THE PLAY'S THE THING

(Or, It's so much fun to tell you something first!)

Hey Guys and Gals,

Thanks so much for your support.  Tonight I’m thinking this whole Substack subscription thing is pretty cool because it’s so much fun to tell you something first.  

This news is not a secret. You can tell anybody you want and know that you’re out in front, before (and it will be very soon), the big announcements and more details will be hitting the airwaves.

It’s been over 30 years since I wrote a new play. I don’t know why.

Wait, I DO know why.

Because theater is HARD. It is one of the most difficult disciplines I’ve ever attempted. 

If you write a book or a short story, that’s pretty much the end of it. You hope people read it. You hope people like it.  But once it hits print—that’s it. Job done. Move on. Same with a song. Here it is.  Like it or not, I’m done with it.

But when you write a stage play (or a screenplay for that matter) once you send it out into the world it is immediately subject to the interpretations of others. Readers, directors, actors, producers and technicians all want a say, nay, all seem to NEED to put in their interpretations—their two cents. All want to treat what you consider to be a finished product as a lump of Play-Doh. 

And you know what? They’re right. 

Because a play on the page can be as inert as George Santos’ sense of morality.  If you’ve ever read Shakespeare you know what I mean.  Reading Shakespeare can be laborious and baffling. But SEEING Shakespeare is quite another thing, even if you only understand half of it.  The success of the play is just as much in the production as it is in the script.  The theater experience is a holy triumvirate of the script, the production and the audience. And no one faction can stand without the other two.

I mention all this because I HAVE written a new play.