Have I Got a Play for You; Slate, 11/25/16

Jordana Williams, Slate; Have I Got a Play for You:

"Flipping now through our patchwork golem of a script, aghast, I estimate that 80 percent of what we performed actually appears in the original Company. We left lengthy passages essentially unaltered, but fully rewrote others. Even when the lines and lyrics were unchanged, we took subtler liberties, like converting “Being Alive,” Bobby’s solo meditation on loneliness and longing, into a full company number featuring three-part harmony...

So, where were the grown-ups when all of this was happening? Why didn’t they stop us, or at least advise us that our violations of copyright ranged from artistically disastrous to legally actionable? Now that I have kids of my own, I can guess why they stepped back and let us go hog wild. They knew we’d have the rest of our lives to question and edit ourselves (and acquire permission before monkeying with someone else’s art). The heedlessness we displayed would be repellent in an adult, but is arguably kind of awesome in a bunch of kids.

My son is working on his first musical, the soon-to-be smash hit Army Chickens. He’s a very practical boy, so early on, he came to my husband and me with a bunch of questions about budgets and ticket prices and actor pay and set construction needs. “No!” I shouted, probably too vehemently. “Just write the thing however you like.” And why not? He’ll never know what his wildest dreams are if he doesn’t start out as if nothing is impossible."