I woke up early again. Seems to be becoming a habit that I’m not entirely sure I approve of. But it seems to be getting more work done at least! Rhys and I had agreed to get up at about 8.00am in order to start the walk up to the villa at 8.45am. As I was already up and showered by 8.15am I thought I would pop into the garden to write my lovely neglected girlfriend an email which I could later send with the wifi up at the villa. Email finished I wrote out the previous days blog post and then started to work on some lyrical ideas for the moments we had been discussing the previous day. At around 8.45am Rhys crept sheepishly into the garden and offered to make some tea and coffee. It was fairly clear at that point that we weren’t going anywhere soon, this became transparent when Rhys mentioned that he would like to tidy up the synopsis before sending it through to Ants and George. Now, the delightful Rhys is not only a wonderful writer and actor and general good guy, there is a dark side to this man of many talents. Essentially he is very ill. It’s a little known disease that experts refer to as a “Format-oholic”. Common symptoms of the disease include an inability to send anything to anyone without first turning names of characters into “small caps” making song titles “bold” and “italic” and generally obsessing over the minute detail of paragraph spacing. I don’t blame Rhys, as I said it’s an illness and can’t be helped. I just hope that he can get the help he needs to move past this terrible affliction. Call 0800 RHYS BRAIN to donate to Darren’s sanity fund.
To be honest though, once he’d finished the document, it looked pretty sweet. At 9.45am, after an hour of formatting. Rhys and I set off at a powerful stride through the woods, up the hill towards the villa. After an elevation of about 200 feet* our powerful stride slowed to a leisurely lope. After 400 feet* the leisurely lope slowed further still to a lazy shuffle. At an elevation of 800 feet*, sweat pouring down our backs, the lazy shuffle came to a complete stand still. Cursing our inappropriate choice of footwear (flip flops). We gradually found the strength to continue and finally arrived at the villa with T shirts a considerably darker shade than when we set out. We were greeted once again by a very excited dog, Ants and George and with a breakfast laid out on the patio, fresh local fruit, yoghurt and croissant. Lovely. Whilst George popped off in the car to pick something up from town Rhys suggested that once we had finished, he should do a storytelling and read our new synopsis to our mentors to see what they thought of the changes we had made. *Elevations may be enormously exaggerated or completely made up due to altitude delirium. When George returned, we all gathered on the patio. Ants and George had copies of the new synopsis printed in front of them and Rhys began to read. As he progressed through the story it was encouraging to see both George and Ants nodding approvingly at the various changes that we had made from the previous day. I even saw George putting ticks next to several paragraphs. When Rhys had finished it was brilliant to hear that they thought the new work was a vast improvement on the previous days work. We had decluttered, simplified whilst still maintaining and in fact strengthening the three dimensional character and story arcs that we had worked so hard to complicate. Essentially the feedback was extremely positive, with only a few more minor (but still extremely helpful and pertinent) suggestions regarding certain crucial moments. Inside my head, my brain breathed a sigh of relief. It really felt like we had made a huge improvement the previous day, but it was great to hear that George and Ants agreed. Following further discussion over the final story points that we needed to clarify and bring out, Rhys and I jumped back into the synopsis to clean it up and add the suggested changes. As we worked through it we came across a couple of other moments that we realised had become extremely important and that had been skirted over, so in addition to the other changes we came up with some detail about those in particular. One interesting part of this process has been that very early on in the writing process we actually had a synopsis that looked similar to this one we had finally created two years later. Over the years we had tried desperately to make the characters come to life and bring out the themes in such a way that we overcomplicated it until it became a beast. It was, however a very necessary part of the process for us as now we have finally come full circle to a synopsis that maintains the simple storytelling but reveals fully realised and detailed major and minor character arcs within that simplicity. Ants said that good actors will work with a good story arc and create moving stories from very few lines. He also said that it is always good to go back to your first instincts in storytelling and in this instance, having strayed from the path for so long, it felt brilliant to return, but to return changed. Oddly enough we, as writers, had gone on our own miniature “Hero’s Journey” without even realising it. We started off as naive fools believing we had a handle on this story, blindly we headed deep into the woods and got horrifically lost, we met the mentors, learned some truths, we conquered the beast and returned to the beginning, as changed writers. After having congratulated ourselves suitably, we were fed more delicious local bread and cheese. In the afternoon, we decided to continue working through the proposed structures of some of the new songs that the synopsis demanded. We spent an hour or so at the piano working on The Basketmakers song, bashing our brains together to discover the angle, perspective and the journey of the song which fortunately we think we found and, having sketched out a rough version of it including a tune and very basic lyrics we put that aside and moved on. It was still lovely outside so we took the guitar, sat out on the patio and attempted to crack the structure of one of The Ugly Girl’s most important song moments, called Have You Seen My Husband. This is one of the darkest and most desperate moments in the story and we really wanted to find that desperation in the structure. Again, through discussion and me playing through bits and pieces on the guitar we eventually bashed out a rough structure including The Ugly Girls emotional beats that she had to hit in the song. We were working quickly because Rhys would be leaving at about 6pm and we wanted to create as much stuff in a loose form that I could then work on for the rest of the week with George, Ants and our director Charlie when she arrives on Wednesday. By about 5pm we had moved onto another big change, which involved the removal of an entire character from the story and the rewriting of an essential song moment as a result of that change. We discussed the new function that the song had to fulfil and that it’s current lyric was not entirely reacting to that function and it would require substantial rewriting. Again, we talked though what the song needed to do and how it might say it and I came up with a few draft lyrics that started to fit the bill. Then suddenly it was 6.00pm and Rhys had to go to the train station to go home. It was a real shame that he was unable to stay longer, especially as it felt like we had achieved so much in so short a space of time. I can only imagine how much more we could have done together. However, it does mean that for the next few days I can focus on the specifics of these songs and ask for guidance from Ants and George regarding the function, drama and structuring of some other numbers. I’m sure there will be a lot that will be acheived. Indeed, without Rhys attempting to format everything, I might get even more done… I worked for a little while longer on lyrics whilst George cooked yet another amazing meal. Then I threw the ball for sixpence which she was often reluctant to let go (Arethra Franklin popped into my head once again: “You just try and take my ball you muther*$%&. See what happens!”) We ate and talked, conversation ranging widely once again and I finally tried a red wine that I liked. Apparently it has to “breathe”. Who knew? After dinner I popped back to the piano to continue working on The Basketmakers song which I worked on until about 9.00pm whereupon I thought it would be a good idea to pop back to the Gite for an early night. I also thought it would be a good idea to go back down the path through the wood in the dark. Ants very wisely supplied me with a torch whilst giving me a look that said: “I’m not entirely sure this is a good idea, but you are a grown man, you can make your own decisions and if you get eaten by a bear at least it will have been in the pursuit of art.” Ants is a sophisticated guy. He can totally convey all that with a look. It turns out he was right. It wasn’t a particularly good idea, it was pitch black and I was rather on edge as I stumbled down the path. I did however, eventually stumble into the light of the village where I swear there was a man on a balcony who gave me a look that said: “That guy is a little bit nuts, I hope he’s not staying anywhere near me, perhaps I should bolt the door tonight.” (This guy was clearly sophisticated as well.) So I made it home, watched a little french TV in which sexy couples touched each other erotically, had a blazing argument and then continued to touch each other with increased erotic ferocity. I later discovered I was watching Euro News. Another brilliant day with great strides made. I’m looking forward to sleeping and to more work tomorrow.
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Woke up again somewhat earlier than usual today at about 5.30am. The Gite is incredibly comfortable… I just couldn’t sleep for the excitement. So I read up on some Nazi war crime trials for a while and, finding that wasn’t getting me back to sleep, I just got up and went and worked on some new lyrics for the opening of The Wicker Husband in the garden. Ants and George picked me up at about 9am and we went for a trip to the local market town where myself and George were deployed to get some fresh things from the farmers market while Ants went along to the Ol’ Supermarche to get some bits. Unlike a Tesco tomato you could smell the veg from half a mile away. George very ably navigated the stalls speaking in what appeared to be rather good French, although (to my untrained ears) he could have been faking and the stall holders might just be used to his gibberish. I took French at high school in an attempt to impress girls. Tragically I never really got past how to understand directions, so even if a girl had shown a flirty interest I probably would have just directed her to the local biblioteque. I was also introduced to the local Boulangerie where croissants and bread were collected. Apparently the French are quite good at baking stuff. Who knew? This particular bakery is the heart of the village and quite famed through the region. They even have special licenses to produce special kinds of bread. I like to imagine them being pulled over on the road by the Gendarmerie and asked for their license to bake. Breakfast achieved. We returned to the villa on the hill where they prepared a delicious breakfast and I was introduced to a honey dispenser that (in Ants words) looked like it had dysentery. Fortunately the honey tasted far better than dysentery. After a brief battle, Ants and I on one side, the paper jammed printer on the other we managed to print copies of the latest synopsis for Ants and George to go over. I left them to go through the synopsis in the kitchen whilst I brutalised the grand piano in the other room, where the beginnings of a couple of songs including the new opening I had been working on began to take shape. The other song I began was for a moment in The Old Basketmakers workshop, a crucial turning moment that we had overlooked until this point. I was happier with the opening work, it turns out the tune that I was working on for the basketmakers shop was actually Seal’s “Kiss From a Rose”. At one point George shouted his approval from the other room of a particular chord progression I was playing with. To be honest I had wondered whether I would be able to work effectively with two brilliant practitioners within hearing distance. But they have made me feel so welcome that it was just as if I was on my own and there were no problems in that department. I worked until about 1pm whilst Ants and George dissected the synopsis for feedback later on. Then we went to pick up an excited Rhys from the train station, regaled on the way with excellent tales of how Ants and George got started on their career nearly 33 years ago. We returned to a beautiful lunch that George had set out and Sixpence was delighted to find a new friend in Rhys. We had lunch outside and then got down to business. Our mentors put on very serious faces and I can’t help but think that our faces were equally serious as we faced each other across the table. Rhys with notebook, me with laptop and George and Ants with printed and hand written notes on the synopsis and our original submitted script. They prefaced this feedback session with the fact that “They are just writers- albeit writers who’ve been doing this for a long time.” They made it clear that their feedback was just that, their thoughts and advice which we could take or leave as we liked. With that out of the way they proceeded to give us their thoughts on the larger shape, the bigger picture and the themes that had jumped out at them. They had both read the source material (Ursula’s original short story) that morning and as a result their thoughts put an incredibly fresh perspective on what we had done. Whilst we had created some beautiful moments, in our attempts to make the characters far more three dimensional our new synopsis had gone too far. Simply put we had made what was quite a simple story (although not without its twists and interests) far too complicated. Their suggestions immediately opened up new passages for us. They suggested new, simpler ways of showing the same development. And while our intentions and instincts were good we needed to de-clutter by about 40%. Over the period of a couple of hours they dissected the story with us, asked us questions, listened to our answers, gave us thoughts and then gave us the rest of the day to mull things over and work on things together. It was obvious that Rhys and I agreed with the vast majority that Ants and George had said. The work would involve some big changes but all for the better and we felt like we had a much stronger street map to work from. Having done the story work with George and Ants we then went to the piano and I showed Rhys the new material that I had been working on… as suspected Rhys loved the first one and thought that whilst good, the second one sounded a bit like a song by Seal called “Kiss from the Rose.” I attempted pathetically to defend my originality as we tried out different key changes and odd bits but after a short while it became obvious this wasn’t the right song for that moment (although to Seal’s credit it was incredibly popular in the 90’s and remains a karaoke staple in the trendier parts of Shoreditch and Plymouth). So we talked about what that moment needed to be and I twiddled at the piano, we talked back and forth until the moment became clear and an accompaniment figure popped into my brain from another song that I had written a while ago for a different project but had not made it into the final show for dramaturgical reasons. That key unlocked that moment for us and we decided to quit while we were ahead and go to the garden with the guitar to discuss the story dramaturgy that Ants and George had provided us with. We spent the rest of the afternoon working through the story and playing the various musical themes as we went through. Occasionally we would hear shouts from Ants in the kitchen “That’s an exciting one!” Which was very encouraging. When our brains got tired we went and threw the ball around with sixpence. There has been research done to show that concentrated physical activity stimulates the subconscious (the part of your brain that makes interesting connections between seemingly unrelated things - so essential to poets, lyricists and writers in creating original imagery) and indeed it freshened our perspective when we returned to work and things started to fall into place quite easily. At dinner time we were given another lovely meal and all manner of everything was discussed and at about 11pm we were driven back down to the Gite where we had decided we would write up a new synopsis based on the feedback and all of our work that day. We finished the synopsis (vastly improved and less complicated in our opinion) at about midnight and then stumbled into our respective beds exhausted but delighted with our progress on the show. I spent yesterday being a fly on the wall at the orchestration trials for Stiles & Drewe’s new show Wind in the Willows. I’ve been on a couple of orchestration & arrangement courses in the past as it’s something that really fascinates me but unfortunately the teaching has always ultimately been disappointing. To have someone talk you through the finer points of orchestration without experiencing the sound is a bit like Dumbledore taking you through the finer points of an awesome spell without ever showing you the magic. This was so different. I spent my time either sitting in the studio listening to Simon Lee conducting the live orchestra or in the control room listening to George discussing the arrangements with his two orchestrators, Chris and David. The attention to detail in the textures of the music was the thing that jumped out at me the most and the incredibly varied colours that certain instruments could produce. The difference that a quaver rest could make and the fact that these guys could all hear that it would make a difference was really eye opening. The music was spine tinglingly thrilling and audiences will be in for a real treat come October. I probably learnt more in those three hours just sitting in that room than I did on all of my orchestration courses. So today we flew out from Stansted Airport to Brive in the South West of France. Fortunately I double checked my ticket before I left otherwise I would have been flying out from Luton Airport to absolutely nowhere. I did not, however, double check that I had packed any underwear. It’s one of the only times I’ve been thankful for an extended security check (they always stop me because they think my guitar capo might be some sort of brutal instrument of death - which some would say it is). On repacking my stuff, it turned out that I had left undergarments off my list. A quick phone call with my lovely lady and I just had time to pop to NEXT to purchase some exciting boxer shorts before hurrying off to the plane where I found George just in front of me in the queue. After a short and uneventful flight, during which we spent a large proportion of the time delving into the depths of the human psyche and insulting each others work, we were met at the airport in stifling heat by Ants and his beautiful dog Sixpence. We drove through the countryside, over the gorgeous Dordogne river, eventually arriving at a tiny village in a wooded valley. It was surreal seeing the village of The Wicker Husband pop vividly into life in front of my eyes. Suddenly I was driving past the old stone houses of our characters; the brutish cobbler and his beautiful but unsatisfied wife, the slothful innkeeper and his hard working, long suffering partner. The Ugly Girl’s shack on the outskirts. We drove down the small lanes and over streams, the darkness of the wood ever close by on all sides. The location couldn’t have been more perfect. Ants and George (with their brilliant assistant Lettie) had booked us into a Gite. Basically a small holiday chalet in the village within walking distance of Ants’ place. It’s a beautiful old stone cottage, with gorgeous exposed timbers, shutters and fireplaces and plenty of room to relax and spread out my new underwear. It also has a lovely garden with some creaky swings and outdoor furniture with beautiful views. The Stiles & Drewe Award certainly knows how to put you up in style!(s) We dropped off my stuff and we drove off through the village (stopping to meet several of the villagers on the way) and then up through the wooded hillside right to the top of the hill where I was greeted by one of the most stunning views I’ve seen in a long time. I won’t gush but basically Ant’s house is incredibly beautiful. It’s the kind of house that my mum is always looking at in her Gardening magazines. The kind of house my girlfriend would love to live in. We ate some fruit picked straight up off the ground and five minutes later, Ants was preparing his signature Toulouse Sausage dish (delicious) and I was floating in the hilltop pool surrounded by silence until George turned up on his hot pink inflatable and ruined it. We talked about various things as we floated in the sun including the art of critique, the orchestration from the day before and what exactly is inside a Toulouse Sausage. When dinner was ready, we sat outside with some wine and ate the fruits of Ants’ labour. I’m not entirely sure but I think I might have eaten approximately half of everything that was available. To their credit no one said anything about this. Although I’m sure that Sixpence eyed my waistline as I reached for another helping of potatoes. In my mind she was saying “You really think you need that?” For some reason, in my head she sounds a bit like Arethra Franklin. Over dinner, looking out over the gorgeous countryside we talked about many things relating to the business side of musical theatre that were really eye opening. Phrases I had not heard like “secondary rights” and other professional sounding things were used. It was great. I felt a tiny bit like that girl in The Secret Garden. Except instead of being scolded by a hunchback uncle, I was being invited in by these two delightful fellows. And I’m not a girl I kept reminding myself. I’m a man. The conversation soon turned to The Wicker Husband and the journey that we were about to embark on. It was really lovely to hear both of them speak with such passion and insight about the story and the characters. And already on the first evening I could feel some light beginning to penetrate the murky wood of our musical adventure. Ants’ drove me back to the Gite about 11pm, apparently we can see the International Space Station as it flies by. The stars are incredible. I went to bed and then woke up at 4am too excited to sleep. That’s where I’m writing this… at 4am in an ancient cottage in the South West of France… Isn’t life funny sometimes? After last week's rather serious musings upon failure and success, I thought I might turn my attention to the lighter side of the craft... When setting out to write this little blog I thought... what makes me the expert on funny things? But if you've been reading my blog lately you will discover that I am not proclaiming to be an expert on anything. I read somewhere that it takes 10,000 hours before you become a master at something, and by that reckoning that makes me a master of the following: 1. Sitting on my couch watching box sets. 2. Sleeping and walking. But what I'm attempting to do with this blog is start conversation and thoughts amongst the theatrical song-writing community. To create a dialogue that will benefit those making musical theatre at the moment. So here goes... feel free to disagree and shout things at me if anything jumps out as being ludicrous. IRONY In my (admittedly limited experience) I have discovered some things that I think are worth sharing. Alan Ayckbourne said something very intelligent once (more than once probably), I can't remember what it was, but it went something along these lines: If your story is inherently dark, throw as much light as you can on it. If it is inherently light, throw as much dark as you can on it. The light will highlight the dark and vice versa. Basically what I think he meant was that if your story is serious, bring out the humour in it. If your story is humorous, bring out the seriousness. And what he is doing is using "irony" in it's most holistic sense. In my experience this word can be misleading. People often have very different thoughts on what makes something ironic. For my generation, most of these misunderstandings can be blamed directly on Alanis Morrisette and her song 'Ironic'. "It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife." (lyric from Ironic) This is not an example of irony. This is an example of extreme inconvenience, general misfortune or an unfortunate choice of catering company. "It's like rain on your wedding day." This is not an example of irony. This is an example of unluckiness, or in the case of a winter wedding, bad planning. For clarity and for everyone who has ever used the word and then immediately wondered whether they've used it correctly... this is what irony is: An event or statement that deliberately confounds our usual expectations (often with humorous implications). When I talk about irony in theatre song writing I use two different versions of this: Character Irony: When a character confounds us by acting/speaking/singing in a manner that is contrary to our expectation of that character's behaviour. eg. A character who has been portrayed as a brutal, murdering beast reveals that he absolutely adores tiny fragile flowers. We would not expect this to be the case from a savage and therefore our expectations are confouded. Song Irony: When a lyric is set to the opposite sort of music that it's content would initially imply and vice versa. eg. When a lyric that sings about torture and rape is set to a delightful, upbeat tune. We would normally expect such heavy topics to be dealt with seriously and with the appropriate gravity. We are confounded by the sound of someone singing of such deplorable acts in a seemingly delighted way. Depending on the situation of your song, one or the other of these types of irony might be useful to you, it's even possible to combine the two. So what Ayckbourne has expressed with all of his wisdom is a manner of ironic playwriting. Whereby the whole manner in which we intend to tell our story (be it a musical or a play) is intended to confound our audience's expectations of it. PERSPECTIVE 90% of the humour of a song will come from the set-up. Or in other words if the situation or perspective is inherently amusing then it's likely that the song will be too. In these cases, a line taken out of context of the song would not be amusing at all, but in the situation to which it refers a perfectly banal and plain sounding lyric can make an audience cry with laughter. And working against that, if the set up or perspective is not handled correctly then the funniest joke in the world will fall flat. COMIC TIMING When writing songs we should be aware that lyric is not the only thing that is important in making a joke land. Music itself can be amusing without lyric so it stands to reason that when combined with a funny lyric the music has an important role to play in whether something comes off or falls flat. Irony comes into play heavily in both lyric and music when writing funny songs. Confounding an audiences expectation so that they cannot see a joke coming (perhaps throwing in an unexpected rhyme or non-rhyme or a 2/4 bar in a 3/4 song) will defy your audience's expectation. An actor is not the only one with comic timing. The writer must use all the tools at their disposal to ensure timing works to their advantage. ANTICIPATION A good comedian will build to the funniest bit of their joke, they won't blow it straight away. Because a good comedian knows that a good proportion of an audience's enjoyment will come from the build-up or anticipation of something really great. Think of it like foreplay. You can't just go straight for the goal, you're audience won't be ready for it and will only lead to a disappointing experience for all of you. The longer you can keep your joke ticking along but always holding the best bit back the more fun everyone will have. For those of you old enough to remember, whenever the littlest of the Two Ronnies did his "joke telling" at the end of the show, he spent at least 5 minutes digressing, being distracted etc from the actual joke. This meant that when the punchline of the joke finally came, his audience would roar with laughter. When you actually listen to the basic joke itself, it really isn't very funny. It's all in the preparation and delivery of the joke that it becomes funny. We should remember this when we are writing songs that are intended to be funny. Anticipation and build up is key. LANGUAGE Metaphor and simile are often used to great effect in amusing songs. They are often ironic in their usage as well. We see a romantic young tenor lead on stage, he has just been left alone by his love to soliloquise a while... If we were to hear him sing the phrase: "Love is like..." We might expect it to be concluded by something soppy and romantic such as: "Love is like a bunch of roses in bloom. It seems as if it will never fade." "Love is like the sound of a nightingale singing in a tree. It's song lives in my memory." We might NOT expect to hear: "Love is like a Dyson vacuum cleaner. It really sucks." "Love is like a pair of flip flops. It's only appropriate on holiday." "Love is like diabetic chocolate. Tasty but too much of it will make you shit yourself." I'm not saying that these are necessarily funny, but depending on what character is saying them they might confound our audience's expectations. Also, some words are just naturally funny, I'm not going to tell you which ones. CONCLUSION One final thing to say is that I think humour is one of the greatest assets of any theatre maker in allowing your audience to care about your story. If a character makes you laugh, you will cry all the more when they die. Just watch "The Fault in Our Stars" if you don't believe me. I'm going to leave it there for the moment, since it's a Sunday and my brain is slowly dissolving into a pool unwatched box sets, which are pleading at me desperately to watch them while eating Ben & Jerry's. After all I'm a master of it. Just in case you were wondering, that isn't an example of irony. That's an example of awesome. I'd love to hear other songwriters thoughts on what makes things funny in songs... post in the comments so we can all learn about funny shit. I read somewhere that “You aren’t a real composer until you’ve failed and failed big.” Very recently I failed. I failed big time. And so I did what most people do when they fail... I went looking for reassurance that I wasn't the only one who had. And I went looking for it in the place where everyone looks things at 3am in the morning when they are worried about something. Google. What I googled was “Composer Replaced.” A couple of chat room links came up that were basically people comparing their knowledge on what film composers had been replaced by other film composers for iconic movies. But there was nothing I could find that told me how to deal with it. I felt I was on the verge of being replaced for a project that I had poured my heart and soul into and the work (whilst good work) was just not the work that those in control wanted to hear. As it turns out my feelings were 100% correct and I received an email about a week later thanking me for my hard work but that they needed to go in another direction. That made me feel a bit sick. My first instinct was to do my best to make sure that no one found out about it. The sheer embarrasment of having to tell colleagues, friends and family was terrifying. I felt like burrowing away and hibernating until everyone who knew me was dead or in a coma. Then I could continue my career in safety. Obviously this first instinct was insane. It was my prehistoric brain doing its best to protect me against something that it considered to be dangerous. If Prehistoric Darren came home from the hunt without a good chunk of mammoth for the wife, then the wife would potentially start looking lustfully at Prehistoric Pete in the cave down the road, who everyone knew always brought home the mammoth bacon. But as many of us have discovered our Prehistoric brains can often work against us in the modern world. When 'Fight or Flight' kicks in, reason goes out the window. The difficulty with today's society is that the 'Fight or Flight' reflex kicks in at inappropriate moments that have nothing to do with survival. I recognise that this is what happened when I received the news of replacement and I also recognise that this would be the worst response to the situation concerned. So I thought I would tell some people. I told my girlfriend, some of my close friends, my mum and then some colleagues I was working with. I immediately felt better. I'm not sure precisely why. Perhaps it was their kind reactions, perhaps it was just sharing it with them. Regardless of what the reason was, for me it is another part of the musical theatre industry (and generally in life) that is less talked about than it should be. But it should be talked about, and it should be celebrated just as much as success. In a way, someone who tries to do something and fails should be admired more than the one who succeeds, after all they are the ones who will have to go through the pain and embarrassment of seeing their failure made public. Failure is a vital part of success. In my experience, this is greatly apparent in the musical theatre industry. There is a saying that goes 'Musicals aren't written. They are rewritten." This is about as true a thing as I have heard about the craft. But it doesn't just apply to the craft of writing a musical. It applies to the process of becoming a musical theatre writer. Our careers are not written. They are rewritten. We make mistakes. We have a little success. We experience even bigger failure. And each will leave a mark on us. But this should not be seen as a bad thing. There are larger lessons to be learned from failure than there are from success. If there was any justice in the world you'd get a royalty on failure, as it's much harder to take and you experience it alot more. From my own recent failure, I will take several important lessons away with me and believe me they are not ones I am going to forget in a hurry. I can almost see the positive outcomes coming from implementing new processes in the future to my own work. So... go out and mess it up! And then tell people about it. I know I'd appreciate it! |
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