If you have ever worked with one or more equals on a project, you have collaborated. In the case of musical theatre, one often collaborates because by its very nature, musical theatre requires more than one person, at least two, and often three or more, just to create a show or part of it.
There is the lyrist, although in more recent times that person is called the lyricist, and there is the composer, the one who writes the melody for those lyrics. The third person is the book writer, the one who actually creates the story you are watching. This person writes the play from which the lyric writer draws much of his or her song. If you were to compare “Auntie Mame,” the play, with “Mame,” the musical, you would find the lyrics were already written by the playwright long before the lyric writer collaborated with a composer to create the musical.
But this is not how to make a musical but rather a lesson in how to treat people around you. Recently I collaborated for nearly a year with a man, the two of us hoping to create a musical from an old movie.
I was the book writer and he was the lyricist/composer. We had our differences, one of the major ones being spelling. He could not and I am excelent at it. (Just kidding, it’s “excellent”)
The organization under whose auspices we create has a name, the last word of which is “Theatre.” This collaborator argued back and forth with the administration that he is free to spell “theatre” with the “er” at the end of the word. They argued back that since it was the name of their workshop, he should please use the correct spelling in his advertising for “our,” the collaborators’, upcoming presentation of this work.
Sick of his inept and horribly misspelled defenses, I wrote him and appropriately called him an idiot. His response to me was to remind me of every personal bit of information I shared with him, confided in him, trusted to him, and mentioned in passing to him. He wrote these things back to me with a vengeance and betrayal, even treachery, that only an enemy could do.
Now you ask why am I writing this? I write it to remind you to stay within the box when it comes to criticism of anything or anyone, anytime, anywhere.
When you need to offer your opinion, at another’s request or because you can’t keep your big mouth shut one more second, keep your words to the point at hand and do not finger point about what is unrelated to the issue or was offered up to you as a confidant.
When Aunt Mary asks if you like the sweater she gave you last year, if you must be truthful, tell her no, or yes, but don’t tell her you did not like what she gave you the year before and for sure don’t tell her she is too fat and absolutely never shout out what she revealed to you privately and in confidence, like she finds Madonna’s breasts succulent, and now you yell in front of the whole family that Aunt Mary is a lesbian.
And so Greg, that is precisely what you did. And through it all I never uttered a word about what I really think about you or words you spoke to me about yourself, your doubts, your life, all said with the assumption or at least the belief that I would never throw them back at you like a weapon.
So remember, all, when one confides in you, there it stays. It’s bad enough people tend to blab secrets to others around, but by all means keep them to yourself when you are miffed with the person who trusted you.