My longtime readers may remember that I wanted somebody to work with Stephen Sondheim on his show Evening Primrose, but nobody took me up on the idea. I thought that it was a great opportunity. I thought that reuniting John Collier’s story with Sondheim’s songs would be a public service, and a worthy act for anyone capable of it.
When such capable people demurred, I decided to take the task up myself. I labored on it for weeks. Maybe it was easy because the story and the songs were both so great. The work was light and joyous. It presented some bizarre problems that I think worked out beautifully. I had never done anything that made me so pleased, or that I was so proud of.
I then found Mr. Sondheim’s agent, and sent him my inquiry. I wasn’t going to try to stage it on Broadway or anything like that. I just wanted a little workshop, or maybe even a little run at a community theatre. It didn’t even have to be open to the public. As far as I was concerned I was asking for licensing more than permission. I assumed I’d either have the rights in hand in a few days when they got back to me, or I would have to submit my script, which was my dream because he would then see my work.
The agent I contacted wasn’t the current agent, so he forwarded it to the current agent, who called the maestro himself.
My whole rejection took less than three hours. Nobody wanted to revive the piece — James Goldman’s widow was to have a say in any revival. Mr Sondheim didn’t want a staging of work he did for film.
The whole affair was a bust from the start, or a bust long before the start. It seems I was the only person who wanted a revival.
My next step was calling Collier’s people. I thought that I could take the music out and run it as a straight play. But the rights were tied up.
What do I do now?
I have one if the finest things I’ve ever written — a genuine labor of love burning a hole in my hard drive because I will never be able to use it.
The lesson of the story might be something about licensing, or something about how one’s literary crushes might might have the same lack of interest as one’s regular crushes. And it’s best to ask them out before making plans concerning them.
Or maybe it’s a lesson in having a secret — a beautiful thing that the copyright laws and America’s greatest composer conspire to keep from the world.