Nick vs Michael

This has been the first couple weeks of really rehearsing our next show, The Great American Family Road Trip. This is an interesting and delicate process- particularly for Michael and me. While I wrote the show, he's directing it. Once I finished writing it, it became his show to do with as he pleases. I trust Michael to do justice to my shows. He's done well in the past with shows I've written. There are always, however, moments where he and I don't see eye to eye right away. To his credit, he doesn't have to run anything by me, but sometimes he does. When you've worked so hard on a script, all the while having absolute and complete control with only your imagination as a boundary, it gets a bit hard to see someone change something that you feel strongly about. I can't give too much away, but there is a moment in the second scene where an audience participant is used and then they are sat down. After they sit down, another character interacts with them offstage, but all you hear are voices. This, I think, is important because it foreshadows things at the end of the show, but it also it set up so that the audience assumes a lot about what they are hearing that actually is not happening. I get it- this is vague and you maybe have lost interest. I can't give away too many details because this show is a shocker.


Anyway, Michael wanted to change this bit for logistical reasons and because he was afraid the audience would be confused. We politely argued about it for a solid half an hour. I got my way, the scene is staying more or less as written, but there are moments like this that crop up over the course of each rehearsal. I'm not some purist, I don't mind changing a line here or there, or trying new ideas out- doing this is important, it's how the script becomes a living, breathing collaborative work of art. I thought it was strange how often I have felt strongly about this show, though.


I am known for writing longer shows. When Theresa writes a show, we often have about twenty pages tops. When I write a show, they run closer to fifty. This is because I am very specific with the choices I make. I'm not saying Theresa is wrong to do things the way she does, or that I am right, but that's the way we seem to do it. Because I am very specific, I tend to use a lot of stage directions to get my ideas across. This is a running joke in the company- Nick's shows are 50 pages, but only 15 are story and the rest is stage directions. Michael is a busy man... for someone who doesn't work a full time job in the traditional meaning of the term. But it is seeming more and more apparent that he has not read through my pages and pages of stage directions. This is likely to lead to more discussions, should he choose to continue to include me.


This has been a rather mindless blog, by a rather mindless Nick.