Thursday, November 02, 2006
Please keep your arms and legs inside the musical at all times
Quite a ride for writers three weeks into a developmental production.
Last Saturday: two weeks of work all paying off; changes all working, show running great. UP!
Sunday: design "run-through", with producers and staff in "audience". Goes well, then Goodspeed AD Michael Price gives his patented notes session. Always the gentleman, but let's just say no punches pulled. Problems we thought we'd solved rear their ugly heads again, Hydra-like, and torment us in our dreams: "What made you think you could write a show? You have no talent! Get a real job!" DOWN.
Monday: day off. Substantial cuts, and a plan for a great new number. Paring comedy bits down just to the funniest jokes, get in, get out. We're so smart! What great fixes! UP!
Tuesday: Working on the new number, plus triaging all the cuts we've made so we don't lose any information and the flow still makes sense. Confident we're on the right path. STRAIGHT AHEAD.
Wednesday morning: new number that was so funny yesterday is suddenly not at all. Moment is extraneous, song is clunky, and now we hate the number we cut so we can't go back to it. Babies, bathwater, all pouring out the holes of our sinking show. WAY DOWN.
Wednesday afternoon: song is finished, and we sing it through with great trepidation for Karma and Michael. They love it! Everything we were trying to accomplish is there in buckets, the song is funny, heartwarming, adds just the moment we were missing in the story, we're geniuses, How did we write it so fast? WAY UP.
Thursday (today): staged the new number, still funny, still the right moment. Other cuts are being staged, also to great effect. Still geniuses. I'll let you know tomorrow.
Last Saturday: two weeks of work all paying off; changes all working, show running great. UP!
Sunday: design "run-through", with producers and staff in "audience". Goes well, then Goodspeed AD Michael Price gives his patented notes session. Always the gentleman, but let's just say no punches pulled. Problems we thought we'd solved rear their ugly heads again, Hydra-like, and torment us in our dreams: "What made you think you could write a show? You have no talent! Get a real job!" DOWN.
Monday: day off. Substantial cuts, and a plan for a great new number. Paring comedy bits down just to the funniest jokes, get in, get out. We're so smart! What great fixes! UP!
Tuesday: Working on the new number, plus triaging all the cuts we've made so we don't lose any information and the flow still makes sense. Confident we're on the right path. STRAIGHT AHEAD.
Wednesday morning: new number that was so funny yesterday is suddenly not at all. Moment is extraneous, song is clunky, and now we hate the number we cut so we can't go back to it. Babies, bathwater, all pouring out the holes of our sinking show. WAY DOWN.
Wednesday afternoon: song is finished, and we sing it through with great trepidation for Karma and Michael. They love it! Everything we were trying to accomplish is there in buckets, the song is funny, heartwarming, adds just the moment we were missing in the story, we're geniuses, How did we write it so fast? WAY UP.
Thursday (today): staged the new number, still funny, still the right moment. Other cuts are being staged, also to great effect. Still geniuses. I'll let you know tomorrow.
# posted by AGerle @ 10:17 AM 
