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AlchemyCynthia's Column September 2002 Magic happened. I am thrilled to report that the experience of writing the musical in England far exceeded even my own wildly romantic imagination. One of the most wonderful things about life is that you can create experiences like this out of whole cloth. Out of thin air. As I wrote last month, when three of us decided to write this musical about the Warner Brothers, (based on Harry Warner's granddaughter's book called Hollywood Be Thy Name) we agreed on England in July as the place and time to do it. Henry Marsh, our composer, is English, lives near Bath and we brought the party to him. I found a wonderful manor house on the internet. Sometimes these things are disappointing. I have rented cottages in England before. You imagine the pictured "Rose Cottage" for example out in the countryside and it turns out to be in a suburb or next to a busy highway. But this house surpassed all expectations. It is an old stone manor house called "The Moretons" and it stands in ten acres of gardens, which are themselves surrounded by fields and orchards. The big house is the one we rented, and it is surrounded by a few smaller stone buildings that in other centuries were stables, servants cottages, gate house, etc. which have been transformed into guest cottages with climbing roses twining round them. There is even an indoor heated swimming pool my kids were thrilled about. The main floor of the house had a huge kitchen (you can still see where the big kitchen fireplace used to be), a sitting room, music room with grand piano and an expansive dining room with antique table that seats 14. As we worked, we migrated to the dining room and took over the gleaming table with scene cards and research material. And six bedrooms upstairs. From the bedroom windows you could watch families of bunnies hopping around on the lawns. Let's talk turkey here for a minute. It may seem like this is something we could do because we are fabulously wealthy people, but it is amazingly affordable. The big house, in high season, rents for 950 pounds a week. In last month's dollars this was about $1500 per week. David (lyricist/director) and I split this, which brings it down to $750 per week, or $107 per day for me and my two teens. In London we three were jammed in one tiny room for $243 per day, while at the Moretons everyone had their own bedroom and bath as well. So you get the picture. And yes, I know. We are pretty fabulous. (In low season, the house goes for about one third less!) I am a big proponent of writing retreats. Holing up in hotels and the like. As a productive writer during the early child-raising years it is the system that really carried me through. When my children were small and I was living in L. A. , about three times a year I would go to a hotel far enough away that I could not be summoned back for anything less than truly huge emergencies (usually Santa Barbara or San Diego) and I'd do three day writing marathons, where half a script would be written in one big rush of energy. I would stay in fabulous places like the Hotel Del Coronado on the beach in San Diego, or one of the cottages at San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara where you can actually sleep in the very same room where Jack and Jackie Kennedy honeymooned, and Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh as well. (If you go there, ask for one of the adjoining "Hill" cottages, or both if you can afford them. J&J had both. ) When I moved to Oregon in the early 1990's, I had a house at Cannon Beach that I used for this same purpose. And now, "The Moretons" outside of the little village of Bredon , near Tewkesbury, which is near the M5 motorway. About 23 miles west of Stratford-on-Avon. When I used to power-write in hotels, I would check in carrying a card table, folding chair, computer, and bags of writing supplies, like Cokes and loud snack foods. Unfortunately it is a scientific fact I have proven myself personally many times, that mid-afternoon when you have written yourself out, and are depleted to the point of catatonia, with a short nap followed by the carefully combined chemistry of sugar and caffeine, you can get another two hours of good work in. And sometimes loud, crunchy foods work well for this. (Like carrot sticks, peanut M&M's, corn chips. ) In packing to go to England I had to rethink the writing supplies. I could get edible writing supplies locally, of course. (And in England these tend to be mid-afternoon tea and very loud McVittie's ginger biscuits. )As to actual writing supplies, I chickened out on bringing the laptop. I didn't want to have to bring a printer. And I don't trust writing that doesn't exist on a piece of paper. Especially when the English electricity is unlike ours. What if somewhere in the connection between computer and cord and surge suppressor and converter and wall socket there's a glitch that disappears all our work? My nightmares are made of such things. So I opted to revert to yellow pads and pens and packed a dozen of each. And 3X5 cards in several colors. Then the research material. Here's the dilemma. You have to start with research. This project, like most scripts, exists in a real world that has to be real before it can lift off into larger than life realms. So the essentials were the book we are basing the musical on, Hollywood Be Thy Name by Cass Warner Sperling. The big coffee table book of the history of Warner Brothers studio. Must have that. And the inspiring Time-Life series called This Fabulous Century. We need three volumes of that, since our story starts in 1905 and climaxes with the Jazz Singer, the first sound movie, first movie musical (and produced by the Warner Brothers) in 1927. So three of these big books (1900-1910, 1910-1920 and 1920-1930. ) Okay. These books alone weigh 21 pounds. I boxed them up and took them to the post office. Do you know what a box of books costs to send to England in one week's time? $89! I was shocked. I lugged the box back home and unpacked it. And each of us got an extra 7 pounds of books stuffed into our suitcases. I also threw in a couple of how-to-write-a-musical books just in case. So there we were. Our first day. Spirits high. All of us in love with each other. Thrilled to be there. With a stack of blank cards and empty notepads. How does this happen? This is the interesting part to me. How does it change from the nothingness to the somethingness. Gold, not just from straw or lead but from air itself. That is the real magic, as far as I'm concerned. For me it starts with vision. Seeing things that aren't there. Invisible things. We nestled down into the couches and kicked our shoes off (except for those of us still in pajamas. ) And mused. Let me introduce you to the team. You all know me. I'm writing the book of the musical. The libretto. Then there is David Bell, our lyricist and director/choreographer. He has been completely immersed in musical theatre for more than twenty years. He does as many as six a year and has theatre homes across America including Ford's Theatre in D. C. , the Alliance in Atlanta and all the theatres in Chicago where he holds records for most awards for Directing and Choreography of anyone in the history of the windy city. He created the closing ceremony for the Olympics in Barcelona. He is tall, handsome, and eternally young. An amazing guy. He and Henry have done 12 shows together, all of them produced. David's had three musicals in the West End, London's version of Broadway. It was unquestionably brilliant of me to hook my wagon onto David's star. Henry is a dear Englishman and an amazing composer. He has rumpled, graying blond hair and wire-rimmed specs, a little like an English professor. He used to be in a rock band in the ‘70's called Sailor. They had several albums and a greatest hits record. They topped the charts in Scandinavian countries. Henry has written music for all kinds of things. In all styles. He has the kind of electronic equipment that allow him to be an entire orchestra and a choir all by himself in his studio, which is in an old stone barn building beside his childhood farm house near Bath. So the magic goes like this: We chat and flip through research books. I'll see a 1910 photograph of street kids in button shoes and knickerbockers and get an image of 12 year old Jack Warner singing to keep the audience pacified while his brother Sam glues the broken pieces of The Great Train Robbery back together so the show can go on. I see the kid in shoes two sizes too big for him, handed down from his brothers who were several years older. David will see a photograph of a New York ghetto circa 1910 with crowds of immigrants and laundry stretched across the fire escapes and an opening musical number will begin to come to him. Then I'll comment that the family came from Russia and the next thing you know Henry's got a theme with electronic balalaikas that makes us weep. I start jotting ideas down on 3X5 cards. White for scenes, pink for possible musical numbers. Some get discarded. Cards start to stretch for six feet across the antique dining table. The gaps begin to fill in. And soon the cards show a complete show. Thirty-six scenes and 18 musical numbers. Two or three times we have magical peak experiences. David will be talking to me, I'll be looking at him and the words he's saying will disappear under a light buzzing sound. Then I'll see an image, a scene from the musical-to-be, and when he stops talking, I'll say what I see and all three of us will have tears blink into our eyes at the same instant. And the hair goes up on the back of my neck. At the end of nine days, we all went home. And now we send scenes and songs back and forth across the airwaves. David is in New York, Henry's in Rood Ashton, and I am here. But I'm not alone in my room with a blank screen any more. For the guys art with me. Hollywood Be Thy Name. Cynthia Whitcomb is president of Willamette Writers, and has had 29 of her screenplays produced. She is author of The Writers' Guide to Writing Your Screenplay and The Writers' Guide to Selling Your Screenplay. She teaches screenwriting classes at Portland State University.and through Willamette Writers. |