Intermission
a creative coffee break from writing the play

Twice last night, I had to get up from bed to write down ideas I did not want to lose. A good thing, too, as I had forgotten these important ideas completely until I walked into my office this morning, saw my scribbles on the white-board, and two emails I’d written myself in my inbox.

I’m in the middle of finishing up a re-write of another play, written a year ago. It’s been a year of something nagging at me, telling me something was not quite right. As a staged reading for this play has been looming, and I was struggling for how to approach the re-write, I sent the play to an accomplished playwright. In fifteen minutes, I had the answer for how to find my way into the re-write. Whether that was her wisdom, or my willingness to hear, doesn’t really matter. I suspect both. The problems she pointed out, made me laugh at myself, and she noted that a dramaturg is often a kind of therapist to the script. Well, that’s a paraphrase of sorts. Worked for me, and I am grateful to her.

The re-write meant I combined two characters into one, and brought another character into more prominence within the story. These changes strengthened the main character, and I believe, the play as a whole. As a result, some of the mysticism present in the script had to go, and I was very sad about that. Also, an idea about family formed through friendships was necessarily diluted. And, yes, a lot of little things changed, and minor moments even became bigger ones. I found several areas where choices made were given to secondary characters instead of main characters, and those areas were also corrected. (I hate that I do that! I think I’m finally learning…)

The night before I left for London, I sent the re-write to MBH. This is the testament of a friend, who in the midst of his own projects and great time pressures, read my play and gave me detailed notes on my return home. I could tell, while he thought the re-writes were good and strong, he missed the mysticism of the last draft. (And so he told me.) I miss it too. It no longer is the same script, and the mysticism does not fit the story.

MBH pointed out a couple of places where I ended a scene late, and diluted what the characters were going for. I kept a log of his notes in my Notetaker file for the play. In the process of transcribing those notes, more inspired ideas came to me and I tracked those as well. At this point, I keep a check-off list in Notetaker, to ensure I hit all the notes I want to hit.

I’m excited about the new version of this play, the nagging feeling now
put to rest. It is the play I meant to write the first time out with it. Here’s hoping the theatre putting up the staged reading
will feel the same way, after I send them the revision in a few
short days.

It is easy to remove beloved ideas, lines, characters from one play when you know they can be resurrected into another.