The Next Step After a Successful Workshop
One of the most common mistakes I see in new-work development is the assumption that there is a correct sequence.
First a reading. Then a workshop. Then a showcase. Then, if all goes well, a production.
But that isn’t really how development works.
A successful developmental step does not automatically tell you what comes next. It gives you better information about the work.
And then someone has to decide what to do with that information.
That, increasingly, is how I think about the work of the creative producer.
The question is not simply, “Was this successful?”
The more useful question is:
“What does this particular project need next?”
Sometimes a production sends you back into development
This week at CreateTheater, we returned to JACQUES AND JILL, a new musical by Jarlath Jacobs.
That project has actually been on a stage before. We produced an earlier version of the musical at Theatre Row as part of our 2022 New Works Festival.
It would be easy to look at that history and assume the next step should simply be another, larger production.
Instead, Jarlath went back to the work.
Now living in Como, Italy, she has been substantially rethinking the story and developing what has become JACQUES AND JILL. We are hearing the new version again in our Monday Night Reading Series, act by act.
That is not going backward.
It is development doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
Sometimes putting a piece in front of an audience reveals that the fundamental idea is worth pursuing—but that there is another, stronger version of the story still waiting to be discovered.
A prior production does not mean the work can never return to the development room.
Sometimes that is precisely where it belongs.
Sometimes a successful workshop reveals the next rewrite
We had a very different experience recently with LITTLE THINGS, the new musical by David H. Smith.
After developing the musical through CreateTheater—and previously presenting both an industry reading and a cabaret version of the work—we brought it to Philadelphia for a workshop production.
The performance sold out.
The audience response was wonderful.
It was a real success.
And there will still be rewrites.
One of the clearest things we learned from seeing the full musical on its feet is that the overall running time needs to come down.
That is exactly the kind of information a workshop is supposed to give you.
A workshop allows you to experience the show in time and space. You begin to feel pacing differently. Transitions that seemed perfectly reasonable on the page suddenly have weight. Songs, scenes and storytelling beats begin competing for the audience’s attention in ways that are almost impossible to judge from a table reading alone.
The success of LITTLE THINGS did not eliminate the need for development.
It made the next developmental task clearer.
And that is a success too.
And sometimes you don’t need the workshop at all
Then there is The Blue Violinist Over West End Avenue.
Its path has been completely different.
We did not move the play through a workshop production or a showcase.
There was a succession of readings and extensive script development. But because of the strength and timeliness of the story, the decision was made to move the play directly toward an Off-Broadway production.
That did not mean the script stopped developing.
Last week, the writer, the director and I spent more than six hours together in person working through the play.
We read it aloud.
We stopped.
We questioned moments.
We adjusted language.
We worked through transitions, beats, intentions and the internal logic of scenes moment by moment.
It was extraordinarily detailed work.
And yet it was happening on a play already heading into production.
Why?
Because the developmental process is not determined by which boxes you have checked.
It is determined by what the work still needs.
Every show needs something different
That is why I resist prescriptive development pipelines.
A reading can be invaluable when you need to hear structure, language or character relationships.
A workshop becomes essential when you need to understand physical storytelling, pacing, staging, musical integration or audience response.
A showcase can be useful when the work is sufficiently developed and you need other people to experience its theatrical potential.
And sometimes a project is ready to move toward production without passing through every one of those stages.
The producer’s job is not to march every project through the same sequence.
The producer’s job is to diagnose the work.
What questions are still unanswered?
What can we learn in the room we are in now?
What kind of room would help us answer the next question?
And perhaps most importantly:
Are we still asking fundamental story questions—or are the remaining questions becoming production questions?
That distinction matters.
If we are still struggling with what the protagonist wants, why Act Two exists, whose story we are telling, or what the piece ultimately means, then the work probably needs more development.
If the questions are increasingly about performance, design, rhythm, staging and audience experience, the project may be approaching a different threshold.
It may be ready to become a production.
There is no universal roadmap.
JACQUES AND JILL needed to return to the story.
LITTLE THINGS needed to meet an audience so we could discover what to tighten.
THE BLUE VIOLINIST OVER WEST END AVENUE needed intensive, detailed script work inside a production process.
Three projects.
Three different paths.
That is what new-work development actually looks like.
The goal is not to keep pushing a project forward simply because “forward” sounds like progress.
The goal is to put the work in the right room at the right time—and to know what you need to discover.
What does your project need next?
Before you schedule another reading, submit for another festival, or start thinking about production, ask yourself one question:
What is the most important thing I still need to learn about this piece?
Your answer will tell you what the next room should be
