People who work with words occasionally decide that if they can do one kind of writing, they can do another. If they’re brave or reckless enough.
The last couple of years I’ve been both. I’ve written book and lyrics for a musical and had two very warmly received readings. I’m writing a screenplay with my son. Not a bad plan, since he’s already sold one to Warner Brothers. I’m collaborating on a one-man show based on a baseball book I wrote a few years ago. And I’m (reckless definitely fits here) indie-publishing book of toddler poems I hope to see first on paper and next on Toddler Tees and maybe other products.
Well, why not? After years of writing articles and books – in the Golden Old Days when editors invited you to lunch instead of e-mailing — I’m feeling irritably lost in this new digital writing world. I don’t know what a TED talk is. After $2,500 article checks in days of yore, I refuse to write for slave wages for digital trade publications. I believe that brevity is the soul of wit, but a Twitter is not. And writing a musical proved more stimulating than firing random thoughts into the blogisphere with an occasional “like” the principal paycheck.
Casting wasn’t as hard as I’d supposed. I recruited two adorable ladies in waiting from my favorite restaurant. Equity members both, they doubled in several parts each, cheerfully sang We Love Older Men (understandably my favorite song), and were joined by a handsome waiter who had understudied in Les Miz on Broadway and enjoyed playing the lead. With a little help from my friends, soon I had a cast of 18.
Will my musical go all the way? The odds are about the same as being bitten by a rattlesnake on Broadway. But getting there – or trying to get there – is more than half the fun And one moment during that second reading I’ll never forget. I knew I had written a play. But it wasn’t until — floating so high above my seat that I was afraid I’d hear cries of “Down in front!” – I suddenly felt that exquisite feeling: “Hey, I’m a playwright!”