After a few days of rewriting a couple of Drawn Dead scenes from scratch, I re-opened the original script from 2013. Yes, I hadn’t looked at the original script since I closed the show in 2013. While I’m glad I rewrote the scenes I did, I came to a quick realization: Um, the show I wrote two years ago is actually pretty good. I don’t need to rewrite it much at all.
I have slowly parsed through this new version of the script, cleanup-editing parts here and there. I’m also cleaning up the language a bit: While it is an adult show, the likely core audience in Elgin this fall will likely be a bit older and conservative, so maybe dropping a bunch of four-letter bombs isn’t the best idea when other language will do the trick just fine.
I still see parts where a rewritten, more active scene works better than the quick-run storytelling I used in version one. Plus, the ending absolutely needs to be re-done. 2013’s ending worked just fine, but with a different audience I need to re-do it. So I still have some writing to do.
Still, it’s a relief to see most of the show needs no major changes, that I can invest most of my work in getting the show performance ready, re-doing the audio (which was a bit slapdash in the 2013 version), and marketing the show.