Last week I was in Rhinebeck, NY at the Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat. Over the course of nine weeks, nine different musical theatre teams live and work on their new musicals in a house in the woods.
Freed from distraction, my collaborators and I are working on our adaptation of my novel, Alice Bliss. Jenny Giering is our composer; Adam Gwon is our lyricist. This is our third residency this year and we hope to finish our first draft.
I thought I’d share my diary of the process in order to break open the writing – and re-writing – process. The revising that is such an enormous part of my theatre work has been a huge help in writing my novels. I have a lot of faith in the process as well as a great deal of respect for just how much work is involved.
I’ve tried to keep these notes focused on the writing process, but occasionally, for clarity, I go into a bit more detail about a scene. So here is a brief synopsis for those of you who are not familiar with my book. Alice Bliss is a coming of age story about a 15-year-old girl whose Dad is in the Reserves and deploys to Iraq. The musical, which has been commissioned by Playwrights Horizons in NY, will be small, with a cast of 7, and very intimate.
Sunday. Day 1. Drive 250 miles to Rhinebeck in the Hudson Valley. Grocery shop, unpack, make dinner. This day is nothing but transitional. No work gets done.
Monday. Day 2. Walk at Bulger Park – gorgeous views over the Hudson River. Read through and sing through script and score that we have finished: 9 out of 10 scenes in Act 1 and 4 out of 10 scenes in Act 2. Act 1 looks solid. We have finally figured out what Act 1 Scene 1 should be, but we will write that last.
We identify and discuss revisions that need to be made in Act 2, Scenes 1, 2, and 3. Overwhelmed by these rewrites, I spend the rest of the day circling the wagons, thinking, pacing, anxious, and not getting much done.
Tuesday. Day 3. Early morning outing to Poet’s Walk near Red Hook. Gorgeous walk and views, marred by trying to outpace the swarms of bugs. I settle in to work on revisions. The work is very detailed and exacting and slow. It is not fun. I’m feeling very resistant. By the end of the day I have not made much progress and am feeling crabby and irritated. And homesick.
Wednesday. Day 4. How can it be Day 4 already? Head down, I never leave the desk and manage to finish revising the 3 dreaded scenes. Again, this is tedious because I am adding exposition, and it’s always difficult to make exposition fun and interesting, unless you’re in a courtroom. I’m also doubtful about this approach. We’ve been through this once before with Act 2 Scene 1.
By the time I finish I realize we have made a serious error. In trying to clarify so much, our scenes have become bloated and repetitive. Not only have we repeated information, we have repeated emotional beats. We gather at 9 pm to read through the scenes. All of us are too tired to discuss much after that, but the problems are clear. I remind myself that this is a typical part of the process. You overwrite and then cut back, sometimes over and over again.
Thursday. Day 5. Wake up very early. Writing in my journal I realize what we need to do to these scenes. In our effort to be clear we have been emotionally false. The family has just learned that Matt is MIA. We have them burying their feelings and moving directly into a kind of chipper or hyper – “We can handle this.” I don’t buy it.
I take a walk and then propose the following changes to my collaborators:
Scene 1: In the moments after they learn that Matt is MIA, the family is stunned, anguished, can’t talk. Alice falls into a memory with her dad – Song.
Scene 2: 3 days later. Family is starting to pull together. We see this in action rather than exposition. They get a letter Matt mailed before he was captured: Song.
Scene 3: Alice is fully invested in magical thinking: If I do this and this and this, then Dad will be okay. Again, actions carry us. Alice’s magical thinking song will wrap around this scene.
Jenny and Adam especially love the idea of beginning Act 2 in silence. A bold move.
I’ve got my work cut out for me today. But I think that once these scenes are solid, the rest of the act will be easier to write.
Later: Broke the ice by writing a scene I thought would be fun: Act 2 Scene 7: a re-imagining of the school dance scene, which is surprisingly funny.
Went to a coffee shop craving a change of scene. Wrote an entirely new opening to Act 2, much of which occurs in awkward, painful silence. Remarkably, it is a much better launching pad to the flashback and song that follows and the song is now full of emotional subtext. Read and sang through it with Jenny and Adam. Everything about it feels right. A huge sigh of relief. We’ve earned a glass of wine tonight.
Friday. Day Six.
I couldn’t sleep last night. My mind just wouldn’t shut down. Truly on overload.
In the morning I jump ahead to Act 2 Scene 8 where Alice finds the letters from her dad in the workshop. Through the magic of musical theatre, he appears as she reads one of the letters. This duet for Matt and Alice is complex. It has a double “hook” and is the emotional climax of the show. This is where Alice growing up and Alice losing her father collide. I write to the song and then hand it off to our lyricist.
I am now racing to finish the last few scenes. Tomorrow is our last day. There will be a reception tomorrow night where we will share two songs from the show.
I push on and finish another scene. As I had suspected, once we got the opening of the second act right, the rest of the act, while emotionally difficult, is easier to write.
We go out to dinner. Too tired to be very festive.
Saturday. Day Seven. Last Day.
Another night without much sleep. Get up early. Walk to clear my head. Make a pot of coffee. (I usually drink tea.) This is now a race to the finish line. I write the funeral scene, which is almost entirely visual, with the sounds of the 21-gun salute and Taps wrapping around it. Then move on to write the second to last scene: the denouement leading us to the final scene. The clock is ticking.
Adam is working steadily on the Letters Song – the duet that is the climax of the show. Instead of sitting down for lunch together as we usually do, each of us grabs something to eat at our desks. We pause when Adam completes the lyrics and gather at the table where he reads them to us. It is the first time I have seen Adam in tears. Things are “landing.”
Jenny and Adam practice the two songs from the show we will present tonight at a cocktail reception for friends and board members of the Rhinebeck Writer’s Retreat. Remarkably, given our slow start, we’ve written everything except the first and last scenes, which are bookends. This I can do on my own.
We get cleaned up and head to the reception. Kathy Evans, the artistic director of the Retreat, hosts us all in her home. She interviews the three of us about our process. Adam and Jenny perform two songs: one for Alice, one for her mom, Angie. Our audience is in tears. There are many questions and best of all people stick around to talk with us, and each other. (The hasty retreat to the exit generally means things didn’t go too well. Lingering signals something else altogether.)
Jenny’s husband Sean has driven up to join us, as has my husband David and our friends, the composer Mel Marvin and his wife Angela. Mel and I have written two musicals together (Joan of Arc and The Perfect 36). Mel also teaches in the musical theater graduate program at the Tisch School at NYU, and was Jenny’s teacher and mentor when she went through the program.
Our group heads out to Red Hook for Gigi’s Agriturismo dinner on the farm. Under a white tent with views of working farm fields and distant mountains, we eat food that couldn’t get more local and drink good wine. Jenny proposes a toast I wish I could quote, it was so lovely, about her joy to have so many people she loves at this one table. We lift our glasses one more time: To Alice Bliss.
As night falls Jenny begins to sing a few jazz standards. Mel joins her.
It doesn’t get any better than this.
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