Are You Writing a Bad Book or the Wrong Book?

According to Sondheim

Hello friends,

As you might have seen online, I’m on a theatre kick recently. I’m seeing a bunch of Broadway and off-Broadway stuff in NYC because I am lucky and game to see just about anything. Last night, my BFF and excellent fellow literary agent Jim McCarthy and I saw Give Me Carmelita Tropicana which was amazing and featured some truly artful and impressive giant goldfish puppetry.

I’m endeavoring to read more books about theatre to fill in the gaps because I didn’t grow up a theatre kid. I did not have a Les Mis shirt. I wasn’t obsessed with RENT (the play or the movie). But that’s ok. That’s what they make books and movies for.

The show that really got me into theatre in NYC was the 2008 Broadway revival of Sunday in the Park with George at the Roundabout Theatre. I won’t bore you with why I loved it so, but let’s just say it resonated a lot with me at the time. (n.b. if a boy puts “Marry Me a Little” from Company on a mix for you, run.) Sunday is still my favorite Sondheim musical, if not my favorite show overall.

I am listening to the audiobook of Putting it Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I created Sunday in the Park with George by James Lapine, who wrote the book [i.e. play/dialog part] for Sunday, as well as designed and directed it. In it, Sondheim said: