Fail in order to succeed

You may have noticed how much I admire John August. I think his screenwriting blog is a treasure, as are the glimpses of his vantage point throughout the making of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish and his directorial debut, The Nines. I really enjoyed this article about what he learned from failure. I think we all have stories like this one, but it is only in hindsight that we can take these lessons. You can’t warn someone off of this mistake, that failure. You can’t protect people from a spectacular failure of their own, because to do so, would rob them of all the knowledge that comes with it.

I think the most I ever learned about directing a play came from the play that I screwed up so badly, I had to cancel it two weeks before opening night. Part of the problem was, half of the cast was not at all invested in the show and thus would skip rehearsals with no warning, come unprepared and three weeks before the show was to go up, had not memorized a single line. The small crew was equally unreliable, and my stage manager was a much more effective saboteur then SM. (He insulted cast members, fired two crew members without consulting me and “lost” all the set designs when they were due to our adviser.) Priority number one from that semester on was “find good people.” Whatever else went wrong in the future (and stuff did go wrong,) if you have an invested set of people, you can make magic happen.

This was the first and last play I ever agreed to direct without reading the script first. It was definitely the last time I let myself over-commit and pretend that I could direct, pull together costume design, makeup and set design and that the lights would just take care of them selves. Exactly one year after the cancelled show didn’t open, I directed an amazing production of The Laramie Project, a project that still tops my list of greatest achievements in life. Had I not failed so miserably a year before, I would not have held out for the best cast possible in casting, would not have worked so hard to outsource the sound production, special effects, prop management, costume design etc. The show was exhausting and emotionally draining, but people on campus, 3 years later, still tell me it was one of the best shows they have seen here.