I have spent much of my career in an unusual place in the development of new work: somewhere between dramaturg, creative producer, and head of creative development.

I often come into a project long before production, and stay with it for years. I know the earlier drafts. I know why scenes changed, why characters evolved, and what questions the writer has been trying to answer along the way.

That continuity matters because theatre may be the most collaborative of all art forms.

Once a play moves into production, the director, actors, and designers begin contributing something the script cannot provide on its own: theatrical language.

The director becomes the interpreter of the play. Actors bring their own views about their character’s behavior, objectives, and emotional life. Designers bring the theatrical elements of space, sound, light, costume, music, and atmosphere into the mix.

The script is no longer the only storytelling tool.

And that is partly what makes theatre so exciting.

But – every collaborator also brings their own interpretation of the play.

And that is where my job changes.

During development, I may be asking:

• Does the scene work?
• Is the character’s intention clear?
• Is the structure doing what the writer intends?

In production, I am increasingly asking:

• Are all of these theatrical choices helping us tell the story the writer intended to tell?

That question has been in front of every choice we’re making in our newest production, The Blue Violinist Over West End Avenue.

I have worked with Debbie Goodstein and this play through multiple drafts and stages of development. I know the conversations that created the script we now have, and how each of the previous versions helped us arrive here. I know the story Debbie wants to give to the audience at the end.

My responsibility is not to impose my own interpretation on the production.

It is primarily to protect hers.

Protecting the Writer’s Intention

That responsibility was very apparent earlier this year.

Back in March, I made the difficult decision to replace the director and the design team then attached to the production.

The issue was not that the director lacked ideas. Quite the opposite.

The interpretation was beginning to move the play toward a much more overtly political frame than the one Debbie had actually written.

That distinction matters.

A director has to interpret a text. But interpretation should reveal the play the writer wrote —not replace it with the director’s own version.

I became increasingly concerned that the play was beginning to tell a different story from the one Debbie intended.

So – I made the difficult decision to change direction.

It was expensive.

It cost the production time and money.

And it would have been much easier in the moment to continue rather than to start all over again.

But allowing the wrong central interpretation to take hold would have been far more expensive artistically.

Once a production begins building around a mistaken premise, every other choice follows it: design, performance, tone, marketing, audience expectation.

Sometimes protecting a new play means being willing to stop that process before it goes further.

In the end, I know it was the right call.

The Director Must Still Direct

Protecting the writer’s intention does not mean limiting the director.

The director must bring a theatrical point of view to the work.

That is the job.

• How does the space tell the story?
• Where does the audience look – and when?
• What can sound, movement, light, or music communicate that the words cannot?
• How do we make “theater magic” happen – within budget?

These are production questions.

When a new work stops asking script questions, it may be ready to move forward.

 

Are the remaining questions production questions?

If we are still wrestling with fundamental questions of story, structure, character, or intention, the work may still need development.

When the questions increasingly concern staging, design, performance, rhythm, and audience experience, then theatrical collaborators need to take over.

But all of those contributions still need a center.

With The Blue Violinist, that center is Debbie’s intention – why she wrote the play.

Not the director’s version of the story.

Not the actors’ version.

Not the designers’ version.

And certainly not mine.

Debbie’s.

From Dramaturgy to Creative Producing

This is where my dramaturgical experience still informs my work as a creative producer.

A dramaturg helps protect and clarify the writer’s intention during development.

For me, producing carries that responsibility into production.

The question changes from:

Is the script expressing the writer’s intention?

to:

Is the production expressing the writer’s intention?

Lighting, sound, performance, and design each contribute to telling the story.

Even marketing begins telling the audience what kind of story they are coming to see.

Someone has to keep looking at the whole, protecting the integrity of the story, and what the audience should be understanding at the end.

Someone with the continuity of knowledge about the project, through each stage of development, helping to shape the final draft an audience will see on stage.

That person must be me.

Sometimes That Requires Me Leaving the Rehearsal Room

Last week, I was in rehearsal every day while we worked at the table.

This week, I am stepping in more selectively.

That is intentional.

The director needs to direct. The actors need space to discover. The production no longer needs the person who remembers every previous draft explaining how we got here.

And I have another job now, with new questions.

• Is the production moving along as planned?
• Are the departments communicating?
• Is the budget holding?
• Is the marketing telling the right story?
• Are potential audience members finding us?
• Are we reaching the industry people we need to reach?
• What happens after opening?
• What’s going to be the next step?

Those are producing questions.

Leaving the Rehearsal Room, Not Leaving the Artistic Team

I’m still in daily communication with the writer and the director.

But at this stage my responsibility has widened.

Earlier, I helped the writer create the script.

Now, I help the production remain aligned with the story she set out to tell.

Earlier, I asked whether the script was working.

Now, I ask whether all of the theatrical elements are working together.

And sometimes that means being in rehearsal. Sometimes it means being in a marketing meeting. Sometimes it means asking a difficult question. Sometimes it means making an expensive decision because the artistic direction is taking us away from the play.

And sometimes it means leaving the rehearsal room and trusting the collaborators we have chosen to do their jobs.

Because that, too, is part of making theatre: knowing when to hold the larger vision, when to speak, when to listen, and when to trust the artists around you.

Especially now, when making professional theatre is difficult, expensive, and increasingly fragile, I never want to lose sight of what a privilege it is to be doing this work at all.

To sit in a room with writers, directors, actors, designers, stage managers, and producers and build something – together.

To take a story that once existed only in a writer’s imagination and help it become something an audience can experience together in the dark.

That is why I do this.

And I am deeply honored to be on this journey with Debbie Goodstein and the extraordinary team bringing The Blue Violinist Over West End Avenue to New York audiences this fall.

There are easier ways to make a living.

But there are very few things I would rather spend my life doing than helping important stories find their way to the stage.

At some point in the development of a new play, you have to stop asking what the script still needs on the page and start asking a different question: Does the play work?

By that I mean: can an audience follow the story, understand what the writer is trying to communicate, stay engaged, and arrive at the end having received what the play intended to give them?

Do they get it? Are they “picking up” what you’re “putting down?”

If the answer is yes, then the next questions may no longer be writing questions.

They may be theatrical ones.

What happens when actors fully inhabit these characters? What does movement add? What does the physical world of the play need to look and feel like? How do scenery, costumes, lighting, sound, music, choreography, rhythm, and silence deepen what is already on the page?

This is where the “fun stuff” enters—but it is more than decoration. These elements become part of the storytelling.

And some discoveries simply cannot be made in another reading.

They can only be made once the play is on its feet.

That threshold is not always obvious. Writers can spend years revising a script and presenting it in reading after reading. A project can become increasingly polished without necessarily becoming more ready.

So how do I know when a new play is ready to move forward?

I ask one question:

Are the remaining questions production questions?

If the fundamental story, character, structure, intention, and meaning are communicating clearly—and the questions you still need answered require actors, staging, design, movement, and an audience—then the project may have reached the point where development needs to become production.

That distinction has become one of the clearest ways I know to determine what kind of room a project needs next.

Development Questions and Production Questions Are Different

When a play is still in development, the questions tend to be foundational.

What does this character want?

Why does this scene exist?

Is the structure working?

Do we understand the relationships?

Is the central conflict clear?

Does the ending grow out of everything that came before it?

What is the play actually about?

Those are writing questions.

They can often be explored through rewrites, table reads, developmental readings, conversations with actors, and focused workshops.

But eventually, if the work is to move forward, the nature of the questions begin to change.

Now you may be asking:

How should this moment be staged?

Where does the audience need visual information?

What does the actor discover by actually moving through the scene?

How long does that transition take?

What does the costume tell us before the character speaks?

How does lighting shape the emotional turn?

What happens to the rhythm once actors are standing, moving, interrupting, crossing, reacting, and sharing space?

Those are no longer primarily writing questions.

They are theatrical questions.

And theatrical questions often require a theatrical room.

A Reading Will Not Answer Every Question

Readings are enormously useful.

I believe in them. I produce them. I have spent years using readings to help writers hear what they have actually written rather than what they think they have written.

But readings have limits.

A table read can tell you whether a scene tracks.

It may not tell you whether the scene works once two actors have to cross the room, handle a prop, change costumes, negotiate silence, or play a physical relationship.

A reading can reveal pacing problems.

It may not tell you whether the pacing problem is actually in the writing—or whether it disappears once the director, actors, movement, sound, and design begin doing their share of the storytelling.

At some point, another reading may simply give you another version of information you already have.

That is when I start asking if the project needs a different room.

Production Readiness Does Not Mean the Script Is Finished

This is important.

Moving into production does not mean that nobody changes another word.

Are you kidding?

New plays continue to evolve in rehearsal.

• Actors reveal things.
• Design reveals things.
• Staging reveals things.
• Transitions reveal things.

Sometimes a practical production problem exposes a writing problem you could not see before.

That does not mean the play was not ready.

It means theater is collaborative.

The playwright is no longer carrying the entire storytelling burden alone.

The director begins interpreting the work through space and behavior.

Actors begin communicating relationships that may never need to be explained explicitly on the page.

Costumes tell us who someone is.

Scenery establishes world and circumstance.

Lighting controls focus.

Sound creates emotional and environmental information.

All of those collaborators now carry part of the story.

That changes what the script itself has to do.

The Questions Tell You What Room You Need

One of the mistakes I see in new-work development is deciding on the format first.

“We should do a reading.”

“We should do a workshop.”

“We should produce a showcase.”

“We’re ready for production.”

But the better question is:

What do we still need to learn?

If we still need to understand the story, structure, character, or intention, then the project probably needs more development.

If we need to understand how actors embody the relationships, how movement affects rhythm, how the physical world supports the story, or how an audience experiences the piece in space, then another table read may no longer be enough.

The next room should be the room capable of answering the next question.

Sometimes that room is a writing room.

Sometimes it is a table read.

Sometimes it is a workshop.

And sometimes the next room is the rehearsal room.

The Threshold

There is no single checklist that makes a play “production ready.”

But there is a shift I listen for.

The questions stop sounding like:

What is this play?

And increasingly begin sounding like:

How can a musical motif carry this idea? What happens if one character looks to another, then out to the audience, to end the scene? What can the lighting tell us without anyone saying a word? How can we make this dream sequence more theatrical?

That is a meaningful threshold.

It does not mean the script is perfect. It means the questions that remain may no longer be solvable through another rewrite or another table read.

The next discoveries may require actors, space, movement, design, sound, light—and eventually, an audience.

So before deciding whether the next step is another reading, a workshop, a showcase, or a production, ask yourself what you still need to learn.

Are you still trying to clarify story, structure, character, or intention?

Or are you beginning to ask how the nonverbal elements of theater can deepen the storytelling—how performance, staging, sound, design, movement, and visual imagery can communicate what the words alone cannot?

That is the distinction I pay attention to.

Are the remaining questions still development questions?

Or have they become production questions?

Because sometimes the clearest sign that a new play is ready to move forward is that the answers no longer live entirely on the page.

And Now, the Next Room

The Blue Violinist Over West End Avenue has been in development for a long time.

We have worked endlessly on the script. We brought in a cultural consultant to help us deepen the world of the play and sharpen the conflict within it. The writer, the director, and I have gone over words, ideas, scenes, transitions, and drafts again and again—always asking whether the story is communicating clearly and whether the ideas we are planting are paying off by the end.

We have thought carefully about what the violinist means, and how the music itself can carry meaning that does not need to be spoken.

At a certain point, though, you have to recognize when the page has taken you as far as it can.

The questions we are asking now are different.

What happens when these characters are embodied by incredibly experienced actors? What changes when they are standing in the room together? What can a glance communicate? What can music do that dialogue cannot? What will the physical world of the play tell us? Where can design, movement, silence, rhythm, and performance make the story richer than it could ever be on the page alone?

That is where we are now.

On Tuesday, we begin rehearsal.

And this is the part I love: the moment when all of that careful development begins to meet the collaborative magic of theater.

The script is not being abandoned. It is being handed over to a new set of storytellers.

The actors.
The director.
The designers.
The music.
The room itself.

Now we get to discover what they know.

On to the next room.