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Two things I liked about Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark

Taped to the back of my seat at this past Friday’s performance of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark was a survey soliciting audience opinions of the still-in-progress musical. Survey cards are common in...

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Big Fish, the musical

As announced today, we’re doing Big Fish as a Broadway musical, aiming for Spring 2012. Susan Stroman is directing and choreographing. Andrew Lippa wrote music and lyrics. I wrote the book. Dan Jinks...

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Writing and decision fatigue

This past weekend consisted of three long days of meetings and work sessions for the Big Fish musical; Sunday went fourteen hours. I had a hunch that late in the day wasn’t the best time to introduce a...

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Roaring, just a little more quietly

The long-running Broadway production of The Lion King put on a special matinee for autistic children and their families: The company of “The Lion King” and a panel of autism experts collaborated on...

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Sprints, marathons and migrations

This week, I’ve been working on a feature, a TV pilot and the stage musical of Big Fish. It’s gotten me thinking about the nature of different forms of dramatic writing. Writing a TV pilot is a sprint....

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From book to movie to musical to commercial

My college professors will be happy to know that roughly 20 years after getting my advertising degree, I finally wrote a television commercial. This 15-second Big Fish spot is airing in Chicago now: To...

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Tech Starts, Time Stops

I’m in Chicago, where it’s the first day of tech rehearsal for Big Fish. Lights, sound, sets, props, costumes, VFX — everything has to be painstakingly tweaked and coordinated. In film terms, it’s like...

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Big Fish Rush

Big Fish starts previews in Chicago tomorrow, April 2nd. Eep. A bunch of readers asked about rush tickets, so I asked our general manager, who asked Broadway in Chicago, who consulted the great oracle...

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A city born of fire

Writer Derek Haas (Wanted, 3:10 to Yuma) joins John and Craig to discuss gay slurs, refrigerator logic and his TV show, Chicago Fire. In addition to writing for big and small screens, the...

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Shotgun marriages and terrible roommates

Andrew Lippa and I did an interview for Big Fish about our collaboration. We recorded it in the lobby of the Oriental Theater while the show was playing, so in the background you can hear Kate Baldwin...

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Disaster Porn, and Spelling Things Out

John and Craig discuss Damon Lindelof’s interview about how plot stakes have escalated lockstep with budget, perhaps to the point of absurdity. Then it’s a look at why screenwriters get the note to...

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Big Fish on Broadway, iteration and why I’d love to see you in September

I’m in New York for two months as we get Big Fish ready for its Broadway debut. After five weeks of performances in Chicago and a summer hiatus, it’s terrific to be back in rehearsal with the same...

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The Yank! cast album, or let’s do this for Craig

Longtime podcast listeners will know that Craig Mazin hates Kickstarter and loves Broadway cast albums, so I’m fascinated to see how he’ll react to this. Yank!, a 2010 off-Broadway hit that came so, so...

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Big-screen dramas on stage

USA Today’s Elysa Gardner interviewed me and Andrew Lippa about Big Fish and the influx of movie-based dramas on Broadway this season: “The musicals that have been very successful with audiences over...

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Yank! makes it

The Kickstarter campaign for the Yank! cast album, which I blogged about earlier this week, cleared its $35,000 target this morning. Thanks to everyone who contributed. I promised that if Yank! made...

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Scriptnotes Live from New York

John and Craig welcome their largest live audience yet for a conversation about Kickstarter, movie pilots and musicals. Joined by special guest Andrew Lippa, they talk about the special challenges and...

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What’s Next

John and Craig discuss what it feels like to finish a project — the combination of excitement and relief, joy and sadness — as Craig advises John which project he should write next now that Big Fish is...

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The challenge of filming inside a theater

The new 30-second spot for Big Fish features a lot of footage from the show. Filming it was much more complicated than I would have guessed, so I thought a rundown of the process would be interesting...

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Big Fish, Jimmy Buffet, and seeing shows on a budget

Let’s start with the TL;DR version: The producers have agreed to restore my SCRIPT discount code for Big Fish on Broadway, but only through December 22nd — and they might pull the offer at any time....

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Photoplays and archetypes

In a wide-ranging episode, Craig and John look at a 1912 screenwriting book, Levinson’s beef with the WGA, and the Periodic Table of Storytelling. We also answer listener questions about keeping...

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