Collaboration is extremely vital to making theater, and, sometimes, to writing for theater. I have collaborated with others on regular plays and on musicals, and learned a lot about how to navigate what aspects can be difficult about such partnerships.
One of the most important things is to have a solid foundation: a similar aesthetic or creative vision. The more agreements about the project you can make up front the better. Even if you write by the seat of your pants when you write alone, you will want to do some outlining when working with a partner. There’s nothing worse than realizing midway through a project that your collaborator thinks you’re building a boat, and you thought you were building an airplane. Having similar senses of humor, and strong mutual respect, are important, too.
When I was working with my writing partner Andrew Black, we would each hold back on making recommendations to cut a scene or lose a line until we could have a play reading. Then, the audience is the one giving the feedback. This helps preserve the relationship.
In the next post, I’ll go into some super simple ways to make agreements.