It’s happened to me twice. Everyone says “Oh, you
must never open a play cold on Broadway” - and that’s
not been my experience. And I think that things get
overdeveloped in the theater and it breaks people’s
hearts and strength, and so I’m always excited when
someone says, “Alright, we’re just taking it. We’re go-
ing to put it on Broadway.” It’s always a good day
when someone says that to you. But one of the things
that happened was right before we went into previews,
I had an emergency back surgery. And I was going
through all sorts of insane shenanigans to make sure
that I could get to the theater. I figured out how to get
myself to the theater - and they put a gurney up in the
back of the theater - NOT for me to lie on - but for
me to LEAN on - just so that I could watch and take
notes (at a time when I could barely stand…or walk!) I
mean, it was really a serious situation. But it was pretty
clear that there were two scenes that were underwrit-
ten. I had to figure out how to fix them under this
extraordinarily challenging circumstance. They just
weren’t working the way they needed to be working.
I hadn’t completely solved them. And so I went home
after, like, doing that twice. That whole time is such a
blur. But I literally was lying in bed, writing scenes,
and then sending them the theater via the Internet,
and then they would put me on like, FaceTime. …And
they would, you know, do the scene and then [ask] me,
“Why are we doing this now?” And I thought, “Because
we have to! We have to fix it. I can’t- IT can’t move
forward. You can hear that they were slightly
underwritten.” And …one of the scenes just wasn’t
achieving what I needed it to achieve for one of the
characters. So I literally had to do all that from bed…
You’ll go to great lengths to fix something in previews.
Sherman: Even on a gurney.
Rebeck: Even on a gurney. I wasn’t LYING on the
gurney!
Sherman: No. I know - you were LEANING on it.
Rebeck: I was LEANING on it.
Sherman: Yes. An important distinction.
Rebeck: IT IS!
“Comedy needs to leave a
lot of blood on the floor.”
TONY Award Winner Kristine Nielsen
in THE WAY OF THE WORLD (2016).
Photo by Taylor Crichton,
provided by Dorset Theatre Festival.
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