So? What do you do? What CAN you do?

As Michael in The Road to Qatar! says, "this is a time we would never forget." Six years after receiving that first email "one cold morning in February" saying "We Want You Write Musical...How Much?" The musical about the writing of that musical premieres in New York City. Hometown of the two authors. The Road to The Road to Qatar has been blessed with a wonderfully received production in Dallas that got rave reviews and won the Best New Play or Musical from the Dallas Fort Worth Drama Critics Forum. So when we worked our asses of to bring an even better, funnier, slicker, more inventive version of that show to NYC, one would have thought (well, one would hope) that we would also be welcomed as a new musical comedy. But real life has a way of unfreezing the best moments. Oh yes, the audiences love us. They laugh from the first line to the finale and cheer loudly for our brilliant cast. We did the most wonderful work during the beginning of previews, cutting a scene and a song and trimming the fat to come up with 90 laughfilled and delightful minutes...We were lulled into a false sense of security by a laughing happy audience. Who knew? Opening night was filled with stars (stars that David Krane and I know and gathered to make it all look great. To get photo ops, to celebrate, the raise the bar at this tiny theatre under a church. We succeeded...down the stairs came Chita Rivera, Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue, Marni Nixon, Christine Ebersole, Mary Testa, Judy Blazer, Celeste Holm (she took the elevator), Alice Hammerstein, Anne Kaufman (George S's daughter), Richard Maltby, Maury Yeston, Tom Meehan, Sheldon Harnick, Danny Burstein, Beth Fowler, John Cullum, Judy Blazer...on and on...the house filled. the show started, the audience laughed and applauded. It was a magic night. But not better than our previews where other show biz pros and audience members proclaimed us "brilliant...a hit!" I can remember the Friday night I was ordered by our wonderful director not to laugh, but just listen to where the laughs were. It was magic. The laughs were everywhere. The opening night party was a delight. Everyone came. Everyone praised. The performances after the opening were wonderful. The audiences loved us. I chose early on in this process to let people know I would not be reading reviews. Of course, deep in my heart I was scared. And of course, deep in my heart, if someone said the reviews are raves, I would read them. But you know when they are not great when the volunteer ushers scowl at you, and the homeless people outside the church look at you with sympathy and give YOU a handout. And yet there were some great reviews and there was that audience, which lifted me when I was down. And there is this small five person company who are so gifted and committed to the material and what they are there for, that it makes want to weep. Last night, with the cold, the non-supportive notices and the air filled with what? the sense of giving up? It's hard to tell...with all that there was a small house. A very small house. And yet, I put in four new lines that I thought might improve the show. Or deepen the characters. I don't know. I feel like a two faced woman...or Dorothy Collins singing Losing My Mind. Can't go left, can't go right. I adore this show. I sit through it and it zips by in 90 fastpaced clever entertaining minutes. I did what I set out to do...the write a funny musical comedy about writing the musical we wrote for the Middle East. Where did I go right? Well, onward and up. Getting it recorded and produced in London is next on our agenda. You have to wear blinders and run your race, but wouldn't it be nice if people weren't slinging camel crap in your face while you did it? Judy Garland's mother said it best..."You Wanted This!"

I did. I still do. I just want to not wake up at 6AM in a panic.