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.