Dear Wife Joy and I saw Wall-E last night, too, and were similarly enthused. Usually, I don’t like science fiction, anything set in an unhappy future, but in this I wasn’t troubled by the magical powers suddenly springing up that you didn’t know about before.
I’d tell the headed-for-NYMF-ers that the experience is going to cost more than they can accurately estimate. There will be people who will do their best to be helpful, and others who will do their best to do you in. Counter the latter by staffing your show with a brilliant team that has Broadway and/or NYMF experience. Lucky for this year’s crop, they took my suggestion and cut the number of shows by a third. But it’s still a marketplace: a hard-working publicist and promotion team is needed to create public interest in seeing your show. The actors will be of a higher caliber than you can imagine: people who’ve been on Broadway again and again: if they offer an idea, take it, gratefully. If you’re the writer, the most important thing you can do is to keep your focus on the writing. Never stop improving your text and score. Any “little” flaw is likely to present itself under the bright lights of actual performance, so you can’t afford to leave in a weak joke, a false rhyme, a nonsensical chord progression, or a misplaced pirouette. Improve your show every day and, when the world sees it, the rewards will be great.
