Making Christmas Part 3: The Six-Million Dollar Script

While copies of the first draft were out discovering the world and being read for the first time by fresh eyes, the original was being torn apart by yours truly.

When I had finished my evisceration, I had some very strong scenes, some funny dialogue, and some "dead" characters left in the script. By "dead" characters, I mean characters which really serve no function to the larger story. The best way to figure out a character's function is take them out of the scene and see how it works without them. So, at this point, the script was like taking a large piece of glass and putting it in a bag, then smashing the bag against the ground. I ended up with some disconnected, but very sharp and though shards. This was the good stuff.

Now I just had to put it back together but make it better, stronger, faster. I had the technology and, fortunately, some honest friends. The notes had started to come in and the general consensus was that it was funny and could work but only in that over-the-top-sitcom way I described in the last post. I was tempted to go down that route to wackiness with it (by the way, "Route to Wackiness" is going to be the title of  my Overtime memoirs) but I've been there before with christmas (Christmastime at the Overtime) and wanted to see what else I could do.

Don't get me wrong, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year is still plenty wacky, silly, and funny but it's not absurd and fantastical. I knew I had an good story on my hands that just needed some finessing and fat-trimming.

This is when I started to talk to Justin Laughlin. Justin Laughlin is a friend of mine who I conned into directing graciously volunteered to direct this show. We laid out the remains of the script on the table and started to rebuild it. Justin gave me two very good ideas which lead to me making everything else work like Swiss clock.

Justin wanted to focus on the performances in the show and make it more character-based. One way to to this and reduce the amount of characters at the same time was to take remove one character completely and give the relationship she had to another character. In the original script there was a set of neighbors who lived next door to the main character's, Albert, Lindsey, and their teenage daughter, Mindi. Mindi was very flirtatious toward Billy and ended up making out with him during the christmas party; causing it to break up. It was fine but it the idea of the flirtly daughter always felt like a cheap gag to me.

Justin's idea was to remove the daughter and make Lindesy an ex-girlfriend of Billy's who has moved on with her life. This makes both characters richer and adds a nice bit of tension whenever they are on stage together. I went further with the character "killing" and removed Albert, Lindsey, and Mindi from the script completly and gave some of their functions to Bob and Mary. Bob and Mary were originally smaller characters who were mainly there to make A Christmas Carol joke. Albert was a know-it-all college professor type and when I transfer his functions to Bob, I made him more of a trivia-loving Cliff Clavin type (Cliff Clavin was a character form a sitcom called Cheers. Google it, kids!) Mindi and Lindsey vanished and their functions went to Mary, making her a far more interesting character with an actual background.

Now, this left me with the problem of how Billy breaks up the party since there is now no daughter to make out with. this was Justin's other idea about a fight breaking out between Billy and George about their father. Earlier in the script they had an extended conversation about their father and what he meant to them. Now, I split that idea into two, which was the best decision I made for the story. Each brother would have very different beliefs about their father and both be right. This revelation would run right through to the end of the play, running over and "killing" two more unnecessary characters in it's wake, and giving me a complete non-dues ex machina ending and give the characters a complete arc. It always amazes me how one little idea can lead to an explosion of other ideas and they will all fall into place. Like David Mack said, "My ideas are smarter than I am", so let them do the work.

The other character who was changed the most in the next draft was Karen Moore, George's wife. When writing the first draft, I was surprised about how much she kept coming back into the script and becoming a bigger character. She was very antagonistic toward Billy and had several interactions with him. Unfortunately, with the other changes to the script, the focus of the show became the relationship between the brothers and some of her scenes were cut or switch to George. That or I'm just a sexist prick. You decide. Sorry, Karen.

So, now I had a working script, ready to hand to actors and hold auditions. There would still be some more changes based on what actors brought to the script, but more on that later.

Linkage:

Tickets for the show can be bought at The Overtime Theater's website

There is a Facebook event page for the show.

You can follow me on Twitter and use the hash-tag #MWTY for pictures, quotes, and other nano-bits about the show.


FUN FACT: In the original script, a newscaster informs us that the play takes place in town of Crystal Oaks (Hi, Dr. S fans!)


Next Time: A special Thanksgiving post.