As a "creative" wordsmith I work in a lot of different verbal sub-media, like books, this blog, stageplays, speaking, and so on. There are two different categories here, tho– in writing a book or speaking, it’s a one-on-one communication– between me and you, the book buyer, or me and you, the person in the audience. But with a play, there is always an intermediary or two between me and you, which is usually the director of the show and/or the actor speaking the lines.
This work in writing plays has been, for me, a most interesting and rare glimpse into how creative people function . . . and has been, for me at least, a bit surprising and quite fascinating.
Here is a question: If you were doing a symphony by Beethoven or Mozart, and they were still alive, and you had their e mail address or phone number, would you or would you not call them up to ask for clarification of how they wanted their pieces played? This is always a hot topic amongst musicians (i.e., what the composer intended), and musicologists spend their lives poring over original manuscripts trying to answer such questions. But with virtually no exceptions, I have never once had an actor or director call me up and asked ME what I intended. They don’t want to hear from me, period. (No doubt, after I am dead and buried, they will all wish I was around to ask questions– but only then.)
As a playwright and occasional impresario/ producer, managing the creative energy of other people to the best effect has always been a topic of major interest to me. With my kid’s orchestra shows, I am essentially entirely dependent upon the producers of the show to bring it to life. Of course, I am very concerned with the outcome. But I also learned this nasty people management lesson at Pops: whenever a conductor tried to throw too much weight around they would get a massive passive aggressive response back. So what to do?
I have learned that as a creative manager of other creatives, I must think in terms of limits. Specifically, limits on myself. In the script I have set down the words I want spoken, and after that, well, it’s not my job, and I have to just accept what they do. If I did my job right, it should be really hard for them to screw it up. Further, they should be challenged, or even inspired, by the level of my efforts to at least match them.
What I have discovered and experienced is really quite wonderful. Since my "Peter vs the Wolf" has never been done on national television or in the movies, both the people staging it and their audiences have had no preconceived notion of what it is or how it should look. That lack of anything to conform to lets their imaginations run wild. Just one example, in one production the wolf spoke in a russian accent. Of course, it’s a russian story, it’s a russian wolf, so of course he should talk like that. DUH. I loved it. And every time some director or actor has added something really cute or fun like that, where possible I have stolen it and put it in the script.
But my magnanimity in letting people do their thing is apparently somewhat rare. When I met the guy who was to be the Wolf in a recent off-shore production, I could tell he was a little afraid of meeting me, as he just assumed that I was going to abuse my power and tell him how to play the role. He was shocked when I put limit on myself and absolutely refused to direct him. I mean, sure, I told him some stories about how I wrote the show, but I made it clear that as far as I was concerned, this was all between him and the audience. That audience connection was key to the success of the show and I didn’t want to interfere with that. (As I say again and again and again, connection is the goal, not perfection.) I threw all the responsibility in his lap, and he rose the challenge, He was so thrilled that I trusted him, he redoubled his efforts in playing the role, and added a whole new layer to the character that I had never seen before and the audience loved the show. (I learned this from Henry Mancini, by the way– I never saw a jaded group of musicians, myself included, so eager to please a conductor with their best efforts. I tell that story in Real Men Don’t Rehearse.)
I suppose the thing about many people in creative roles is that they get territorial, This is because, for most people, opportunities to be creative, in their job anyway, are few and far between (as there is usually a nervous micro-managing client or higher-up who is over-directing them). So when they get that opportunity, they tend to close down. They don’t want to share it or give any control away.
I have learned not to fight that energy. Instead, I simply work with it by giving specific boundaries and limits in the written script and then standing back and letting them do it the way they want to do it. This creates shock and awe and very often, gratitude, which leads them to work ever harder. More often than not I get "synergy" (i mean high degrees of positive input and team cooperation) happening, and while my shows often get staged in ways I never intended or envisioned, very often it exceeds what I could have done on my own – by a country mile. People are more open to help and teamwork when they have more to do than they can really handle.
For those who need such things, here is one verbal template:
"Here is the task [insert goals]. Now, YOU must achieve goals v,w, and x, by day y, without spending more than z. Beyond that, how you do it is your business. If it succeeds, you get paid and I get the credit. If it fails, you get the blame."
This approach takes guts, but it is amazingly effective.
www.justinlocke.com
