Feedback is Our Friend

A Showcase of Songs; part of the feedback-gathering process for Meet Me There - the Interfaith Musical

This week, I’m doing another installment in the series on the craft of writing a musical. I’d been planning to continue on with the applying Save the Cat to musical theatre, but realized there’s another more pressing skill that feels like it’s worth addressing first: the skill of dealing with feedback. For those who are discerning audience members, rather than musical writers, I’m also going to add a little section on offering feedback that is helpful. 

Here at Summit Stages, we’re moving forward with becoming the trusted licensor of world-class musicals that build the Beloved Community. Please note the words “trusted” and “world-class.” We will be trusted for both the quality and the impact potential of our scripts and scores. And that’s why feedback matters. 

When a show is headed to Broadway it doesn’t jump from the creator’s computer to a celebrated stage. Not when staging a Broadway show cost tens of millions of dollars. Investors may support the production because they connect with the story and they love the creators. But they also want some sort of assurance that they’ll get their money back. So there’s an extensive process for collecting and incorporating feedback before that show winds up on the famous stages of Midtown Manhattan.

Normally, a new show gets table readings, cabaret performances, and staged workshops. At every point along the way, the creators get extensive feedback about what’s connecting with audiences and what isn’t. Then, they may do out of town tryouts on regional stages or open at one of the smaller off-Boadway theaters, gathering evidence all along the way that this is a show that’s going to draw 500+ theatre goers, night after night for months to years, paying premium dollars that will recoup investors costs and turn them a profit. That’s why Broadway and the West End have a reputation for putting on world-class shows. Because they’ve been doggedly crafted and reworked to be audience pleasing. It normally takes 3-8 years of tryouts and revision before a Broadway theatre deems the play worthy of its stage. 

I don’t believe the arduous and exceedingly expensive process of cabarets, high-profile workshops and out-of-town auditions is the only recipe for creating a world-class musical. It’s just the standard route a commercial producer generally takes in order to gather the necessary feedback for turning a promising show into an audience favourite. The key ingredients for that transformation though are both the mountain of feedback feedback and how it’s handled. 

For commercial theatre, the goal is to get a show that will captivate audiences and keep filling theatres for years to come. The show’s messages matter insofar as they have audience appeal. But glamorous distortions of reality that reinforce our prejudices and our convenient self-deceptions often have audience appeal. They’re a common shortcut to commercial success.

At Summit Stages, our goals are different. We want to inspire audiences to reach for their highest potential at the same time that we challenge their prejudices and spark love for the neighbors they used to avoid. We want to touch their hearts and their minds so they leave the theatre changed for the better. Audiences love this too. The human spirit craves such experiences at the same time that our fears shy away from them. So, that raises the bar for the skill with which we need to craft our stories. There are no shortcuts. We need to be profoundly authentic and deeply resonant. All of which affects how we’ll want to seek and incorporate feedback. 

Here are a couple of principles that have been coming to my mind. 

Anchor in Our Purpose and Message

First is the importance of anchoring in our purpose. Why are we telling this story? What is the truth we’re wanting to plant in our audiences’ hearts? How do we hope it will influence them and change their world? When we keep our message and our purpose top of mind, it will help us figure out how to manage our key characters’ story arcs. It will also let us know when expert advice doesn’t apply to this particular situation. 

Here’s an example (not musical-theatre related) of how this principle helped me today. Last night, I launched an 8-week seminar on media literacy through Braver Angels. We all know that our political opposites are being misguided by their information media. But a lot fewer of us realize that our own media also sells a distorted perspective. My goal with this seminar is to help participants learn this, and then arm them with a bunch of tools so that they can avoid being manipulated against their neighbours and instead be the peace-builders our world needs. 

For the first session of the seminar, I needed participants (left-leaning, right-leaning and centrists) to feel safe. And I needed to open their minds to the idea that they’re being sold a distorted perspective. For that purpose, I created a “Test Your Instincts” self-test where they had to rate 8 claims that appeared in the media as “Factual,” “Distorted,” or “False.” I decided to include two claims each about President Trump and President Biden that portrayed them in a positive light, and two claims each that put leading personalities on the left and the right in a negative light. I figured people would instinctively believe the best about their own side and the worst about the other side and they’d be surprised by what they got wrong. Then I tested it on my own family members to see if that’s how things played out. 

My family members were surprised by their misperceptions. One of them sent a very thoughtful suggestion. After getting her scores, she noticed that all of the positive claims by both presidents were unexpectedly factual. She suggested this gave a false impression that presidents only tell the truth, and maybe it would be better to include one false and one truthful claim each. 

It was a good point. But then I remembered my goal. It wasn’t to give people anything like a realistic picture of how often presidents lie (this realization will dawn as they learn to fact check). It was to help them feel safe while opening them up to the idea that their own perspective was distorted. For that purpose, I highlighted only positive claims that were true, and negative claims that were false, for both sides. That way, they wouldn’t feel like their side was being attacked, but they would be able to see they weren’t giving due credit to the other side.

When we are anchored in our message and mindful of the journey we need to take our audience on, we’ll know what feedback to seek and we’ll avoid getting thrown off course by criticisms that apply to a different journey. 

Prioritize the Target Audience

Second is the importance of knowing our target audience, their concerns, their hopes and their needs. We need feedback directly from them and also from others who are good at reaching them. There will be others in the audience who are not our primary target and their feedback is also valuable. It's just not as valuable as feedback from our target audience, whose connection with the production needs to be prioritized. We don't want to throw in content for a secondary audience that dilutes our connection with the target audience.

A note on this: if I want my musical to be for families, my primary audience is really the parents and grandparents, not the children. What I need to connect with are the concerns, hopes and dreams of the parents, including the ones they hold for their children. That will allow me to tell a rich and satisfying story that’s accessible and engaging for everyone in the family. It will help me to avoid throwing in silliness for the kids that insults the intelligence of the parents, and then trying to balance things out by adding some innuendo that I expect will go over the heads of the children. 

Actively Seek Feedback, Especially the Kind that Invites Improvement

Third is to remember that great shows are a product of massive feedback. We need to actively solicit and carefully consider it (always with our purpose in mind). We want and need to hear what people love about our show. We also need to ask them what they don't love or don't get.

At the same time, we need to stay in the driver's seat. Often, people will point out where something is broken and they’ll propose the solution they think will fix it, but without understanding the journey that needs to happen. The unworkability of their fix doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t exist. It just means we need to find another way to solve it that forwards the journey. When I hear that a specific song at a key point of the story needs to be cut because it’s interrupting the momentum, that tells me there’s a problem there. But if that song happens to be a key character’s turning point on which the ending hinges, the solution is not to cut it. It’s to amp up the energy. 

Giving Feedback

And now, some pointers for the feedback givers. 

1. There is a time for different types of feedback, and it’s useful to ask what kind of feedback is wanted. When a creator is first-drafting, they usually just need encouraging feedback about what we love in the story. Later, when their story is complete and they’re asking for help to polish it, would be a more appropriate time to mention where there might be some disconnects. 

2. Solicited feedback is a gift. Unsolicited feedback may do harm. I’ve made the mistake of reading a self-published book on Amazon that had so much potential, I thought I really owed it to the writer to send them a message about how a few changes could clinch the message. Surprise, surprise, the author never answered back. Now, I try to be generous with positive feedback and I wait until somebody asks before I mention things that could be tweaked. I’m learning to check on the kind of feedback they’re hoping for. Do they want a general impression or a detailed response? (Note: my reviews here that will never be seen by the creators of the musical do not count as feedback.)

3. When requested, the more specific our detailed feedback is, the more useful. “The best show I’ve ever seen” is definitely more encouraging than, “I liked it” but aside from giving the creator a boost, it’s not very helpful. What made it the best show? And what is the one thing that kind of got under your skin, that you hesitate to mention? That may be the one thing the creator really needs to hear.  Helpful feedback looks something like, “This line in the opening scene pulled me right in and I loved the overall story. I had a little trouble understanding why this character did such and such.”

With all that said, would you please give me your feedback on which Summit Stages posts are connecting with you best and what you want to read more (or less) of? You can do that here.

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