Look, I made a hat… where there never was a hat
I have never seen Sunday in the Park with George or listened to it in its entirety (as a rule of thumb, I try not to listen to musicals I haven’t seen live—but I digress). Still, after having spent my winter break rewriting and rewriting my first musical, I find myself thinking of the song “Finishing the Hat.” Though I am unfamiliar with the show, I know enough: George Seurat is the artist who painted Sunday in the Park, and his dedication to his art has caused stress in his personal relationships.
The lyrics to “Finishing the Hat” appear, at the surface level, simple. Take, for example, these lyrics:
Finishing the hat
How you have to finish the hat
At first it’s like, yes, duh, you have to finish the hat! You just said that! But for me, the key here lies in the phrase “have to.” This is precisely how it feels for me when I’m writing—I have to finish it. Some may describe this as a kind of flow state or hyperfocus. I don’t know what it is for me because I’m not a pyschologist, but what I’ll say is that when I’m really in it—the world of the play, the characters, the music—I literally cannot do anything else, even very important things such as eat. Like my protagonist Val says, “nothing could take me away.” Finishing Reason to Be feels almost like a matter of survival to me. I have never felt so strongly or so sure about anything else before. Creating musical theater is the blood which runs through my veins.
How you watch the rest of the world
From a window
While you finish the hat
In past breaks, I met up with my friends often, and I went to Boston almost every weekend because I liked exploring the city. This time, I did those things a total of I think four times (total) over a five week break. This year, I spent the vast majority of my break in my room, writing, thinking, or honestly, watching YouTube videos (I mean, it is break!). While my friends were traveling the world and exploring other continents, I was exploring a world of my own: the world of my story. And that meant staying put, and watching the world through the metaphorical window of my computer screen while I did nothing to interact with it.
Mapping out a sky
What you feel like, planning a sky
Sondheim is a genius. I hope that one day I am able to write lyrics as profound as him. Again, it seems simple but these lyrics emphasize that not only is Seurat painting the sky, he is painting the feeling of painting the sky. I would like to think that my protagonist, Val, does the same: (slight spoilers ahead) in the end they write a song and they play music, but they also play the feeling of playing music. There is also a meta layer on top of this, which is that Sondheim and I are both artists creating art about artists creating art. I hesitate to even discuss myself and Sondheim in the same sentence, because he is such a legend, but the parallel is there.
What you feel when voices that come
Through the window
Go
Until they distance and die
Until there’s nothing but sky
Well, I hope that doesn’t happen to me! I did tell my friends that I would be very busy next semester because I will be working on Reason to Be’s first workshop production (woo!) and they would likely have to initiate contact if they wanted to hang out. I do value my relationships a lot and tend to put a lot of effort into them, but I am making the deliberate choice to sacrifice my social life (to some extent) next semester in order to pursue my art. Hopefully I don’t end up in the “nothing but sky” stage, that would be really sad.
Studying the hat
Entering the world of the hat
Reaching through the world of the hat
Like a window
Back to this one from that
My story is more of a character study rather than a plot driven musical, which means I experience this on two levels. I enter the world of the play, which is future Boston, but also, I enter the world of Val’s head within this world. What I love about the way Sondheim wrote this is that Seurat is the one who makes the hat, but there is this whole world around the hat. I feel this way about my musical too—in some sense, I have created the world, the characters, the plot, etc. but really, I feel like they just… exist. They just are what they are, and they will become what they are meant to be.
However you live
There’s a part of you always
standing by
Mapping out the sky
Finishing a hat
Starting on a hat
Well ain’t that the truth. There was a solid period of time last semester where Reason to Be was the only thing I would think about, literally from the moment I woke up to the moment I slept (and believe me, it was hard to sleep because my mind was so full of thoughts!). But seriously, I thought about it during all my classes, during mealtimes, when I was interacting with all of my friends. Seriously, it was an unhealthy amount. Even then, I think I’m very lucky. I only feel this way because I found something that gives me so much life and energy that I truly want to dedicate my life to it, and that’s not something that many people feel. And the “starting on a hat” part is real—I am already thinking about my next musical, even though I haven’t even produced the first one yet! Maybe you’ll read more about that idea on my blog in five or so years.
Look, I made a hat…
Where there never was a hat
What a BOMB way to end a song, holy cow. Many of you may think I’m being ironic, because again, “duh, if you made the hat, of course there never was a hat there.” But this line, albeit simple, captures the essence of what it means to be an artist. Creating something that has never been done before. That is an incredible feeling.
Reason to Be is a musical about a pianist finding hope in the face of climate disaster. And in an age of lyrics-focused pop-rock Broadway musicals, Reason to Be has classical music influences and is music-driven as its core. I truly feel like I am making a hat where there never was a hat! And that excites me, and motivates me to keep working on this project.
I was thinking about “Finishing the Hat” because just yesterday, I finished my ninth draft of Reason to Be. My staged reading in November was draft 7, which means I wrote two drafts in five weeks of winter break. I made a lot of changes, I’ll keep it vague on purpose so as to not spoil too much.
Anyways, I know I’m still far far away from truly finishing the hat (but can it ever really be finished?), but the reason why I thought about this song now, is that this draft is the first one where I feel really solid about the characters and the story. Whereas in previous drafts, I knew deep down that certain plot points/character traits did not fit (e.g. What is the point of “Just One Jug”? Why is Val so bitter all the time? Why does Val resolve everything in the last 2 minutes of the show?), with this draft, I can confidently say that every scene moves the story towards the direction I want it to go in. And I have super high expectations, so this is a good sign!