A friend visiting over the weekend peeked into my office and saw a paper plate on my desk. "Are those mints?" she asked.
I burst out laughing. "No, they're characters in my show." Then she burst out laughing.
Writing a full-length musical with 40 characters requires a lot of strategizing. How do they enter and exit the stage? What are they doing while they're onstage? Do the scenes transition smoothly, or are there problems that need to be addressed? It's complex. I needed a system to track it all so I can soon hand off to a director a cohesive and well-thought-out script.
My tin of polymer clay seemed like it might offer a solution. I chose a few remnants left from my supply and began to warm them in my hands before rolling them into small logs and slicing them into coin-like shapes to flatten and bake. While they were still warm from the oven, I wrote all the characters' names on them and spent two full days plotting out and photographing all 30 scenes of the show.
Something happened in the process, not only while I was warming them in my hands, but also as I was moving them around, assigning them positions. I realized I'd fallen in love with them. It's impossible not to. Writers fall in love with their protagonists, villains—everybody in their stories—all the time, for the simple reason that they've created them, and they've given them voice. And because they spend so much time with them, they grow to deeply enjoy their company.
Many of my clay pieces represent real people, because this musical is inspired by a real story. So I've not only loved them for decades; I'm loving them in brand new ways.
God has called himself the Potter and us the clay. I don't profess to believe that God has created us as characters in one big show to act according to some pre-ordained script. He's given us much more freedom than that. But I have complete respect for the shaping process, not only because I am a creator, but because I am also clay in the Potter's hands. It is sacred beyond words to surrender to being shaped on a holy wheel, and then to shape a story in that same fashion.
I have a quote on my vision board from an unknown source that I try to live by: "The opposite of a slave is not a free man. It's a worshiper. The one who is most free is the one who turns the work of his hands into sacrament, into offering." Audience of One is that offering. This process right now is sacrament. —ab
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