Singing Loudly

Yesterday I sent my final revisions to the theater company in New Mexico. It's polished and ready for them to do whatever they want with. It was a nice experience to be commissioned to write a specific type of a play in that it challenged my creativity. I can't say that I really enjoyed it; it reminded me too much of a creative writing exercise you might be given in an undergrad course. The whole write a poem on this topic and show your imagination and creativity. Blah.

The play is finished and they completely own it. That's probably the biggest difference to me -- selling a play. In the past I've only licensed a couple of my plays for performance. Licensing doesn't really bring in all that much money if you're only doing it a few times a year. I'm sure Neil Simon makes plenty on licensing, so he'd probably have a very different opinion of it. However, selling the play is a little more lucrative. I do enjoy that. Now they have a play they can perform as much as they want forever.

Maggie was telling me that the cast is going to be shuffled around, because the director saw something new in the revision that made him rethink the characters. She thinks that she'll continue to play the same character, which I think is appropriate. The actors are frustrated with the director because they've had a working copy of the play for over a month. Now they will need to learn a new part or possibly not be in the play. To the directors credit, there were a couple substantive changes to the end of the play. The changes were enough that the characters involved reveal a new capability.

A weight off my chest.