Let someone else play with your play.

When I saw the Mexican production of My First Time earlier this month, I remembered something:  there are ideas other than my own . . . and some of them are good!

When you create something and work on it closely, it’s easy to get tunnel vision, even if that tunnel is taking you to great places.

So here’s a kooky developmental idea:

Got a new show that you have been working on with your team?  Let another team take a shot at it.  That’s right.  Leave your baby with a babysitter . . . for the whole weekend!

Seriously, give it to a new director or a new group of actors or both, and see what they come up with.  Don’t give them stage directions, don’t give them the benefit of seeing earlier readings, just give up control (you control freak, you) and see what they do. 

Do it in a living room, or at a small community theater out of state that would kill for a shot at a new show, or do it in Mexico (but wherever you do it, make sure it’s somewhere risk-free, away from the mainstream).

You may hate half of it.  Or you may hate all of it. 

But I guarantee that a different take will make you get out of the tunnel and just may help you see the light.

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