How Not To Write A Play

the long way around to opening night

Hello. My name is Brad. I have spent a surprising amount of time writing a play.

Scratch that.

I have spent a surprising amount of time not actually writing a play. Thinking about one. Talking about one. Starting one. Offering critiques of other plays.

These are, I’ve since learned, very different activities.

My first attempt was in college. The title was Death: The Musical.

Please understand I was under the impression that a good title was all you need. I thought this was a brilliant one, too. Made me laugh. Like putting “The Musical” after anything felt sophisticated. Raincoat: The Musical! Soup: The Musical! Seasonal Allergies: The Musical! The possibilities were limitless.

Sadly, I discovered there was already a Death: The Musical somewhere in Europe. Totally different story. Completely different approach. Entirely different thing. SO… naturally I abandoned the project entirely.

Not because I had to, but because I was looking for a reason.

I’ve noticed this about big creative dreams: when something feels exciting but impossibly large, your brain steps in and attempts to be incredibly helpful. It starts presenting very reasonable ways to get out of it. Oh no, this could be beautiful. Present an exit strategy, stat!

Over the years I had several more “I’m writing a play” seasons. This mostly involved buying notebooks. I own enough unfinished notebooks to open a small museum. You know how a big part of Toy Story is Andy’s toys fearing he’ll never play with them? I imagine there’s a very rich Disney/Pixar film to be made from the emotional lives of my abandoned Moleskines.

While working on the Kid President television series, we wrote a musical episode. This, of course, did not get made. It was a very fun idea. There were songs and a story. It, however, required much more time and budget than we had for that project.

A few years later, I was invited to meet with a big theater production team. They’d helped to shepherd many projects successfully to the Broadway stage. We had great conversations and some promising directions to take some ideas I had. Yet, they were very clear with me the time it had taken to bring any of their projects to light and also very open about the uncertainty that any of the work would ever come to light. That’s the biz, kid.

Years, they said. Development. Rewrites. Workshops. Fundraising. More workshops. Rewrites. More years.

This left me with two thoughts:
1. Theater is magic.
2. Theater is impossible.

I still believe theater is magical. It can take us places. Make us feel things. Connect a room full of strangers with a shared experience that could never exactly be replicated or fully put into words. Magic.

I have, though, changed my thinking on the ‘impossible’ part. The thing I’ve been learning is theater is impossible… alone.

Opening night. Pre-show talk. Special preview performance of The Fabulist

Last week, I stood in front of an auditorium full of very real, very kind humans and welcomed them to a special preview performance of a play.

The play only exists because many people came together to make it so.

Theater professor and friend, Dr. Cliff Thompson, co-wrote the show with me. We started working together a year ago. Hundreds of hours of planning and re-working. Actors started shaping scenes and expanding the characters. My wife, Kristi Montague, started imagining, designing, and hand-crafting costumes and props.

It was like a potluck. Each person arrived carrying something to add to this. Ideas. jokes. Perspectives. Unexpected, wonderful little things that wouldn’t have made it into the show without their contribution.

I’ve spent years thinking creativity meant proving I could create and carry something all by myself. The best things, though, are bigger than we can carry alone. They require community and connection on a level beyond ourselves. It leads us to something lovelier than anything we can do on our own.

People sat in seats. The lights came up. The cast wowed. Words we had scribbled and reshaped and laughed over and cut and rebuilt suddenly existed in the air in front of strangers.

Miraculous. Not because we finished. We are not finished. Ha. Now the show is being refined as we prepare to take it Edinburgh Fringe.

Tickets are already on sale. If you’re anywhere near Scotland this August, join us.

For years, I thought making a play meant arriving somewhere. It meant people thinking you’re amazing. It’s really just a whole lot of being amazed. There’s this process to making art and making it with people and it’s a real gift. It’s opening a door and saying: “Want to make something cool together?”

And then you do.

p.s. I’ll be sharing more soon about the costumes. You have to see what Kristi did with them up close. So many stories. More soon.

p.p.s. I’ve been in Mexico this week on a 5 city tour. Left the morning after the play opening. A little… exhausted… but wow. The Global Joy Project continues. LOVE YOU ALL!

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE