Playwright Joe DiPietro talks about the terror of showing his work to an audience for the first time. He learned to treat that fear as fuel, using the pressure to sharpen his writing and deliver his best work despite knowing it won't be perfect.
When you share that work that you've done for the first time, right, what's it like?
Well, you know, when you write a play or a musical, you spend a long time, sometimes a year, sometimes years writing it, and generally the first time especially that you present it in front of an audience, it's terrifying because you spend all this time with your thoughts or your collaborators going back and forth, and when you put it in front of an audience, you suddenly have this thought of, what if this was a huge mistake? What if this was terrible? What if there's a fatal flaw that we're not going to be able to fix? And you know it's not going to be perfect the first time, but you hope at least that it's 60% there or there's something that you can really sort of work on. So, you know, it's— and as I've gotten more experience, I've come to really like enjoy that part of the process. Like, I understand the terror and the nerves are just— you know, I'm nervous because it means a lot to me. And I just sort of view it as a challenge to make sure it's as good as it can be for this first presentation. I don't think I've always been like this, but I've learned at least in theater as a writer when you're presenting, you have to enjoy the pressure. Like, you have to use the pressure to just raise your game, to bring your A-game. So that's what I try to do. I try to really like, like, like live up to the challenge. And now when I have something for the first time, I am partly terrified, but I'm more excited about it.
And how do you— do you sit and watch the audience? Do you watch the show? What are you watching the very first time?
Oh yeah, well, there's always 10 minutes where I'm just like in a daze and I don't know what's happening about anyone, anything. But then it clicks in generally. But no, I try to sit amongst the audience for the first time, and you know, generally it's a series of readings, so I try to really do two things. I try to A, actually have my own opinions and really focus on what the actors are doing and how the story is coming across or not coming across. But I'm also, especially because I often write comedies, is I'm very aware of who's in that first audience and the audience reaction. And you know, so it's different if it's, you know, like an industry reading and you have 30 industry people, it's going to be a very different reaction, probably a little more muted, than if it's like a reading in a theater and you have 200 avid theatergoers who want to be part of the process. And that's telling you it's going to be a more lively audience. But, you know, if you've been around, you can— and, you know, I believe in being honest with myself about an audience reaction. So I can tell when they're laughing, I can tell when they're not laughing, and sometimes You know, sometimes I think, oh, sometimes it's the performance, sometimes some of the casting or the directing isn't right, but sometimes it's the writing. So I always try to attack things from a writer's point of view and fix what I can fix.
TikTok Mental Health Awareness Month Video from The Magicians' Society of Manhattan | TA Spring 2022
