My dear friend Kirk Woodward, a prolific playwright, director, musician, and preacher, shared a kernel of wisdom as he encouraged me during the writing of my musical The Mountains Are Burning. He said: “Writing is a series of victories. You write something; that’s a victory. Someone says it’s good; that’s a victory.” And so on.

With that in mind, I’m chalking up another victory. In October of 2024, The Mountains Are Burning (with music by my husband and creative partner Paul Guzzone) was presented to the public for the first time in the form of a staged reading at a local cultural center.

Cast of our staged reading with our musicians and Pomona Cultural Center Director, Gde Arsa Artha.

This latest victory followed:
Victory #1 – Completing a draft of the script in 2022.
Victory #2 – Hearing the script aloud in a casual table read, also in 2022.
Victory #3 – A second table read in 2023. 

Between each of these “victories” came revisions and more revisions.

A table read entails a group of actors literally sitting around a table and reading the script without any rehearsal or direction. A staged reading takes a giant leap forward, introducing the piece to the world – granted, a small portion of the world – while still unfinished. The presentation is a performance, but with no sets, limited staging, and often a startlingly short rehearsal period. And an audience may or may not make allowances for any of these limitations. While it seems like a low-stakes exercise, for a writer, it’s a high-pressure undertaking.

The point of this is for the creators to get a sense of how the piece plays “on its feet” – how an audience responds to it, what works, what doesn’t, what needs fixing. A Q&A afterwards allows the author and composer to take in some immediate reactions. Then, the task is to assess the assessments.

After the reading, Paul and I were awash in a sea of comments. Some were tough to hear. Some made perfect sense. Some were tough to hear and made perfect sense. Ultimately, it’s up to us to decide what feedback to seriously consider and what to ignore. We also have to factor in what we ourselves discovered during the process. What will follow are still more revisions. 

The journey is long and arduous, and sometimes I ask myself, “Why am I doing this?” even though I know. So, I just keep my eyes on the prize. And what is the prize? The next victory. Each one is a stepping stone to the next, and I keep going by looking at it that way, thanks to my friend Kirk’s generous writer-to-writer advice.

“Stop worrying if your vision is new.
Let others make that decision.
They usually do.”
– Stephen Sondheim,
Sunday in the Park With George