Post Script

So, there was a little fill in the blank questionnaire going around on Facebook about a month ago about musicals — a genre I love. I didn’t fill it out, partly because of the Sondheim thing (keep reading, you’ll see what I mean), and partly because a friend of mine urged her fellow playwrights not to bash anyone publicly — after all, you might end up working with them someday. (She coaches young people who are auditioning for big Broadway shows like Matilda, Fun Home, School or Rock, etc.) While I doubt that Lin Manuel Miranda is ever going to call me so we can talk over a cool new idea he has, that he just needs a little writing help with, I get that putting bad vibes out into the universe and ridiculing theater creators publicly is probably a bad idea. So, you know. I’m doing it here.

I see a lot of plays. As a theater lover/nerd, a friend of many actors and a professional critic, I see tons of community theater productions, professional shows in Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, and New York, and touring productions that stop at Overture Center as they criss-cross the country. I also take my son to children’s theater, and occasionally check out high school and college productions. The interesting shows I can’t see, either due to geography or finances, I frequently read about through online reviews and buying/borrowing scripts. 

I love writing plays that have a historic context. In the age of the internet, I also love to do research. I have a fascination with other time periods that started with my wish to be Laura Ingalls and live as a pioneer in a log cabin, around age 6. The trick is not to get the information mostly right. It’s to get it completely right — and then figure out which details will make your story even better. The more specific, the more true your setting is, the more honest and real your characters feel, and the more authority your audience will give you to tell the story in the first place.