserable."

He says his greatest fear as a kid was the thought of having to put on a tie and go to the same job every day. "I think I really give my whole life to something like this," he says, "Where I can sit around the house on a

Wednesday morning." As an established Hollywood writer and Philadelphia playwright, he enjoys the fact that he doesn't need to search out his next job, it will find him.

Today, his feet elevated on the table in the Dunston Room, Graham looks quite comfortable with his craft and his life.

Copyright 1996 Susan M. Lang

Lost In Time - Picture Perfect Cleaning - Grieving Kids
Playing With Words - The Bathroom Break

Return to My Published Writing Index