FAIL!
Back in 2001, my theatre company was offered a lot of money to produce a certain, specific show for a certain, specific producer. And my gut said, “No. Don’t do it, the money would be great, but this is a bad idea.” I moved ahead anyway and did the deal, and when the producer started talking about moving the location for the venue, I knew we were sunk. I may not ever have been the best artistic director in town, but I knew a bad idea when I saw it, and this was a bad, bad, bad idea.
I let myself get bullied into something I did not believe in.
For money.
You know what happened, right? Absolute catastrophe. Now in fairness, the actors and crew did a great job despite our circumstances, which included a run that was something absurd, like Sunday afternoon to Wednesday night. (No theatre would ever, ever, ever would do that, certainly not at our level. Friday and Saturday nights were our bread and butter.) We performed twenty-plus miles away from our home base. All together, we sold maybe 50 tickets, if that.
It was a failure. Not because of the money – the company didn’t personally lose any cash in the deal – but because I didn’t trust myself and say what needed to be said. Scary old guys came around, talking fame and fortune, and I ignored my instincts and went ahead with it. In 22 years of theatre, it stands as my biggest (personal) artistic failure.
That includes blowing more than $20,000 in less than three years on my second theatre company. Never gonna see that money again! Never did get any of the Super Cool Awards that our town hands out.
But I don’t regret not winning those awards, and I don’t regret spending that money.
I very much regret saying yes to something I didn’t believe in.
That’s a failure.
I don’t know where my writing career is headed. Okay. I’ll control what I can. But whatever ends up happening, I sure as hell won’t let someone else dictate terms to me again like I’ve done before. Because even if that one bad show had been a wild success, it wouldn’t have been fun. Privately, it would have felt like, Man, I don’t know how we dodged that bullet. That’s not the sign of a success, that’s a sign of relief.
