Cavendish, Prince Edward Island
Already the end of May! And the Island has pretty well transformed into its signature greenness - spring came a little early this year. Ah, I really do love this place...
Anyhow, it's been a busy time, between planning something that we're about to announce...and the rewrite. Can you believe I'm still on it? It's been over 2½ months since I started on it. It takes what it takes - it just always takes way longer than I hope it will. Plus, while Act I was easy in some ways, Act II has been a bigger challenge. Not that that was unexpected - the second half of Maud's life was much more complicated, more packed with detail, and of course darker. Try as you might, there are just certain truths about Maud's life that you can't get around. What I've been trying to do is balance out the darkness of her life with successes, with other positive things she might have focused on, and with an increased presence of the fictional characters which literally everyone likes. I feel, for the most part, that it's coming together. Of course, I won't know that for sure until I get to the end (because I like to write - and rewrite - in order) and read it from the beginning.
I'm almost at that point. The past few days I've been working on what I call the "season finale" scene - the last one before the very final scene after Maud's death where she's declared a Canadian of National Importance. In this "season finale" scene, everyone's storylines have to wrap up - Maud's, Chester's, Stuart's, Ewan's, and even the fictional characters. This one was always a toughie because of Maud's suicide. It's meant removing the song "Where Is My Happy Ending?", which we'd already shortened and sanitized for the bulk of the '08 run. Truth be told, even though it's a barnburner and a great vehicle for an actress, no one wants to sit and watch Maud lead herself to suicide while she boo-hoos about her life for 4½ minutes. So what I'm attempting now is a different song - a bookend to the new song at the top of Act I that consolidates her childhood. Maud's there for a part of it, but when we get into the really dark stuff, Maud's gone and it's her fictional heroines that cover it. I'm hoping that will work better than what we had before. It's not like I'm ashamed of what we had before - it was just time for a change, especially at the 11th hour of the show.
The tricky part of this "season finale" scene is that I'm also trying to better incorporate the show's throughline - the "power of imagination", or, as it's more commonly known, the law of attraction. We become what we think about. Focus on the good and we create more of it; complain about how bad it is and we create more of how bad it is. I really do believe in this theory - although I admit I have a hard time applying it. Negativity is a nasty habit to break! I've been trying to weave things in the show closer to this throughline, but I feel it's especially necessary at the end. If you're going to make a point, that's where to make it. The trick is, doing it without coming off hackneyed or preachy. Or repetitive. Plus, there's a speech of Anne's that I want to keep - it's just working into the new focus of the sequence that I'm finding a bit of a challenge. And then, it's got to time out to the underscore that's already in place. I think it'll be just fine - but sometimes it makes my head spin a bit.
Once that's done, I'll likely take this draft out somewhere by myself - I'm envisioning Maud's Cavendish Beach this time - and read the whole thing aloud to myself. And make notes and changes as I go along. Plus, since I'd skipped a few sections for lack of information, I will still have to go back and fix those up. Then Leo will read through it and he'll have his feedback; also, there were some lyrics he wanted me to take a look at, some of which I'm sure will change. After all that's over, my plan is to have a private reading done by past cast members and some that will be new to the material, just to have a nice cross-section of folks who will be able to help me determine whether or not these changes work. Still weeks away from that, though...and, like I said, we've been busy planning something else.
But that will have to wait 'til it's announced next week!
Already the end of May! And the Island has pretty well transformed into its signature greenness - spring came a little early this year. Ah, I really do love this place...
Anyhow, it's been a busy time, between planning something that we're about to announce...and the rewrite. Can you believe I'm still on it? It's been over 2½ months since I started on it. It takes what it takes - it just always takes way longer than I hope it will. Plus, while Act I was easy in some ways, Act II has been a bigger challenge. Not that that was unexpected - the second half of Maud's life was much more complicated, more packed with detail, and of course darker. Try as you might, there are just certain truths about Maud's life that you can't get around. What I've been trying to do is balance out the darkness of her life with successes, with other positive things she might have focused on, and with an increased presence of the fictional characters which literally everyone likes. I feel, for the most part, that it's coming together. Of course, I won't know that for sure until I get to the end (because I like to write - and rewrite - in order) and read it from the beginning.
I'm almost at that point. The past few days I've been working on what I call the "season finale" scene - the last one before the very final scene after Maud's death where she's declared a Canadian of National Importance. In this "season finale" scene, everyone's storylines have to wrap up - Maud's, Chester's, Stuart's, Ewan's, and even the fictional characters. This one was always a toughie because of Maud's suicide. It's meant removing the song "Where Is My Happy Ending?", which we'd already shortened and sanitized for the bulk of the '08 run. Truth be told, even though it's a barnburner and a great vehicle for an actress, no one wants to sit and watch Maud lead herself to suicide while she boo-hoos about her life for 4½ minutes. So what I'm attempting now is a different song - a bookend to the new song at the top of Act I that consolidates her childhood. Maud's there for a part of it, but when we get into the really dark stuff, Maud's gone and it's her fictional heroines that cover it. I'm hoping that will work better than what we had before. It's not like I'm ashamed of what we had before - it was just time for a change, especially at the 11th hour of the show.
The tricky part of this "season finale" scene is that I'm also trying to better incorporate the show's throughline - the "power of imagination", or, as it's more commonly known, the law of attraction. We become what we think about. Focus on the good and we create more of it; complain about how bad it is and we create more of how bad it is. I really do believe in this theory - although I admit I have a hard time applying it. Negativity is a nasty habit to break! I've been trying to weave things in the show closer to this throughline, but I feel it's especially necessary at the end. If you're going to make a point, that's where to make it. The trick is, doing it without coming off hackneyed or preachy. Or repetitive. Plus, there's a speech of Anne's that I want to keep - it's just working into the new focus of the sequence that I'm finding a bit of a challenge. And then, it's got to time out to the underscore that's already in place. I think it'll be just fine - but sometimes it makes my head spin a bit.
Once that's done, I'll likely take this draft out somewhere by myself - I'm envisioning Maud's Cavendish Beach this time - and read the whole thing aloud to myself. And make notes and changes as I go along. Plus, since I'd skipped a few sections for lack of information, I will still have to go back and fix those up. Then Leo will read through it and he'll have his feedback; also, there were some lyrics he wanted me to take a look at, some of which I'm sure will change. After all that's over, my plan is to have a private reading done by past cast members and some that will be new to the material, just to have a nice cross-section of folks who will be able to help me determine whether or not these changes work. Still weeks away from that, though...and, like I said, we've been busy planning something else.
But that will have to wait 'til it's announced next week!
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