149 | Moving On and the Wisdom of Stephen Sondheim

In today's TSL episode, Meg gets personal about her lava, and how a recent production of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George is helping her to rethink the beauty of moving on from a creative project.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Meg LeFauve: Alright, this is The Screenwriting Life. This is Meg LeFauve. I'm here with producer extraordinaire Jeff Graham. Just he and I today. I talked to you guys a lot about lava and put your lava in your work and I'm just sitting in a pot of lava today on this week and I thought, okay, let's just go on air real quick with you guys and talk about it and kind of an experience that I had that I wanted to share with you guys.

I think it's relevant to artists but also just to be vulnerable and share with you because I keep asking you guys to do it. So here I am doing it. I'm wrapping up a project and it's by choice. I'm a little bit burnout, but it's also the project is moving on. When whatever stage you're at, when a project ends, maybe it's because you finished the movie.

Maybe it's because you sold the script. Maybe it's because. You were writing and they're bringing in another writer, maybe it's because there's a million reasons that we as artists and writers can be done with a project maybe you've decided just to, you know, that you, it's not for you anymore, that you've grown past the project and you're going to make it.

Put it in a drawer for a while, but whenever you hit this place, sometimes it can feel like morning. It can bring up a lot of lava especially if the circumstance around it is maybe triggering or touching on or kind of illuminating something from your past, your childhood that was challenging.

In my case and this is the lava bit. I I pretty much grew up next door to my family until I was seven years old. My mom had five kids. She had been an only child. She had five kids, all under the age of eight, and was just completely overwhelmed. And there was a... elderly neighbor couple next door who had never had children.

And I just somehow ended up living there. I don't know. This was like before people thought about these things, I guess. You know, my brothers and sisters were very jealous of me. But, you know, looking back, I can see that I didn't really understand at that young age. Why I wasn't part of my family, like, what was happening?

Why wasn't I living over there with them? Listen, it was great to live with the Halls as they became now the couple's name. They kind of became my adopted grandparents. You know, I got to eat anything I wanted. I had toys over there. She made my clothes. I mean, I literally slept over there. And you know, I remember my mother saying when I was older, Well, you know, you just seem so happy.

So, so whenever I end a project, if the project is continuing on without me, I can get a little bit wiggly because it's starting to churn up a lot of my lava about being left out or kind of not part of the group anymore, abandonment, I guess, I don't know. So, I, this particular round has been very hard for me and I'm surprised at the depth of it.

I'm honestly. from a kind of intellectual frontal lobe, part of my body, completely fine with it. I'm actually relieved and excited to move on to other projects that are cooking, but there's some part of me that's just pulling and pulling me down. And number one, I have to give myself space to just feel this and be in it.

Maybe take advantage that it's up and walking around to kind of heal that part of myself. But the reason I wanted to do a show about it too was I had this experience where art and somebody else's storytelling actually helped me so much. So I wanted to share that with you guys. And it also happens to be a creator that is a Jeff is also a huge fan of.

So I, Just, I feel like this is the universe at work too, you guys. Like, I randomly, totally spontaneously, a friend of mine said, do you know that Sunday in the Park with George is playing up in Pasadena? And I was like, no, I think I remember loving that. I don't remember anything about it, but I just remember loving that when I saw it 20 years ago.

Let's just go. And we just, spur of the moment, bought tickets. And we went and it is all about what it feels like to make art and it's so insightful for all of us out there doing this creative manifestation that I just wanted to take a beat and go through my experience of this beautiful musical and walk you through it a little bit because I think it might help if you ever get to this spot or just some things to think about.

When you're on this journey manifesting art you know, I, because I'm who I am, after I had this experience, I went and looked at a lot of Sondheim interviews and one of them he started in such a beautiful way, which is really what Lauren and I talked to you about a lot on the show is why he created this show.

So let's start there. One of the show above all to tell people that art is not an easy thing to do. There is. A natural myth about the artist, I had it myself when I was a kid, that you sit in your room, whether you're a composer or a painter or a writer, and wait for the muse to come. And I've heard people say, oh, so and so is so talented, as if all they had to do was get up in the morning and the painting was made, or the song was written.

And they don't understand that it's exactly as much hard work, and maybe harder, than making a shoe, or anything that you make out of nothing. So, you know, how many times have we talked to you guys about this? And there's the genius. It's hard for him to you guys. This guy has, he changed theater. He changed the way we receive stories in the theater.

And he is saying the exact same thing to you. You know, I read that he, his, the time he liked least was when he had to take a song he wrote and have the act, have the actor sing it for the first time. He would avoid that. He would just put it off and put it off, because suddenly, right, there's the chasm.

What's in his head and handing it over to somebody else and letting it come back. He talks about how he has to know and be able to explain to the actor every single word and why it's in there, you know, so just an incredible creative talent. And in this particular show that he did with James Lapine, let's not leave out the writer of the, of this beautiful musical You know, it starts where he's starting right here in this interview about, you know, the blank page and how do you, what do you do and how do you ever start?

And it's a beautiful song. You guys should listen to it. We're going to play some other songs today, but about how to start a creative journey. And then in the, and if you don't remember or know this play, just to this musical, just to remind you, it's all based on a painting by George Surratt, which is pronounced Surrah, if you're not American, which is And that he was a painter who from far away, it looks like solid color, but if you get close up, it's all just dots.

It's all just dots that he's layered on top of each other to actually create color. So you might think that her hat and the flower. You might think that her hat is black, but he didn't use any black paint at all. And you might think that her flower on her hair on her hat, excuse me is a certain color, but it's actually you know, 12 colors all put together that forms this vibrant color when you look at it.

So he, there's this wonderful song about creating art where the painter is kind of doing what we talk about in the show. George Sirot is having to not. Go and hang out with his girlfriend, basically and she's pretty pissed about it, because he's working, and he's doing his art, and just how important that process is to do, and that we do have to sometimes go into a bubble, we have to go into this sacred space and give up other things, and I did have that experience on this project that I'm pretty finishing up, it really was a bubble that I went into and it was a privilege to be in the bubble.

But it was an intense bubble and it was about wanting to get it right. And so, this is also a favorite song of Jeff's, right, Jeff? You're here with me. Yeah, I 

Jeff Graham: think you're talking about Finishing the Hat, which is, yes, I think it was also Sondheim's favorite song that he wrote. And his first memoir is called Finishing the Hat.

And let's play a little bit of it just because it's such a lovely song. And then I think I have a couple thoughts about it, but let me play it just so, folks can hear.

[GEORGE] Finishing the hat,

How you have to finish the hat.

How you watch the rest of the world

From a window

While you finish the hat.

Mapping out a sky.

What you feel like, planning a sky.

What you feel when voices that come

Through the window

Go

Until they distance and die,

Until there's nothing but sky

And how you're always turning back too late

From the grass or the stick

Or the dog or the light,

How the kind of woman willing to wait's

Not the kind that you want to find waiting

To return you to the night,

Dizzy from the height,

Coming from the hat,

Studying the hat,

Entering the world of the hat,

Reaching through the world of the hat

Like a window,

Back to this one from that.

Jeff Graham: I could kind of listen forever to that song. It makes me emotional. It's just so good. But what I love about this show is, it's about obsession, and we talk about want, and, you know, you were mentioning it, but Sondheim, to me, like fundamentally changed the art, like the art form of American musical theater, because up until now, Everyone was writing about love and romance and, you know, nice things.

But, you know, he co wrote West Side Story. And like, that was one of the first shows to talk about gang violence on American Broadway. Then it became one of the most important American movies of all time. But Sunday is actually my favorite Sondheim show, because I see the most of Stephen Sondheim in the show.

It's about an obsessive artist and everything that you have to give up. But this song is also about the beauty and the reward of siphoning off some of those other things that people yearn for because the process. Not only is the process of creation so gratifying, but as an artist, it's, I mean, this in a good way, it's kind of that sickness that we have, right?

It's the only it's in us and it has to get out. And I just feel so seen by this song where it's, you have to finish the hat. There's nothing else. And I just think it's so gorgeous. 

Meg LeFauve: I read that somebody, gosh, who was it? Maybe it was Josh. We, and I can't remember who said that when they were young, they played this song for their parents to try to explain to them who they were and what they wanted to do in the world.

So that was really impactful when I went to the show and I was like, Oh wow, he's talking about me. He's talking about this experience that I just had for years on this project.

And then there's another really fun song that we're going to play a little clip of about the other side of it that we also talk about on this show, which is the politics and the business and the social side of it, because you don't get to just be in your bubble alone. Sometimes to even have the bubble, if you're a writer director, you're going to have to go out there and raise funds.

If you're a writer, you're going to be out there pitching, trying to get the job, but also once you get the job, there is a lot of politics involved in, just the act of creation, you know, in terms of working together in terms of the director's the director and your job is to support them and, you know, finding the place for your own creative art within that context there's studio executives, there's money being spent, there's all kinds of things that still go into the writing process that when for the writers who are pros out there listening that, you know, very well.

And for the emerging writers, you will know very well. It's a whole other skill set to, to learn. And that you can't really, you can't really do this without it. He talks about that a lot. How if you want to be a musical theater, you're going to have to do this. And I'm telling you, if you want to be a professional writer, you're going to have to do this.

So let's just listen to a little bit of that song. 

George

Art isn't easy-

Even when You're hot.

Billy (spoken)

Are these inventions of yours one of a kind?

George

Advancing art is easy-

Yes.

Financing it is not.

A vision's just a vision

If it's only in your head.

If no one gets to see it,

It's as good as dead.

If has to come to light!

(spoken) I put the names of my contributors on the side of each machine.

Harriet (spoken)

How clever.

George

Bit by bit,

Putting it together...

Piece by Piece-

Only way to make a work of art.

Every moment makes a contribution,

Every little detail plays a part.

Having just a vision's no solution,

Everything depends on execution:

Putting it together-

That's what counts!

Harriet (spoken)

The Board of the Foundation is meeting next week...

George

Ounce by ounce,

Putting it together...

Harriet (spoken)

You'll come to lunch.

George

Small amounts,

Adding up to make a work of art.

First of all you need a good foundation,

Otherwise it's risky from the start.

Takes a little cocktail conversation,

But without the proper preparation,

Having just a vision's no solution,

Everything depends on execution.

The art of making art

Is putting it together

Bit by bit...

Meg LeFauve: So that's a super fun song, right?

Like it's a very positive way to look at it, right? Like he could have written that song and been like the devils and why do I have to do, you know, kind of what we think on us, why do I have to do this? And you know, all kinds of things about, but he didn't, it's the reality. And he, that's what I think the genius of the song is a kind of acceptance of this is part of the creative this is part of the craft.

And then, you know, where my lava came up, and sitting in this theater next to my son Julian, my special needs kid, and my friend Annie at the end of the show, George's great grandchild is also named George, and he sucked creatively. And as a matter of fact, he feels like he has to change his art.

He needs to find a new project. He's feeling kind of lost artistically. And he's in the park where his great grandfather painted this famous painting. And I guess you could say the ghost or the visualization of the woman in the painting comes to him and they and she has a message for him.

And I, you guys, I sat in this theater and I cried and cried. I'm going to cry right now. I felt like, oh, the universe sent me here to hear this song, that this is what I need to do, where I am right now, not just with this project that I was on, it is about that for sure. All the words in the song, she could be, and they could be singing to me about this project.

But also that love, a part of me, that little girl. Who lived next door could be singing to her too. So this song we're going to play in full. So here's my lava song, you guys. And it was a ladder out and it's a ladder in at the same time. I've listened to it, I don't know, a hundred times since we walked out of that theater.

And it's just really helping me process. So I thought I'd share it with you guys.

[DOT, spoken]
It is good to see you, George. Not that I ever forgot you. You gave me so much. 

[GEORGE, spoken]
What did I give you?

[DOT, spoken]
You taught me about concentration. At first I thought that meant just being still, but I was to understand it meant much more. You meant to tell me to be where I was, not some place in the past or future. I worried too much about tomorrow. What about you? Are you working on something new?

[GEORGE, spoken]
No. I am not working on anything new. 

[DOT, spoken]
That is not like you, George. 

[GEORGE]
I've nothing to say

[DOT, spoken]
You have many things. 

[GEORGE]
Well, nothing that's not been said

[DOT]
Said by you, though, George

You might also like

[GEORGE]
I do not know where to go

[DOT]
And nor did I

[GEORGE]
I want to make things that count
Things that will be new

[DOT]
I did what I had to do

[GEORGE]
What am I to do?

[DOT]
Move on

Stop worrying where you're going
Move on
If you can know where you're going
You've gone
Just keep moving on

I chose and my world was shaken
So what?
The choice may have been mistaken
The choosing was not
You have to move on

Look at what you want
Not at where you are
Not at what you'll be
Look at all the things you've done for me

Opened up my eyes
Taught me how to see
Notice every tree

[GEORGE]
Notice every tree

[DOT]
Understand the light

[GEORGE]
Understand the light

[DOT]
Concentrate on now

[GEORGE]
I want to move on
I want to explore the light
I want to know how to get through
Through to something new
Something of my own

[GEORGE & DOT]
Move on
Move on

[DOT]
Stop worrying if your vision
Is new
Let others make that decision
They usually do
You keep moving on

[DOT]
Look at what you've done
Then at what you want
Not at where you are
What you'll be
Look at all the things
You gave to me

Let me give to you
Something in return

I would be so pleased

[GEORGE]
Something in the light
Something in the sky
In the grass
Up behind the trees

Things I hadn't looked at
'Til now
Flower in your hat
And your smile

[GEORGE]
And the color of your hair
And the way you catch the light
And the care
And the feeling
And the life
Moving on

[DOT]
We've always belonged
Together

[GEORGE & DOT]
We will always belong
Together

[DOT]
Just keep moving on
Anything you do
Let it come from you
Then it will be new
Give us more to see

Meg LeFauve: So through that whole song in the theater, I sobbed and my son reached his hand out and just held my hand. There was just so much in there for me. Both in terms of, you know, letting go of. Of one project, trying to think God will ever be inspired to do anything else, all the doubts and worries coming in about new projects and also the deep desire and want to do something of my own you know, I love when she's saying, stop worrying if your vision is new, let someone else make that decision.

They usually do move on. You know, so many of us don't start because we're so worried about. If the vision, is it new? Is it unique? Is it good enough? And she's, she and the creators are saying, Yeah, that's not your job, right? Now she brings him back to inspiration by saying, look at what you've done. And I do need to do that.

I could feel it in the theater. Like, I've done something, right? And then when she says, you know, she's bringing him back to inspiration with light, right? And When she says we'll always be together, like part of me is like giving up a piece of myself to move on from this project. But you know, I'll always, me and the project will always be together in what I created, even if it changes, and it will change because this is the art form we're in, I don't get to paint a painting and then it's done.

Lots and lots of other artists are going to come in and create their own unique thing, and that will happen to every writer. You're going to hand your scripts off to other people to direct. You're going to hand them off to all kinds of creative beings who are going to come in and manifest that but you will always have That script you wrote even if it changes you will always have that experience and you will always belong to that and It will belong to and then of course, you know when she ends it by saying anything you do Let it come from you and it will be new Give us more to see, you know, that is the philosophy of this show, you know, and it was like, Oh, right.

I have a whole podcast about this with Laurie and Jeff, like, you know, singing it back, you know, Sondheim and James Lapine are singing it back to me that we are all of us, myself and Laurie and Jeff and Savannah and everybody who's listening. We are part of a sacred troop. Of artists, and we're all on the journey and we all have to go through these steps through this process and it will bring up the lava, just the process itself of art and.

Sondheim and James Lapine, look, they made a whole musical just about it, just about this process. And I just wanted to share it with you guys because it really deeply affected me. And I'm always telling you guys to Sit in your lava. So I'm sitting in mine and was given this little lifeline of this song and this show and so Just something I wanted to share with you guys.

Jeff Graham: the thing I look first of all, thank you so much It's like such a gift just for I'm not to make any of this about me But I just got like the final QC approval on the movie So I've been like making excuses like I've been like changing a frame and being like I'm still working on the film But I'm fucking not like it's been done for months.

It's just been like then It's done. And like literally today, I liked the email was like, it is done. So it's the terror of starting something new too. And, but I think what I love about this show, and first of all, I think Steven Sondheim would have loved our podcast. Don't you? He might've, who knows?

He might've listened to it, but I think everything you're saying where he's speaking to artists, it's like a reminder that he was also speaking to himself, right? Like this show is so clearly therapy for him. You know, he was. In the middle of his career right now, and he had these hits, but he was feeling stuck and he saw his exact life in the life of George Sarah.

And it rather than trying to say something radical, he just tried to tell his own story. And in that way, it's resonated with. So many people and so many artists. So it's just, he's living in the lava in this show too. It's just such a good reminder. 

Meg LeFauve: Yeah. And you know, sometimes if you are in the lava, either because in your career, you're wrapping a project or I don't know, there's other things happen, right?

You do a project and it's disappointing or you're, like I said, you're putting in the drawer or, it will bring stuff up and I think it's good to rely on other artists to help you through that process and I am gonna just have to, I think, sit with that little kid who lives next door and let her also have some space here and some oxygen and light.

Let's just use the metaphor. She's gonna need some light. And I know, I also know in my heart that it will move through, it'll pass and I will process and it'll, I'll be inspired again. And it's part of the reason I wanted to quick do this little mini episode because I said to Jeff and Lorien, and it's going to go it's, I'm here now and sitting in the lava.

I'm sitting in, and by the way, we say lava because it burns, but you know, lava is also incredibly beautiful. It is fire and light and movement and sitting in it right now, I can also experience that even, you know, the strange beauty of being that child next door and how it did make me the artist that I am.

And I can't ever wish it away because then I wouldn't be where I am right now. I wouldn't be who I am. I wouldn't be the storyteller that I am. So The love isn't something just to get through and get rid of, we have to appreciate it, we have to acknowledge it, we have to say thank you, and embrace that part of ourselves accept her.

So, and so much of this and that particular song that we just played, yes it's move on, but with gratitude and appreciation and acceptance. So that I can move on to the next thing and stage of my career or life or whatever's going to happen. So, thank you guys all for listening to this little mini episode.

I don't know, maybe we're going to call it Meg's Lava. I don't know what we're going to call it. Haha, but Thanks you guys, and remember, keep writing, and you are not alone.