On Holding Out Hope

Remember when I said this blog would be about writing middle grade books, except when it isn’t? We shall now diverge into talk of the theatre (do you notice the fancy –re spelling? That’s how we theatre folks spell it.)

So, I wrote this play a million years ago. Well, twelve years. Just before my brand new husband and I moved our lives to Seattle, I wrote the first draft of the play of my heart. It wasn’t my first play—it was something like my fourth. But it was most definitely my beating heart on paper.

My playwriting mentor—who has won the Tony Award for Best New Play and multiple Academy Award nominations for Best Screenplay, so he’s no dummy in such matters—raved about the play. It was going to be my breakthrough, he said.

We moved to Seattle, full of high hopes for my place in the theater world here (see how I switched out of the –re spelling? I do that because I do the –re spelling automatically, but part of me thinks it’s pretentious, so then I mix it up). I kept working on the play, and a year or two into our life here, I was invited to submit a play to FringeACT, which is now-defunct, but was an incredible new play development program that gave me a chance to workshop the play with some amazeballs people.

I thought this was it. I thought it really was my breakthrough. I started teaching playwriting for one of Seattle’s major regional theaters. I even got invited in for a meeting with the theater’s artistic director, who spoke to me warmly and with great interest about my plays.

But … the workshop didn’t lead anywhere, except to a revision of the play. I continued to work on the play, as well as write more plays. After a couple more years, I finally got my first full production in Seattle (or anywhere, since the full production of my very first play, which was produced by Northwestern University during my sophomore year there). Live Girls, which is a tiny but HUGELY AWESOME theater devoted to new plays by women, produced my play Mud Angel. (Thanks, Live Girls!)

And then … I continued to write. And rack up rejections. I used to spend vast amounts of money on copies and postage, sending my scripts all over the country, and even the world. I’ve got over 400 rejections to my name (just as a playwright). No more full productions came my way. Lots of compliments on my beautiful plays. Lots of staged readings and some great workshops (for which I’m grateful, but they’re not the same as production).

After a few years, I pulled out Blood/Water/Paint—that’s the play of my heart. The one that was going to be my breakthrough. I did another major revision. I called super amazing actor people and had them come to my house to read the play aloud. They gave me great feedback. I revised again. I sent the play out. And nothing.

Around that time, I started writing fiction. It wasn’t a conscious decision that I was going to write books instead of plays. It was mostly that my daughter was three and OBSESSED with books, and I spent (seriously) an average of five hours a day reading aloud to her. We were reading the Chronicles of Narnia and the Wizard of Oz books, Mary Poppins and Charlotte’s Web.  So fiction just sort of became the way story formed in my head.

I’ve been focused on fiction for almost four years now. Aside from participating in Seattle’s awesome 14/48 festival a few times, I really haven’t given theater much thought.

And then I got an email a couple months ago. Meghan Arnette, the Artistic Director of the aforementioned insanely awesome theater company Live Girls, wanted to include Blood/Water/Paint in a reading series. Part of me was a little annoyed. Were we really going to dredge this play up, only to read it, and stir up my emotions, except that nothing would happen with it, because nothing ever does?

And then I met the director for the reading. I’d never worked with her before. She’d said very little in our email exchanges before meeting and I had no idea what she thought of the play. (It deals with some tough stuff, you guys, and I was a little worried.) And then I met her. And she is a FORCE OF NATURE. Her passion for the play was inspiring, but still I held back. The rehearsal process for the reading was the best I’d ever had, but still I held back. The reading happened, and the talkback was amazing, and I started to hope.

Just a tiny little bit.

And now, you know what? Twelve years after I started writing it? Fifteen years after I embarked on the whole I’m-going-to-be-a-playwright thing? Live Girls Theater is going to produce Blood/Water/Paint in 2014, with Amy Poisson directing.

So I guess I’m still a playwright.

And those novels I loved that came extremely close to getting me amazing agents, but then didn’t? I guess I won’t give up on them, either.

(Update: Now it's going to be 2015. But there's an amazing team in place and it's definitely happening)