Dream Machine scene snippet — “Hello, 1989”

Editing the script for Dream Machine episode 4, for rehearsal with my lovely cast this weekend. I’m currently waiting for Bernie to do his pass on it, and in the meantime, it makes me want to noodle on other ideas I have for it. (I’ve always been a productive procrastinator, and it’s easier than working on things with closer deadlines.)

An idea I had for a later episode is for an old friend of Ryan’s to come back, someone who was a colleague in his feature film power player days. The idea would be to sort of tempt Ryan back to the person he used to be with the promise of getting back his old status as a high-level producer. But that person wasn’t all that decent, and he’s kind of got to get smacked in the face by that to keep from falling back into old bad habits.

I have this terrible habit of spoiling climactic or high-emotion moments of scripts yet to be written by posting them here. But I tend to find them to be the parts of the story that spring easiest to my mind, so they’re easiest for me to figure out and draft before I have all the nuts and bolts worked out.

It’s also tough for me to write stuff that’s... coarse. I tend to get squeamish, back off, and take the teeth out of it. I need to push myself in that direction every now and then to get over the embarrassment when it’s the right direction to take a piece.

This is the second joke I’ve stolen from Fosse/Verdon for a scene in Dream Machine. Will probably replace it later. But I have no idea why that became such a reference point for this project.

If you'd like to check out the episodes of Dream Machine so far, you can find them as follows:
1.01 - "The Show Must Go Off"
1.02 - "Requiem For a Dreamer"
1.03 - "Change or Die"

(  “Hello, 1989”  )