10 days til Showtime. Putting together the Playbill.

So, I am putting together the playbill, as the title of this post says. And it's leading me to one inexorable question: How did I get here?

I've been riding high on this wave of insistent, pressing busyness for weeks now. Months before that I was in the throws of tortuous uncertainty: would my play be good enough? Good enough to not embarrass me in front of everyone I've ever known?

Before that were those couple of weeks in May when I'd first signed on to do the play and it was all still abstract enough to not worry me.

Before that was January to April, when I worked on a couple rewrites, submitted an earlier and much different version to the Geva reading series and got rejected.

Before that was 2011. October to be exact, when I wrote the first draft freehand in a spiral notebook, sitting on my front porch on a chilly day.

It was a one-act play called The Life of Leo Wool, and Leo was still an aging literary critic with a lot to learn about people, but his story was much different. The original version had a Game Show Host and a Studio Audience circa 1960 who do a demonic "This is Your Life" forcing Leo to confront some early transgressions against women before he can finish his memoirs. That story ends with the book being closed and him walking out the door to deliver the manuscript.

In that version, Maura was Leo's salvation, with her ambivalent yet unconditional love. Through all the versions, that pretty much never changed. But almost everything else did. A subsequent version of the script had the studio audience turn into three people who, instead of jeering Leo, would come up, like on the show This Is Your Life, and make Leo uncomfortably confront them. They'd be a writer, a colleague, and some sort of co-ed he took advantage of. I decided that the only way Leo would get out of that purgatory would be to write. He would write, they would jeer, but eventually his attempt at authentic expression would win him heaven.

But it still wasn't quite right. Because I didn't really want to say that a critic was someone who was simply a failed artist. A popular statement for artists to make, but one I don't necessarily agree with. And not what I wanted to put into the world. It had been done often enough. No, I wanted to say something else about the life of Leo Wool.

An early sketch of Leo by Jeremy Sniatecki

Then I found him, Harold Bloom. In a Paris Review interview I almost gave away. Sitting in the donation pile (not unlike the donation pile that ends up in the play) was the answer. I snatched it from the jaws of oblivion and in the character of the real-life Harold Bloom, I found a body for Leo to inhabit. Someone whose immensity or charisma and charm made his harsh and unbending criticism seductive and even appealing.

I learned a lot about Harold Bloom during the month of July, mostly while my boyfriend was playing Ultimate Frisbee and I was sitting at a picnic table at Ellison Park. The rest I learned by reading articles online and thinking back to stories my professors had told me about him when I was an undergraduate. He seemed like the kind of person you'd be happy to read, but unhappy to share a small car with.

Through Bloom, I was able to pare down who Leo was and more of what it was I really wanted to say about criticism and literature. Bloom has spent much of his life explaining and defending his critical stances and he is often eloquent, even hilarious. He makes his cases well, and I wanted Leo to make his cases well too.

As an editor, I spend a lot of my time making manuscripts "better" which implies there is a better and a worse when it comes to writing. This alone puts me on the side of the people who don't see everything as having the same intrinsic value. Yet as a writer, I know how important it is to be encouraged.

I had a friend for a long time who didn't believe any significant work was being done by modern writers. He suggested I get a PhD, teach in Korea, pretty much do anything but be a writer. I considered this person my best friend and I understood his arguments. I believe he wanted what he thought was best for me and just didn't understand that if you need to write, you need to write. Just as Leo Wool doesn't understand it either. And that's okay. It doesn't mean he is a failed writer. It means he has a different role to play in society. Working through Leo Wool has also helped me work through my feelings toward this complicated, brilliant, and trouble man who was my closest friend.

Once I got to know my arguments and theme down, and once the characters started to come more and more alive, it was easier to write and tighten play. Each revision got longer yet more economical, focused, tightly woven. I knew where I wanted it to end, and I knew where it began. I know who was coming through the door and what their arguments were. It was just a matter of exploring those arguments through drama, identifiable human relationships. And a dose of humor, with which I had a lot of fun. It's always fun to go through after you got a scene down and put in the jokes. It's good when dealing with heavy topics, too, to subvert your own melodrama.

I got great feedback along the way from my director Sandi Henschel, from Daniel Herd, who is my boyfriend but also the first person to read the play out loud with me. His approval made a world of difference in my confidence. And he did things not every boyfriend would do. Like storyboard the first scene with me a half dozen times. Or act out the different parts in his little apartment. I'll never get over the corn pone Southern accent he gave Judith, the feminist Yale professor.

Then the final version on to Raquel Pidal and Buffy Armstrong Leonard, two dear friends who also happen to be sharp writers and great writing buddies. And to Michael Haugh, my tenth grade English teacher who has become a friend and mutual support. He asked to read the script and that was a big deal for me. He was a formidable and fascinating man when I was sixteen. Now I see him as a great man. And a truly great teacher.

So, I have to thank these wonderful people in the playbill. And I am thrilled to do it. And I also have to thank Melyssa Hall, whose poem is recited by Nadine, and who was a bit of a muse for me when developing Nadine - the first of the three writers to become clear in my head.

And I have to discuss how Rochester-based actor Jack Simel, for whom I wrote the play, brought me Sandi Henschel. And then Sandi brought this amazing cast of actors who I have heard described as the "old pros." Sandi brought my play credibility. She brought the cool kids to the party. She is a veteran director and could have taken on many other projects - or given herself a break these last three months - but she saw something in Leo Wool that she liked and so she put her rather formidable force behind it. I am very grateful.

And last, but also first, is Jeremy Sniatecki. I say "first" because it was his logo that made all the promotional aspects start to come together in June. His amazing design, based on one brief phone conversation, immediately and perfectly captured the sadness, stodginess, loneliness, and yet likability of Leo Wool. Jeremy is a high-level illustrator and designer who has offered his talent and time pro bono in the creation of the logo, the poster, the rack cards, and, as soon as I get the text down, the playbill. His talent, like Sandi's reputation, has given the play credibility. And all this has helped push me to write the best script I can. And it has helped us bring in donations to cover the production costs.

So, here I am. Time to write the program. Time to list the actors and the characters they are playing. Time to collect the head shots and the bios. Time to say the special thanks, and collect the ads from those who donated at that perk level. Time to list the donors like they do at the backs of programs for non-profit events. And time to write a little history about The Life of Leo Wool and how we got here. And how much has gone into just a simple staged reading for a Fringe Festival. And how much I've loved it. Loved all of it. Even when I wanted to quit (ask Dan or Raquel, they'll tell you) because I was so afraid I would fail.

Thank you to everyone; the many people who have supported simply by asking about the show, listening to me pontificate about it, reposting a link on their Facebook, or buying a ticket. And thank you to Daniel Herd, in his role as Fringe liaison to Writers & Books, for listening to me complain and worry and ask questions at all times of day, especially when you were off the clock.

And thank you to Writers & Books for giving me so much: the writing workshops I teach there, the clients who have found my services through you, the friendships I have made there, and the reduced-price rehearsal space. You have been more than accommodating. My relationship, my community, my students, my clients, and now my play, all seem to emerge through Writers & Books. Writers & Books really is a great treasure to me and the Rochester community.

Thank you to all those who donated. Your names and thanks will be in the playbill. Thank you to anyone I've missed.

Come to the play! It's going to be magic.