Sacred Objects

I spent the summer after my senior year of college performing at The Wagon Wheel Theatre in Warsaw, Indiana. I was 21 and lucky to be playing a couple of lead roles, including Nathan Detroit in GUYS & DOLLS.

I quickly fell into a tight-knit friend group with two of my roommates (also classmates from college, including future Tony Award winner, Karen Olivo), and a few other new cast mates. Many a night we spent after the show or on our days off, sprawled out on blankets in a field that my friend Kent’s grandparents owned. We’d hang out for hours and watch for shooting stars over the corn field.

One night, I climbed up on a hay bale and assumed the role of shaman. One at a time, my friends climbed up onto the bale with me and I talked about their spirit and the qualities that the rest of us loved about them. Then I gave them a secret name that aligned with that spirit.

To be clear, we were high as hell.

But, it felt special, a moment that further cemented our bond.

A few weeks later, they gave me a walking stick for my birthday with a leather strap wrapped around the top and the face of a (I’m guessing) Native American man carved into the wood. Thirty years later, it’s still never far out of reach. It has moved with me from city to city and finally, all the way across the country. It has accompanied me on hikes in more states and national parks than I can remember, and over time, it has taken on even deeper emotional resonance. My fingers never curl around the leather strap without me thinking of that night, and those people, and the me I was then.

It has become one of my sacred objects.

I’ve been thinking about sacred objects a lot lately. Sure, you can tell a lot about a person or a character by their values, or their code, or the people that they care about. But there’s a lot to learn (and story to be mined) from the things they value.

Awhile back, I talked about the August Wilson play, KING HEDLEY II. One of my all-time favorites. The character of King has just been released from prison, now he’s back in a row house in Pittsburgh, trying to build a new life. He’s going straight, resisting temptation. He’s planted a small garden in the backyard and tends to it with loving care. You can tell by the way he talks about it and treats it, it is a sacred object to him. A symbol of hope, something fresh and green growing out of that soil.

At the end of the first act, he comes out to the backyard and finds that someone has destroyed it by stomping all over it. It finally pushes him over the edge. He says, “We had World War 1 and World War 2. The next motherfucker that messes with me it’s gonna be World War 3!” Blackout.

One of the most thrilling (and chilling) moments I’ve ever experienced in the theater.

Another great example of this is the gold watch in PULP FICTION. They devote an entire five minute monologue to building up the mythic status of this watch, telling you the entire tragic and often uncomfortable journey that it took from Butch’s dad to Butch. Cut to Butch and his girlfriend going on the run after he double crosses a mob boss by not throwing a fight. He gets back to the hotel and realizes that his girlfriend forgot to pack the most important thing — his father’s watch. When he risks his life to go back for it you know exactly why. You would, too.

In my new feature spec, STOKE, I have an early scene where one character gives another character a birthday present, a vintage Victorinox Swiss Army knife, just like the one that the recipient lost years ago while serving in the Navy in Panama. I’m hoping to accomplish three things by devoting some time to this knife and tagging it with some emotional resonance. 1) There’s some (hopefully) deft exposition about the recipient’s military background. 2) The recipient realizes that the gift giver was paying attention to some old war story and went to great lengths to find this replacement, which tells you a lot about her and their relationship. 3) It’s Chekhov’s knife, in that it reappears much later in a crucial moment. Hopefully, it feels surprising yet inevitable because I took the time to mythologize it and give the audience a connection to it.

My other recent feature spec, ROAR, opens with the lead character meticulously stripping the paint off an old Matchbox car before painstakingly reapplying a new coat. Again, it’s a gift for another character, delivered with a story about the real life version of the car that the lead character once owned. And again, I’m trying to give it an emotional significance, to turn it into a sacred object that has resonance when it reappears multiple times throughout the film, including the final image.

You can turn anything into a sacred object. A car, a photo, a letter, a locket. If you’re looking for a new or different way to humanize your characters, you might take a moment to think past the people they care about and the goal they’re trying to achieve. Do they have a sacred object? What does it tell you about their past, or their character, and how might the loss or sacrifice of that object impact their future?

What about you?

Do you have a sacred object?

Prop Man

On a somewhat related note…

I was browsing some shop in South Pasadena a few months ago when I came across a book called Prop Man, written by Ross MacDonald and Steven Heller. Ross is a designer for graphic props like books and ads and packaging for movies and TV. He designed the titular Book of Secrets for NATIONAL TREASURE 2: BOOK OF SECRETS, and the Pawnee town charter for PARKS AND REC.

It’s a great read, filled with detail about his process and stories about production. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the depth of thought and research that these artists and craftspeople put into their work. I have been pulled over in the hallways of production offices many times by a designer who wanted me to check out the latest iteration of a prop that was in prep. I hope I was thoughtful, communicative, and appreciative of the work, but if I wasn’t before, I absolutely will be after reading this. It reminded me that those moments are work, yes, but they’re also a privilege, and the person on the other end is going through their own journey of highs and lows and impostor syndrome. I highly recommend it.

A Quick Work Update

A few weeks ago, I was texting with a writer friend and mentioned that I wished I had an idea for a network show. (My mind was kind of stuck in the old pilot schedule, when people were hearing pitches through the summer and into the fall.)

I had been circling an idea all summer, one that came up in a general meeting with an exec back in the spring. I could never quite crack it, so I’d put it away again. That night, I pulled up my notes from that general meeting and something about it just clicked. At some point between then and now, I’d picked up another point of connection, a missing puzzle piece that turned an interesting area into a fully fleshed out character and a high concept hook. I even had a cool title. I emailed the exec to see if he’d like to hear the idea, we met a few days later and by the end, he was fully on board. We’re prepping the pitch now and hope to do a full court press soon.

So, take lots of notes in your generals. Go through them every so often. You’re a different writer now than you were then. You’ve had new experiences. Maybe you’ve picked up the missing puzzle piece for that thing you didn’t quite know how to crack.

Last thing…

I wrote the first draft of the whole “personal way in” to the pitch, focusing on the themes and how they related to my past work and the big ideas I’m interested in. In my first round of notes with my exec, he felt like it needed a more emotional connection. I realized I had subconsciously avoided the most personal way in.

This is a series that deals with grief and loss in a big way and my family lost two beloved members within the space of a couple of weeks in December, right before Christmas. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to talk about that experience and how it relates to the show. I didn’t shy away from it because it was too painful. I just defaulted to a more intellectual angle. I immediately changed the opening and it’s a night and day difference. One was leading with the head, the other with the heart.

Whenever possible, lead with the heart.

Have a great weekend!