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[0:00] Patrick Oliver Jones: Producing theater is often difficult and never a guarantee. In fact, anything produced for the stage can be hit or miss. Just a few hours before I sat down to record this intro, a concert of Lerner and Loewe music that I was producing had to be canceled. Artists were dropping out, and audiences just weren't buying tickets. It was tough to let it go, but there came a point at which the venue just had to cut its losses. Now, this was just a concert at a cabaret venue. So imagine the greater disappointment and loss when a Broadway show doesn't open. He turned that heartbreak though into a novel that was released earlier this month. Well, now he's back to talk about what has kept him going and what making it really means to him, as he answers the final five questions here on this bonus episode of Why I'll Never Make It.

[1:24] Patrick Oliver Jones: And number one, what do you remember most about your first professional show?

[1:30] Chad Beguelin: Oh boy. Um I remember uh seeing uh Fiddler on the Roof at the Muni, and I was blown away that the scenery was moving by itself. Because in our little hometown, you had to move that scenery yourself. I didn't know anything about tracks or you know anything about automation, and I was just like, Whoa, that is amazing. So yeah, that really blew my mind. And as far as the first professional show where you got paid, where you were a performer or writer, or what do you remember most about that?

[2:10] Chad Beguelin: I uh I did this show with Disney called On the Record, which ended up not doing very well, but it was just a tour, and it was basically they wanted all the songs, you know, famous Disney songs in an evening, and they wanted they I was called a scenarist. So basically I think they made that up. But it was we were trying to make characters, so there were four characters in this recording studio, and we're trying to tell a song by the or tell the story by the way we put the songs together. Um we were right before our first preview, and the tech tables were down, and there were you know thousands of cords everywhere, and I'd only done I had started an off off off off off Broadway theater with friends from college after we graduated, and I was in charge of all this stuff, and I was like saying to people like we've got to clean up, we've got to clean up the the audience is gonna be here, and like somebody was like, This is not your department, and I was like, but they're gonna but how are we gonna do that?

And then this army of people came in and took everything away, and I was like, Oh, right, right. This is a professional show, and you don't have to move the tables and cords yourself, Chad. You can just let that go, focus on the task at hand.

[3:24] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yes, yes, it can be hard to delegate sometimes when you're used to being in charge.

[3:28] Chad Beguelin: Absolutely. I was like, oh, I don't oh, okay, cool. Well, number two, how has the industry changed most since when you first started?

[3:38] Chad Beguelin: Everything is so much more expensive. The running costs are through the roof, it is brutal. And I have no idea how to change that. And that's uh not the mathematic whiz uh that I wish I was, but it's just the running costs are terrible. And to start a even a small show, it's just so much money, so many millions and millions of dollars. Um I know producers are are worried and frustrated about that too. And it's I have no idea what the answer is. I don't have anyone to blame. I just uh it's just uh it's disheartening because it makes it harder and harder to get new work uh on stage because it's just the price tag keeps ballooning.

[4:21] Patrick Oliver Jones: Does that increase pressure on you as a writer to make the show even better?

[4:26] Chad Beguelin: Well, I I mean you're always doing your best to make it. Right. You know, you I'm never like, eh, they only spent five million on this set. Um I'll just phone it in. Um but yeah, I mean, I think it puts pressure on everybody because it's just there's so much more at stake, just financially speaking, I mean. And so number three, what does success or making it mean to you?

[4:50] Chad Beguelin: To me, I think it means I'm speaking professionally, not like uh in life, but I think for me it means being able to work on the projects that I want to work on. Um, because I've taken I no longer have to take the jobs that I don't want to take, but I just took them for money. And it's it's that old cliche where they're like, oh, if you take a job, you know, a writing job just for money, it's never gonna work. And it's 100% been my experience. That anything I'm like, I need the money, okay, I'll do it. It just is always I I think either as much as you try, maybe your heart isn't in it in the same way. Or so for me, that's been being able to say, I'm going to take six months and write a novel. And not having to, you know, worry about where the next paycheck is going to come from is has been the biggest blessing professionally.

[5:45] Patrick Oliver Jones: And do you see Showmance as starting a new branch of your writing career or do you see it as a one off or maybe I'll come back to it later?

[5:53] Chad Beguelin: I'm going to see how it goes. Um no I I definitely have an uh idea for a new novel. There are people that uh are asking if there would be a sequel and that I I could envision that I sort of hate to throw a monkey wrench into the happy ending but um but the the thing that really appealed to me also about fiction is that with musicals you're always waiting. You're waiting for your director or your other collaborators they're working on other shows you're waiting for a theater you're waiting for an actor's schedule and with this it was like there's no you I can write as fast as I can write and I wrote very fast um because I sort of felt like I was channeling and I was so afraid that it would go away.

So I was constantly like writing notes on my phone or waking up at three in the morning and I got a light up pen so I didn't wake up my husband and um you know and it sort of felt freeing in that way that there's no schedule. So with much grit and hard work you want to put into it, you know, you go at your pace. And so I found that very very sort of freeing. So I definitely think I I'll, you know, unless this book crashes and burns and I'm you know run out of town, uh definitely would like to do it again.

[7:05] Patrick Oliver Jones: Number four, describe a personal lesson that has taken you a while to learn, or one that you're still working on to this day.

[7:13] Chad Beguelin: I think uh learning that you can't change people has been a big thing for me. You know, and it's that old cliche when people tell you who they are, believe them. I didn't, I'm getting better at it. I didn't always believe that someone would actually be that way. Um so now I'm starting to go, like, oh, okay, I'm gonna step away from that. Um, there is we were rehearsing a show, and there was an actress, a Tony nominated actress, who a week into rehearsals came in, looked around the room, and said, I am so sick of all looking at all your faces. And I laughed because I thought, surely she's kidding. And nobody else laughed. And I went, Oh my god. Oh my god, is this what we're dealing with? And it sure was.

And so whenever that actress's name comes up, I'm like, no, I unless she's been struck by lightning or uh had shock therapy. No, no, no, no, no. But um, I think the old me would have been like, well, you know, it's having a bad day, and you know, so I think you know, you can't learn you can't change people has been a big one for me.

[8:28] Patrick Oliver Jones: Yeah, and in theater, it's so important to be with the right people. I've spoken to many casting directors as well as directors, and they say that they cast as much on personality as talent.

[8:37] Chad Beguelin: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's it's funny when uh people like if I'm talking to like high school students or college students, and those they're usually actors, and they're like, What is your biggest tip? And I said, You're auditioning the minute you walk through the door. Because that doesn't mean put on a show, but uh, is this person giving off a friendly vibe? Is this gonna be fun for the next few months? You know, or if you walk in and you're scowling and you're you know snapping at the pianist to go faster and all that stuff, we're going, oh no, no, no. Well, life is too short. Life is too short, no matter how talented you are.

[9:10] Patrick Oliver Jones: And lastly, number five, what is the most useful advice that you have received and how have you applied it to your life or career?

[9:18] Chad Beguelin: The best advice is uh, you know, writing-wise, is it's gotta be bad before it can be good. It's got to be bad. And so there are many, many, many times where I'm working on something like chapter in Showmance thinking this is brilliant. Where am I gonna put my Pulitzer? Ah, this is wonderful, and then go to bed, then wake up the next morning. I'm like, This is garbage. This is so and it's so disheartening. And then I think to myself, well, let's make it better. It's gotta be bad first before it can be good. And I was working with Jerry Mitchell on uh a benefit for Harvey Fierstein, and Cindy Lauper uh was in the benefit, and we were in rehearsal, and I'm huge. I like didn't even tell her I was a fan, but I'm a huge fan.

And Jerry and Cindy were talking about the show that had just opened, and it got cranked. And Cindy was like, Why do you think it didn't work? And Jerry's like, I really, I really think it was the score. I think the score just didn't live up to it, but the songs were good. And she's like, Well, why didn't they write it better? They should have written it better. So I always think that when I'm like staring down at something that I've written and thinking it's awful. I'm like, Well, write it better, just write it better. But it's it's true. You don't it. That's it's so easy to get discouraged, especially early on on a project, because you're just like, this is not it's not gonna spring from you fully formed. It's gonna take a while and it's gonna be bad for a while until you know it's gotta be bad before it can be good.

[10:49] Patrick Oliver Jones: Are you able to just write things out and get it onto the page, so to speak, and then go back and edit, or do you edit as you write?

[10:57] Chad Beguelin: I usually it's funny with uh with Showmance, I would you know, write and then stop whenever I've sort of ran out of steam, and then the next day I would go back a few pages and sort of read and tinker with it and then sort of see what I was uh oh I see what I was trying to tee up, you know, I see what I was building up to. So yeah, I but I I don't usually um I'll go back a few pages and sort of mess around with stuff, but I don't, you know, I don't really edit as I go.

[11:28] Patrick Oliver Jones: And what was it like working with an editor working with someone else to then tweak the final product?

[11:34] Chad Beguelin: It was amazing. I my uh my editor is Marie Michaels, and she was wonderful. She was amazing. And what they do is they uh another term I didn't know that you get a line edit. So they go through, and whenever they they make a note, and it's like, should it be this or should it be that? Sometimes it's like I love this, more of this. Sometimes it would even be blocking. I don't know where they're standing. Uh, where is hands at this point? Um, and sometimes it would be I'm not sure we need all this. Basically, calm down, Tolstoy. We don't need all this description. Um, but it was great. And you know, I it's funny because my uh agent at one point, because the agents are on all the emails, which is not how it is in theater.

At one point, my agent, my book agent said uh sent me an email. She's like, You don't have to take all their notes because in the theater, you usually have to take all the notes because the producer's paying for it. Um, but I said, No, no, no, they're good notes, they're great notes. Um, but there was one thing I disagreed with Mariah and I called and we talked at and we talked about it and came up with a solution, but she was just just wonderful. But it's like when you write a musical, you have collaborators, so you have other people constantly bouncing stuff off of it. I had no one except you know, my husband who read it a million times. But uh I was so relieved because here was somebody that was knew the industry, knew this part of the business, and was giving me feedback.

And I was like, Oh, you want more of that? I'm on it. You know, it's it's funny. The first draft, I went a few rounds with my book agent first, and they sort of giving me notes, and they were there was a kiss that happened in chapter two, and they're like, Chad, that happens halfway through the book. You can't have that kiss happen there, there's no story there. And I was like, Oh, of course, that makes total sense. Oh, yeah, okay, tease it out. I gotta tease it out. And uh it was really, and they kept saying, You're writing so fast. Uh, it's it's almost uncanny. But I was like, no, I'm just it's like it's I wanted this so desperately. I was desperate for like, you know, some direction and some response that I was just I was over eager.

I had one draft of the book, I they had all these notes I had it done in like two days, and I had to make myself wait until Monday so that they wouldn't think I took like don't settle it now because I think you just like you know, phoned it in. But it was just so exciting to get feedback from an actual publisher.

[14:02] Patrick Oliver Jones: Hmm, my bad. Well, Chad, this has been such a joy to talk to you, such a joy to meet you and hear about your experiences. Thank you so much for sharing them.

[14:10] Chad Beguelin: Oh, well, thanks for making it so fun.

[14:16] Patrick Oliver Jones: Thank you so much for joining Why I'll Never Make It. And don't forget, you can become a subscriber and get bonus conversations by going to why I'll Never Make It.com and click subscribe. Or just look for the link in the show notes. Be sure to join me next time as we talk more about Why I'll Never Make It.