There is a point in developing a new play when the questions stop being mostly about the script.
You are no longer asking just:
Does this scene work?
Is the character clear?
Is the structure holding?
Have we earned this moment?
You start asking different questions.
Can the actor make that costume change?
Can we physically accomplish on stage what is called for on the page?
Does this scenic idea actually serve the story?
What theatrical elements does this transition require? At what expense?
And now, more and more, what is happening outside the theater that could affect the people who are working inside the theater?
As a producer, that last question has been on my mind a lot lately.
As we move The Blue Violinist Over West End Avenue toward its Off-Broadway production this fall, I have been reminded over and over again that a producer does not get to produce in an imaginary world.
You have to produce for the world you’re in.
And the world you are in becomes part of the production, whether you want it to or not.
The Outside World Will Walk into the Room
Even though we have been working on this script for months, as we begin moving toward production, the context surrounding the work has become impossible to ignore.
For instance, casting has been more complicated for us than any of us expected.
Not because there is a shortage of talented actors – especially in NYC, the world’s largest casting pool.
But because the subject matter of this play exists inside a very particular cultural and political moment.
Evidently, actors in another similarly-themed production dealt with social-media harassment because of the material they were performing, and word had gotten around inside the acting community.
That kind of experience does not remain abstract when you are asking actors to join your own company.
Suddenly, what might once have seemed like a straightforward casting conversation becomes something else.
How comfortable will an actor feel associating publicly with this material?
It was my responsibility as a producer to keep everyone safe.
I had already built additional layers of security into the budget, but I had to think about their entire experience. We called upon the theater to add additional security measures so that our cast and production crew would feel as safe as possible.
There are additional production questions that we need to address right now:
What needs to be added to the production budget because the world outside the theater has changed?
How do I make my team feel as safe as possible during the run of the production?
None of these questions alter the artistic reason for doing the play.
But they absolutely change the way I have to produce it.
That is part of the job.
Production changes the script, too
At the same time, something much more ordinary has been happening.
The design team has started asking practical questions.
Costume changes.
Transitions.
Physical logistics.
What can actually happen in the space.
How quickly something needs to happen.
Whether an idea that reads perfectly well on the page creates an impossible or awkward sequence in performance.
This is one of the clearest signs to me that a project has crossed an important developmental threshold.
Earlier in the process, the questions were largely about story, character, tone and intention.
Now the questions are increasingly about execution of the idea.
That does not mean the script suddenly becomes untouchable.
Quite the opposite.
This is where production reveals the final changes a script needs to make.
They are different changes.
You are no longer rewriting because you are tweaking how to tell the story better.
You are adjusting because the story now has to live inside bodies, costumes, scenery, time, space and an actual theater.
That distinction matters.
It is one of the reasons I often ask writers:
Are the remaining questions writing questions, or production questions?
That tells me where the work actually is in its development.
And then there is the audience
At the end of my long week I had a conversation with a filmmaker who is interested in maybe writing for the theater.
What interested him was the immediacy of the experience.
In film, there can be a tremendous amount of distance between creating the work and then watching an audience view it.
Theater is different.
The audience is right there in the same space with you, while you’re creating it on stage.
You know when they are with you.
You know when they are restless.
You know when something is funny because you hear the laugh.
You know when something has made people uncomfortable. and you know when
And you know when your work lands – because the tone of the room changes. .
That is part of what makes theater risky (and it’s why the Greeks eventually shut theater down).
It is also part of what makes theater matter.
A production does not simply present a story.
It puts a group of people in a room together and asks them to experience that story at the same time.
That shared experience resonates, and feels increasingly important to me.
Especially right now.
The producer’s job is larger than protecting the script
When people talk about producing, the conversation often turns quickly toward money, schedules, contracts and logistics.
Those things are certainly part of it.
But creative producing also means protecting the conditions in which the work can succeed.
That means understanding the script.
Understanding the writer as an artist.
Understanding the audience.
Understanding what the design is telling you.
Understanding the director, and what the actors need.
And understanding the world the production is about to enter.
Sometimes the world changes faster than the production does.
The producer has to notice, and has no control over that.
We shouldn’t chase every cultural shift or change the work just because someone might object to it.
Instead, it means being awake.
It means knowing what you are really asking of your collaborators.
It means anticipating the practical consequences of the choices you make, on your entire team.
And it means recognizing that once a play moves toward production, the work is no longer happening only between the writer and the page.
It is entering the world. And the world will take notice.
Development Prepares the Work for that Moment
This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in development, and in theater itself.
A reading is not the goal.
A workshop is not the goal.
A showcase is not the goal.
Each one is a room where you can answer a different kind of question.
Eventually, though, the project has to leave the safety of development and meet the demands of production.
And at that point, the question becomes larger.
Not simply:
Does the play work?
But:
Can this play work here, with these people, for this audience, in this moment?
That is the question I am living with right now.
And I suspect it is one of the most important questions I can ask as a producer.
Because we never get to produce theater in the world we wish existed.
We have to produce in the actual world we live in.
Working on a new musical?
On September 27, CreateTheater’s next NYC Musical Development Workshop 3, Back Into the World, looks at another moment when the work has to re-enter the room: the opening of Act Two.
After intermission, your audience comes back with expectations. Your characters come back changed. Your musical has to regain momentum and make clear why we should keep following the story.
That is the work we’ll be exploring together.