I just had something fabulous and easy transpire. Back in January I saw that Laura Shamas was having a staged reading of a play directed by someone whom I met years ago at Actors Theatre of Louisville. That director is quite good at comedy… and I have a comedy… so I got the director’s email address from Laura and contacted him about reading my script.

He graciously agreed to read it… and then did so in just a few days. We met a few days after that, seemed to be on the same page – he gave me just a handful of easy-to-execute notes that I agreed with… and then he sent the rewrite out to a couple three theatres to see if they were interested, with him attached to direct.

He heard back a short time later from an artistic manager at one of the theatres. He liked the play and has now passed it on to his board for consideration in their upcoming season.

Wow, that was easy!

Why can’t finding a director for my screenplay be as easy? (I’ve been through three of them – two dropped out and one I just let go last Friday.)

Oh, hold on. Maybe I should tell you the full story behind the stage play launch. I finished it two years ago this month and had a couple of readings of it that were hysterically funny. I thought it was ready to submit.

I diligently sent the script out, using contact names so the submissions wouldn’t be “cold” and so my script wouldn’t land in the slush pile. A year and a half went by… and radio silence. Nothing. Even with follow-up emails from me. Then Fierce Backbone (my writers’ and actors’ group) gave the script a thumbs up for production. We’re low on funds at the moment, so it was going to have to be a co-production at another theatre. Our managing director sent my script out to some theatres… no nibbles.

But once the director got involved and had his name attached, people were interested – including a theatre where our managing director had sent the script (gosh, they didn’t remember getting the script the first time – even though they had a conversation with our managing director about it!).

I’m sure this is a great lesson in perseverance. It’s also a lesson in feeling equal to the energy of the well-known stage director. It’s a lesson in trusting my intuition when I had a gut feeling to contact him.  It’s a lesson in letting someone else help shepherd my project.

Now I’m telling the universe that I WANT THE SAME THING TO HAPPEN WITH MY FILM SCRIPT TO GET A GOOD DIRECTOR AND LAUNCH THIS PUPPY.