Creative Coaching
The play knew it before I did.
I once wrote a play about a revolutionary. The play opens on the morning of his execution. An older lawyer arrives to offer him a way out of death: if the revolutionary will write a formal statement declaring he was mentally ill when he committed his crimes, he will receive a new trial with a guaranteed stay of execution.
While writing the play, I got to page 20 when the revolutionary asked the lawyer if he thought his actions made him a terrorist. The lawyer responded, “I think your actions are a national embarrassment...and hideous mark on our family name.” I didn’t think anything of it.
Then I read it back to myself. I was stunned.
“Oh My God,” I thought.
That isn’t his lawyer. That’s his father!
Wait! That’s MY father!
And the revolutionary is ME!
Good God! I’m writing a play about my relationship with my father!
That’s when I learned to truly trust the creative process. As artists we don’t need to know everything about our work. Often, the act of creating it is the act of discovering it - as well as discovering something deep and important about ourselves.
In 2003, I performed a staged reading of the play with my actual father, who was an actor. The play was titled, Treason.
As a Creative Coach, I work with clients to make sure they show up, pay attention to the clues, and understand what the work is trying to reveal about them. Your creative work is a dream you are having, full of the personal, mythological, and archetypal puzzle pieces that make your individual experience universal.
