What Friends Are For

On Friday, 22 April 2016 I sat down with a group of friends. We were upstairs in the rehearsal room of the Orpheum Theatre. I was setting up chairs while my friends arrived. There were five of them, who haven't given me permission to mention them in this post, so they shall remain anonymous. Three males, one who described himself as barely conscious, and two females were gathered to do me a huge favor.

They were there to read my stage play to me.

My friends are saints. They volunteered time out of their busy schedule to support me in one of my endeavors. The quintet showed no reservation, which is remarkable. Multiple of them later confessed that they had some concerns, but they had the good grace not to mention them beforehand. Their concerns were understandable. I've read amateur literature before. It can be painful. Incredibly painful. They were aware of that.

What made it worse for them is that they weren't going to be reading it in the privacy of their own homes where they could read at their own pace or even give up if it became too much. They weren't going to have time to consider their responses and script a response to spare my feelings. No, they were going to be reading it to my face. They were going to have my full attention.

A lot of pressure.

They showed up anyway. As a thank you I brought them water, Oreo cookies, M&M candies, and Cheez-It Crackers. I actually felt bad about that. I prefer to reward people with homemade food. My Friday was incredibly busy though. Work, library, vocal practice. There was probably something else I've already forgotten. End result, no time for homemade deliciousness.

Let me be honest, my friends tackled my play with enthusiasm. They laughed as they read it. At times because the work was humorous (even though I hadn't intentionally written in humor). At other times they laughed at phrases I had used. It wasn't malicious laughter, but it still let me know where the language needed to be tweaked.

It wasn't near as painful as I thought it was going to be. It wasn't perfect. The dialogue was wooden in several places, especially for one of the characters and it had nothing to do with my friend's acting ability.

Here's the kicker though. After they finished reading the play they began discussing it. As a matter of course, I made them discuss it while I listened as a non-participant. There conversation was fascinating. Thrilling. They talked about the character's and their motivations. They discussed parts that they loved. They argued about it.

My friend's saw depth in the characters that I hadn't intended, but I knew I could build upon. Their enthusiasm could not be faked. They had risked their evening to read my work and it had not been the painful experience it could have been.

It was even more enjoyable when I joined the conversation. I would talk about the characters and they would disagree with me. My work was taking on a life of its own in their heads. It was the type of analysis that I used to have in college classes about great works of literature. And we were having it about something I had created. Then the evening was over and we bid each other goodbye, with many of them looking forward to what would happen next.

The reason I am writing this post is this: That night was the most life-affirming moment of my life. I want to be a writer. I do. But I don't want to be just another amateur writing amateurish prose that will never see the light of day. I want to be a success. That night, I realized I could. I have the ability, all I need is to put in the time.

That night I was so happy. I barely slept because I was already revising in my head. I was planning the next steps. My friends had given me that excitement.

And that's what friends are for.




P.S.--The next steps are these:

1. Revise. I'm almost through revising Act 2. At this pace it will take me five weeks total to complete the revision. Hopefully I'll be done by May 31st. However, I know that this revision includes substantial expansion to the last scene, adding a new scene in the middle of the show, and then adjusting the rest of the scenes to accommodate the new information. Plus, I'm adding depth to two of the characters. Lot of work, while still trying to keep all the qualities of the first draft that made my friends fall in love with the piece (and yes, many of them confessed to loving the piece). Joygasm!
2. Second stage of feedback. This won't be a reading. I will be sending the new version of the script to the people who were at the reading, along with a select group of other people. They'll send me feedback directly. Okay, I might do another reading, but probably not.
3. Revise, again. Hopefully this will be a shorter revision as I'll be dealing with smaller issues. Hopefully.
4. The big part! Convince my friends to actually stage the show as a Work-In-Progress. Invite a small audience to come see it, discuss it, and provide me with feedback. Scary, but probably quite insightful for me.
5. Revise again.
6. Shop it. There's a writing contest in August I want to have it ready for. I hope it is, but it's tall order. We'll see what happens.