And then again, maybe it’s a personality thing.

The last time I wrote for this blog, I was saying how I hoped I wouldn’t “say something stupid” in front of a new director I was about to meet – translation: overstep some line between writers and directors.

This director was interested in a full-length of mine. That project hasn’t gotten off the ground yet, but in the mean time I had a ten minute play going into production and I needed a director. I thought it’d be good to see if we worked well together.

It turns out we worked very well together. She happens to be open to collaboration and as we went through rehearsals, she didn’t mind me piping up at all.

Maybe it’s a country thing.

She’s from Finland. Perhaps they do things differently there.

Maybe it’s a no-pre-conceived-notion-about-living-playwrights thing.

She’s used to working with dead playwrights. She doesn’t have rules in her head about how to work with living ones. We did both agree that we shouldn’t simultaneously be talking to the actors.

So all of my worries about overstepping any lines went out the window because there were no lines. There was this joyous person from Finland who wanted to make every moment work and happily welcomed both my script changes and interpretation notes.

Life is good.