Selecting the Next Project

Maybe this article could be called, "Prioritizing the Next Project" instead. The point is, when a script is complete, is in rehearsals, has been submitted to a publisher or producer, or is in the process of being published, what do you do next?

There's a bittersweet void that appears when a script of yours reaches one of these plateaus. While the script may not be in a final form, it is nonetheless at a point where you can stop thinking about it, at least for a while.

Creating a script generally takes up a lot of your conscious thinking time. I know when I'm immersed into a script, as I wake, eat, drive, walk, read, watch, and go to sleep, that script is always somewhere in my mind, looking for insight, suggestions, improvements, or other appropriate input.

However, when the point is reached where the script needs work, review, or performance by other people, I have to let it go, at least temporarily. When the review or performance is over, I will no doubt be rewriting to some degree. But until that time, this script has to be let go, to begin (or continue) its own life.

So now I look at what's next. In my notebook of play ideas, with more than 200 various entries, ideas, snippets, plots, characters, and other musings, there is so much material to choose from that I must carefully decide where to place my efforts for the next project. The choice is not always mine to make alone.

Sometimes, as has recently happened, a theater group that performed one of my plays is interested in another. Repeat business in any field is a good sign. I wrote an old-fashioned melodrama for a group, and once that was over, they now want me to write a Christmas play for them. As it happens, I have a Christmas play that I've been mulling over, and with some minor changes to cast and plot, it will do nicely for this group, as well as have a lot of potential for other groups and publishers.

Sometimes the climate or timing is right for a certain play or type of play to be performed. 9/11 changed a lot of lives. Wars change lives. Illnesses change lives. Politics change lives. Extreme weather changes lives. These things also frequently change the way people view issues and people. A certain combination of events can create a climate that may place a script or plot idea into a much more interesting and attractive light than it may have been in only a few months or weeks earlier.

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