Zac with the original cast from "An Army of One"
No one person can produce a show alone. You learn this lesson very quickly as a playwright. It takes a ton of people to make live theater possible. It starts with having friends you can trust to provide you with honest feedback during the writing process. It takes a theater organization that is willing to take chances on original scripts. It takes a director who is willing to work with relatively unknown writers and collaborate on taking a new work from page to stage. It takes courageous actors who are willing to invent a character in the flesh for the first time. And it absolutely takes an entire staff of stage hands, prop designers, lighting directors and operators, stage managers, sound operators and designers, costume designers, and a slew of other people you don’t think about: administrative staff to promote and schedule the show, poster designers, ticket sales staff, and the web person to add your show to the website. The list literally goes on and on…
Play writing is an insular process that, when things go right, results in a collaborative effort to get a script onto the stage. It is an amazing thing to behold and as a playwright it changes your perspective on theater. The first time you see your words spoken by a cast of talented actors performing in a space created specifically to present your work in front of an audience… it is a magical experience that changes your life forever.
I’m very fortunate that I’ve gotten to experience that process more than once. I plan to continue doing that for the rest of my life.