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...
View ArticleBig 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...
View ArticleWriting 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...
View ArticleRoaring, 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...
View ArticleSprints, 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....
View ArticleFrom 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...
View ArticleTech 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...
View ArticleBig 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...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticleShotgun 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...
View ArticleDisaster 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...
View ArticleBig 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleBig-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...
View ArticleYank! 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...
View ArticleScriptnotes 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...
View ArticleWhat’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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleBig 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....
View ArticlePhotoplays 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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