"We Have To Follow With Our Imaginations."

Over the last few days I've worked with actors and directed scenes from STEPH: The Musical into a rough shape. Today I got up first and showed everything we've worked on so far...which was about 45 mins worth! It was really useful to show everything - to test it with an audience. I learned many things:

• How the text worked (e.g. cut this line, this joke isn't funny etc).
• About the logic of the order of scenes (e.g. I didn't make enough sense of getting from Tama's place to a road trip with friends - "we have to follow with our imaginations").
• About the length of scenes (e.g. If I stay with the molesting WWOOF farmers too long we start to think this show is actually about them and we forget about Steph).
• About keeping the story moving forwards (e.g. having Steph call her mother stops the action - it takes us back to the beginning instead of moving us forward - so it's better to go to the next turn).
• We need different music - we get sick of the same song/melody after a while. 
• That one scene I'd written - the road trip scene - just doesn't work. It's boring, "boy scout", and painful. I have to "find another way".

I felt quite defensive and on edge showing these scenes today though. It took longer than I intended and I started to feel like everybody was saying 'get off the stage' underneath their breath. Every time I caught a glimpse of people talking amongst themselves I would think they were talking about me. I was talking to Andre about it after class and he reminded me that the original exercise was to write/direct the first 15 minutes of a show. So this is why people might have been fed up with me. To be honest I had forgotten about this. The way Philippe had been working with me on this story lead me to keep writing the next scene. To try and write the full story of her journey in New Zealand. Not just the first scene.

I also learnt a lesson about doing what I want as a writer - what I'm interested in. Because when I initially pitched my idea, the trip to New Zealand was all in just one song - ending with Steph arriving home in Canada and saying "Mom, I wanna meet my Dad." To me, the story of meeting her father is much more exciting and interesting than her time in New Zealand. And after Steph asked me the question in class - why am I trying to get through the story of New Zealand so quickly - I articulated this point to Philippe. That I'm telling the story of New Zealand in this long form way because Philippe had led me to do so. But I really I don't want to tell that story. I want to condense it into one exciting show opening song, and then get to the real story I want to tell. In a similar way to the opening of Up! in which we get the whole life relationship of a couple in 5 minutes...and then the real story begins.

And when I said this Philippe said "Oh yes, you could do that." Which was FRUSTRATING because I'd wanted to do that from day one. And I'd pitched to do that but had been led somewhere else!

I don't mean to blame. It's fine. I'm happy I've gone through the process I have because I've learnt a lot about story telling and scene writing and structure etc. And what I have done will feed into what I really want to do. Which is to write this fantastic fun "Breaking Free in New Zealand" song. So I'm going to go back and try to do that for this final week of the course...and the year! Which is good in a way, because I was dealing with much more than I could handle with all my 45mins worth of scenes. It's better to stick with just one - and make it really good - than have several average.

So yes I felt embarrassed and frustrated. But I also felt great about all the work I had done. And I feel positive about where to go next.

~

Afterwards Franck told a story about his grandfather in WWI and then Philippe proposed another way to write. Kind of a long-form improvisation with guidance. He got Franck to set a scene, and ask for actors, and then let them improvise. And if Franck liked something he would say 'follow that', or he might suggest something for the actors to do if he felt the story needed something, and then when he was happy with the scene we would move on to the next. Another improvisation. 

The scene we did was a nine year old Italian boy lost and alone in Gare de Lyon, Paris.

It's a good way to get the play writing itself, and for a writer to be surprised by where actors take the story. Also more inclusive and collaborative than sitting writing all by yourself...