The first time through

Saturday night was our first time through. We'd all read the script before. Angela had. Sonora had. Even Susie, visiting from Michigan for the weekend, had read it. But we hadn't heard it. And there's a difference.

A huge difference.

Novels are meant to be read. They're usually long-winded (in the best of ways) and descriptive. Poems follow organizational patterns so that you can feel the words (yes, even poems that seem to have no rhyme or reason, they have a pattern, just ask the seventh graders who've had Ms. Knapp or Ms. Knapp for language arts). Newspaper articles supply information without color. But scripts?

They're meant to be heard. They're meant to be seen. They're meant to be experienced.

So Saturday night eight of us gathered around Sonora's big long dining room table, scripts in hand, and experienced a story.

And it was awesome.

Yes, I'd read the dialogue out loud countless times. I read it for cadence and proofreading and characters voices and jokes. But I had yet to read it to "see" the story.

Sonora had gathered a group of awesome actors from her travels around Hollywood and they were all very game to play along. They didn't just read their parts as us writers are prone to do when we sit in on a table read. They were their parts. They acted, as actors do. It was pretty freaking cool.

There was slurred speech for the drunk. There was yelling and pounding on the table at one point. There was whispering and laughing. Oh, yes, there was laughing. (My favorite part. I made hardly any notes on my script that night but I made lots of smiley faces - every laugh or chuckle or smile gets a smiley face. Smiley faces are king in the sitcom world.)

And Angela got to read the stage directions which was pretty cool - I love how excited every one was. Everyone. Those of us listening, those of us acting. It was just, a very cool night.

And then?

We feasted on the lovely dinner Sonora made. We drank wine and cracked open the champagne I bought (it had a screw top - maybe by the time we film the pilot I'll have figured out how to buy champagne that pops!). We sat around late into the night talking and laughing and listening. We shared our stories. We shared others stories. We laughed over the superhero audition video some poor boy in England had mistakenly sent to Sonora's wife. We all reluctantly ended the evening, hoping sometime to spend another night just as happy.

So, it was a success. A big one in my book.

And now? What's next...

The Screenwriter & The Producer/Actress

Well, that's the thing. We're not sure. There will be rewrites and notes and discussions and more rewrites. There will be work. That's for sure. There will be hustling around town to get meetings and move forward. Lots of work. But Saturday night?

That was just plain fun. Something I'd waited five years to experience. Something I'd had a hard time even imagining. And yet? There is was. I have a recording on my iPhone to prove it. Time to listen to those laughs one more time...