The Reading

So, First draft was complete. And the reading happened.

I was very nervous at the outset. I imagined everyone I knew saying that my writing sucked, and this was a bad idea. I envisioned Sean and Christine Fitzgerald grabbing me and screaming, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY WORK?"

But none of that happened.

My worst fear is that it wouldn't be funny. It is, after all, a "Musical Comedy." I didn't do that thing that I imagine comedy writers do: Intentionally write jokes. But everyone was laughing, and having a grand ol' time. They were rooting for the right characters and booing the awful characters.

After a discussion about details that need to be clarified, (Employer would probably not fire someone via e-mail) we got into the story and characters. They seemed to approve of Kim and Joe staying together, and of Dan and Tiffany staying friends.

The big surprise, was that they all HATE Rob, but, strangely, they want to know more about him. Specifically, they felt that we need to see him interact with Tiffany more. We need to see him be a smarmy dick when he's around Dan, but see him be ultra nice around Tiff. We don't want Tiff to be falling for his game because she's naive or gullible; we want to see that ROB is the manipulator.

Also, we reinforced what I already suspected, which was we need more character development all around. What does Christine do, exactly? How old are these people? Where do they meet? How do they know each other?

So now, back to the drawing board. Writing some songs, and tweaking the script.