Woof.

Five years ago (really?!) I was wrapping up my first year of grad school with a “darling” of a play called In the Company of Jane Doe.  It was only my second full-length play and I call it my “Darling” with some sarcasm since the thing was a total monster to birth.  The first act came suddenly and with magic, but wrapping it up was a tedious process in which I sweated, swore, and began to think I had made a seriously serious mistake.

Nonetheless, I learned a TON about playwriting as I bled over this script and those last blessed 49 pages… I learned that I DID know how to write and tell a story, even if it didn’t happen in the most convenient time frame.  I learned that while listening to other’s notes was an important part of the development process, I defintely shouldn’t try to make everyone in the room happy for it was the surest way to make myself miserable.  And I learned that sometimes you have to protect your eggs as you’re hatching them, for until the thing starts resembling the genesis taking shape in your mind’s eye, very few people are going to be able to come close to understanding what you know it will become; hence, show them only the parts that are truly ready for feedback, but hold back those bits you’re still just starting to shape lest ye get an earful of notes on the obvious.

After all of which I wound up with a really creative play, a play that I can honestly say I adore, which has since gone on to get a number of awards and pats on the backs and even a production last year in LA.  I haven’t done any revisions on the thing since my last year at Grad school – and even then they were pretty minor, considering the play had had so many workshops and readings that it was in relatively (I felt) awesome shape for my thesis production.  And I was right – at the time at least – my thesis production was awesome.  (Of course, having the SUPER talented Mary Jo DuPrey at the helm as director and a host of some of the most talented actors and designers at UCLA on board was HUGE in helping the thing turn out like it did)

But now I’m in the unique position of having a production company in NY tell me that they’d like to produce the play – My heart leaps in joy!  NY?!  A playwright’s fantasy come true!-  but they have some notes…  and they’re not notes like “We think you should get rid of Character X and insert a scene about Character Y” – No, they’re more contextual than that- they’re thoughtful comments on what they see as being a few weak or not fully fleshed out areas of the play… these notes actually had me nodding some understanding – they were thinking about the play and these notes needed to be answered, be it by revision or explanation – and so I agreed to take a look at the script and see if I couldn’t tighten things up a bit and supply some answers.

So I’m diving back into a play I long ago stopped looking at in pieces and it is strange.  It is difficult.  It is also a little frightening.

I’m learning that this play is yet to be done with my lessons…

I mean, I can’t believe how much this script has given me already in the “things I didn’t know about my life as a playwright” department, and yet, still there is more!

I’m learning that it’s both easier and more maddening to go back in and tinker with something so long after you last touched it;  Easier because everything is less fresh, less precious – I’m not in making out with every blessed letter of the script like it’s catnip as I was that first go round.  I write differently now, hell, I even format my plays differently now.  I can look at the scene and think to myself “Well, I’ve seen that a few times and it works, but it probably can be better” without too much defiance.  On the other hand, it’s more challenging because I look at a moment and think “I can probably improve/edit/erase that little bit there… ” only to then think to myself “Jesus Fucking Christ, then I have to edit/alter/erase the next five pages!”  Or I look at a scene that I think I might be able to tighten, and then have a hell of a time letting go of the old because at least I know it already works that way… I think what if I’m changing it for the worse?  What if I totally jack this thing up and it sucks balls when I’m done?!  I’ve even had a few of those first grad insecurities of “Do I even know how to write?!”  (usually resolved with copious amounts of chocolate and a few internal reminders that yes, I’ve written quite a few things since then and I do, in fact, know what I’m doing… most of the time)

And so it goes… me reading and tinkering and then cringing and then saving – all the while telling myself that this entire operation might turn our to be just an exercise – that I might very well make some happy discoveries, but I might also find that the play was just fine without any touch ups at all… either way, I’ve got both drafts saved and so even if I were to start completely over, I couldn’t “kill” the thing that was… I would only wind up with a little Frankenstein experiment on the side.

But I’m really hoping that at the close of this new In the Company of Jane Doe phase I get to turn up in NY, walk into the theatre, and mentally cheer “It’s ALIVE!”