I was this magazines theater reviewer.
Now Ive co-written a Broadway musical.
Those jobs have one big thing in common.
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Whats it like to make things for a living?
Everyone wants to know, because who doesnt want to make things?
Especially the bad way.
I once made my living as a theater critic.
At this magazine, actually.
(What if, when I worked forNew York,Id been a critical?
Would I have sounded less grandiose?
Or more radioactive?)
What people really want to know is: Whats it like to transition from cannon to fodder?
All right, then: What its like isterrifying.Primally.
Like being afraid of the dark.
Fear is the common enemy that unites critic and practitioner, performer and audience.
That and money, but money is boring just fear quantified, really so lets stick with fear.
A note on the time line: I didnt run away from criticism to join the circus.
Thats how agonizingly, Afghanistanically long developing a Broadway musical can take.
(Which is absurd and a subject for another essay.)
While I was still atEntertainment Weekly,Id co-written a small Off Broadway show (Gutenberg!
And on both sides, you find fear.
A value had been placed on my caprices and cortical misfires, and that value was nonzero.
This seemed like a bank error in no ones favor.
Which brings us to the fear I felt.
Most nights on the aisle, it was all I had to work with.
Here comes the dark.
Aaaaand … Oh, God.
What am I looking at?
Am I missing something?
I just missed something while I was thinking,Am I missing something?
Am I getting it?
Maybe this will work.
Wait, Im not getting it.
Is there nothing to get but Im too cowardly to say so?
Oh, God, the acts ending and I still dont wait, no, its not.
Did theymeanto do that?
I have to assume they did.
When will this end?
Because I need time.
And another dollar slice.
To decide what it was.
Oh, that bit was wonderful!
Oh, butthat bitwas … well, I dont know what that was.
Nowthat,I know I hate.
Maybe in a good way?
I cant read the notes I just wrote.
Did I write part of them on the armrest?
No one saw.He had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.Relief.
What can I say?
What in Gods name do I have to say that isnt a news crawl of my thoughts and feelings?
That isnt a summary?
That isnt a dodge or a blurb or a cheap shot?
That hasnt been said 6 billion times before?
I made a case.
I think it worked.
I think maybe …it worked!?
Criticism is a craft built for one.
I never owned a quill.
I never stopped being afraid, and, to an extent, I was grateful for that fear.
It kept me aware.
Which brings me back toBeetlejuice.
Beetlejuiceis, to an extent, a story of fear.
(To an extent,I emphasize.
Its also got a giant Sandworm.)
(That, plus Sandworms.)
Ultimately they find meaning in each other because theyre whats there.
Well, thats any group of creatives sitting around a table.
(The book of a musical comprises the story and dialogue and all that lovely connective gristle.)
Its all very blank-page terrifying, but to paraphrase a famous French bumper sticker, Help Is Other People.
And the only way to conquer the fear ofWhat is this?is to have company.
Sometimes a blessed relief.
Sometimes a collapsing Centralia crater of sulfurous and consuming self-doubt.
All of us united by fear and its opposite.
So, no, I dont think of myself as a rehabilitated critic.
I think of myself as terrified and interested and humbled and exhilarated in roughly equal proportions.
And we all have an interest in illuminating that moment, meeting it with bravery.
And perhaps a Sandworm.
We all have an interest inMaybe this will work.
Beetlejuicebegins previews on March 28 at the Winter Garden Theatre for an April 25 opening.
