I recently returned from a strenuous, two-week corporate meeting, and the experience was so unusual, so heady for me—a guy who normally spends 80% of his time alone—that it's going to take at least three entries to fully communicate my feelings about it. I hope you keep tuning in for the next installment.
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So, I was hired. Now all I had to do was write the stuff. And it would be easy money because nothing was riding on it. (Sarcasm.)
Let’s see, all I had to do was write a play that fictionalized a Fortune 100 company’s beloved founder, a man worshipped more ardently than Elvis; introductory and closing speeches for the company’s head of worldwide operations, in which I had to convincingly and naturally integrate terminology about a business I didn’t know first-hand; several video scripts for other high-level executives who, having met them, I wanted to make sound as good as possible; eight mini “transition” speeches for the main executive whose program it was; and ten minutes of banter for the executives and a guest speaker (who I hadn’t met and wouldn’t until the day of the show). All told, I had to write 2½ hours of material that would unveil the company’s annual operating plan and which, if poorly written or executed, could hurt the company’s stock and lead to my friend Mark losing a valuable client and possibly having to lay people off.
Like I said, easy money.
A nice low-pressure gig.
As I often do when starting a new job—especially in an area I haven’t worked in before—I briefly doubted myself. In this case, because we were talking about writing, my doubts only lasted about two minutes. In the past, I could be paralyzed by self-doubt for hours, sometimes days. But now that I’m in my late thirties and feel like I’m at the top of my game in every way, self-doubt doesn’t enter into the equation as much. One of the advantages of experience, I guess.
The Fusion Media guys wouldn't dare make fun of my computer now.
Now, if this were a movie, there would be a long montage here of me writing, but because that’s boring I’ll keep it short. I wrote first drafts using my Mont Blanc, while propped up in bed with a clipboard. For reference I flipped through PowerPoint decks that had been presented to the Board of Directors. (Hot.) Subsequent drafts were typed either on my eMac or the computer I’m using now: my iBook G4—deridingly referred to by Mark’s Fusion Media boys as “White Lightning”. There was considerable printing involved, crumpled up papers tossed at wastebaskets, gallons of Green Mountain coffee, a few dozen Nestle Crunch bars, short walks around my hometown of Millbrook, several lonely razor blades, and occasional 9-hole golf outings to clear my head. I came up with some good ideas out on the links, but I never billed for that time. Yeah, I know...generous.
The great thing was, throughout the summer, I was able to do the majority of this work from home. But alas, about once a week I had to commute down to the company’s headquarters in Westchester.
I realize that for most people a daily commute is commonplace, and if this describes your experience, I salute you. The last time I had to do it for more than a month was when I worked for Merrill Lynch, back in 2002. It sucked then, and I imagine it still does. For me, a guy comfortably ensconced in his little writing lair—with its gold-painted walls, Royal Quiet DeLuxe typewriter and Casino Royale movie poster—having to shave and dress up and travel 50 miles to an office where I have to quell my urge to use the word f--k is an ordeal. Brothers and sisters, if you do the daily grind like this, I tip my Red Sox cap to you.
The company’s home office is surprisingly pastoral. Nestled in some woods overlooking one of NYC’s reservoirs, the grounds are home to lots of deer, Canada geese and at least one flock of wild turkeys (no kidding; I wished I’d had my camera). The critters are safe because hunters don’t stand a chance at getting in there. There are cameras everywhere, including in the trees (which is why, despite desperately needing to urinate when I arrived there at seven o’clock one morning, I waited until I was inside). On the weekends giant, menacing-looking gates block the roads, allowing access only to those with IDs. You need a magnetic ID to get around inside the building as well, which is why it wouldn’t surprise me if, deep in the bowels of that citadel, there were an NSA think tank at work. But I digress.
For me, a guy comfortably ensconced in his little writing lair—with its gold-painted walls, Royal Quiet DeLuxe typewriter and Casino Royale movie poster—having to shave and dress up and travel 50 miles to an office where I have to quell my urge to use the word f--k is an ordeal.
After the revision meetings between me, Mark and his sharp, wry business partner, Ben Wild, the main reason for my going down there was rehearsals. Rehearsals of the play and the speeches. First, the play.
Let me preface my discussion of the play by saying that it was really a series of connected skits designed to dramatize the core principles of the new operating plan, cleverly titled (not by
moi), “Operational Excellence”. Without going into detail, the core principles are Plan, Make, Warehouse and Sell/Deliver. The idea was for me to feature the company’s founder in fictional situations 100 years ago that showed him being confronted by, say, a problem in warehousing and how he solved it. Further, the idea was to use these “skits” as a mild form of propaganda to ameliorate the company’s restructuring and reorganization (translation: layoffs), hopefully giving the audience of middle managers some comic relief in the process. Oh, and I needed the skits to subtly convey the message that “Change is good.” Pshaw...child's play.
To this end, the director, Jim Steinmeyer, mentioned that he had been reading Charles Darwin the other night (no offense, Jim, but who does this?) and had come across a quote that he thought I could use. He closed his eyes and recited the following from memory: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives. Nor is it the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” I wrote it down, knowing I would eventually weave into the tapestry of the story, although I had no idea how yet.
My initial concept was to feature the company’s founder in his small-town pharmacy with a pair of curmudgeons as foils. After a read-through, however, Jim and I agreed that three men wouldn’t play well. Also, for cost and logistical reasons, we decided to keep the cast to two, which would take some creativity on my part to generate dramatic conflicts. They would all have to come from offstage through phone calls, telegraph and the like.
Alice Roosevelt, TR's daughter. She was a real piece of work.
I was actually glad about the limitations because they were steering me towards a more interesting alternative. I’d been thinking about the women of that period, and I’d always had a crush on Teddy Roosevelt’s daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth. The woman was brilliant, witty, beautiful and irreverent. They named a color, Alice Blue (similar to the color of postal uniforms), for her. When her father, as President, forbade her from smoking cigarettes under the roof of the White House, she went up on the roof to smoke. Her exploits go on and on. The important point here is that I wanted to create a woman character—the founder’s visiting niece, Charlotte—who displayed these qualities of Alice Roosevelt. The resulting character was so clear, and so well portrayed by the actress, that seeing my creation come to life actually made me weep.
(Sidebar. You see, when you create fictional characters that appear in novels and short stories, you get used to experiencing them only in your head. This was the first time I'd ever witnessed characters of mine as living creatures, and I loved it.)
Now a word about the actors. When I met them, I was in the Fusion Media conference room, deep in thought about part of the play, when a man and woman in early 1900s attire burst into the room. The man wore an apron and suspenders; the woman a dress and a hat that I had described on the page as “impossible to miss”. Jim strolled in behind them and smiled.
“So, what do you think?”
For a few seconds, I was in shock. It was as though I’d been thinking so hard about the characters that they’d just come to life, like spontaneous combustion.
“Amazing,” I said.
“Are we like you imagined?” the actress asked.
I admired the tailoring on her bodice.
“Better.”
Seriously, they were. The actor playing the company’s founder was an accomplished stage actor named Danny Vaccaro who had been in a Broadway production of A Wonderful Life, as well as a few episodes of the New York actor’s staple gig—Law and Order. He was tall, courtly and had even grown a mustache for the part so he’d match the founder’s look. The actress, Kelly McCormick, had one of those radiant, versatile faces that you knew could play everything from a pauper to a queen. She had done a lot of musical theater including the lead in the national tour of Les Mis. At lunch that day, I found both of them charming—mostly because they laughed at all of my jokes. The entire Fusion Media team was enchanted by them as well, and for good reason; the two of them were positively magnetic.
Danny Vaccaro and Kelly McCormick in my little corporate 'play'.
Privately, as the days of rehearsals and lunches went by, I found myself drawn closer and closer to Kelly. Since we met, the two of us had avoided direct eye contact. (She confided in me later that my gaze—normally pretty intense—was the first one she’d experienced where she had to look away. I told her that her eyes, which combined the vulnerability, intensity and wickedness of Scarlett O’Hara’s, had the same effect on me.) We managed to avoid locking eyes until the third day during lunch, and when it happened, a spark passed between us. Yes, a spark. And I don’t care if you think that’s a cliche; it was magical.
(Another sidebar. I love my wife, Alexas, completely and she knows this. I don’t flirt with women, and I’ve never strayed from her. Honestly, I was completely taken off guard by the chemistry between Kelly and me, but knowing that I hadn’t been looking for it, I make no apologies. I believe there’s a reason why Kelly and I met, and although I haven’t entirely figured it out, I know there is one.)
Further weakening my resolve was Kelly’s fawning over my work. To a writer, this is better than phone sex. However, she was so earnest and effusive that I thought she was just flattering me.
“I could never do what you do,” she said in the cafeteria one day. “It must be amazing to create something from nothing the way you do.”
I was about to say, “Yes, it is amazing, isn’t it? Godlike actually.” But I caught myself.
“But you create, too,” I said. “My words are like Frankenstein’s monster, and you and Danny give the monster life through your acting. That’s creating.”
She smiled at me. To break the tension, I nodded down at my lunch: carved roast beef with roasted potatoes and gravy. I spoke up in my best Robert Mitchum impersonation.
“Beef, it’s what’s for dinner.”
The way my brain works—Robert Mitchum's 'beef' commercials,
combined with the enchanting Kelly McCormick, make me think
of the original Cape Fear and its perfectly menacing title score.
Kelly gazed unflinchingly at me and drawled in the Southern accent of my character, Charlotte.
“But Mr. Orcutt, this is lunch.”
I cleared my throat.
“Beef,” I said, “it’s what’s for lunch.”
“I don’t think that works,” she said.
I winked. “Yes you do."
She giggled, and in my mind I heard trouble. I thought of Robert Mitchum again, which got me thinking about Bernard Herrmann's brilliant title track from the original Cape Fear.
There's trouble on the horizon, mister. Watch yourself.
And so it went between us for the next fourteen days. A beautiful, vivacious woman instantly got me, and I got her, and it had only cost me three subsidized cafeteria lunches (hers, mine and Danny’s) to reach this point. During rehearsals, however, the two of us were all business, and when Jim, the director, had to step out for a moment, he handed me the reins. Big mistake.
Left to right: Jim Steinmeyer, director; Danny Vaccaro and Kelly McCormick, the actors; and me, Chris Orcutt, the lonely writer.
As the substitute director—if only for half an hour—I felt compelled to offer my insights on the characters and how these trained actors should play them. Hey, I’d taken an undergraduate acting class, and hadn’t I created these characters? When Danny and Kelly finished a scene, to their credit they looked at me as though I was David Mamet (I hadn’t said anything play-related yet). So I offered the following wisdom:
“Danny, over the weekend I was watching Gone with the Wind, and I got an idea about Caleb.”
“Oh?” Danny said.
“Yeah,” I said. “You know who I think you should channel?”
“Mammy? ‘Oh, Mister Rhett, you sho’ luf Scarlett...’”
“Ha, ha. No, Rhett Butler. As you’re playing Caleb, think about Rhett’s social standing and wealth and refinement. Try to get all of those things into the character, but not the scoundrel part.”
Danny put a finger to his lips.
“I don’t know what that means,” he said.
“You know, Rhett Butler. ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.’ Except not the mean stuff. Just the avuncular stuff.”
“Excuse me, avuncu-what?” Danny asked.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “avuncular. It means uncle-like. You’re Charlotte’s uncle.”
“Mr. Orcutt,” Charlotte chimed in, “I do believe you’re causing a ruckus, sir. Y’all need to let us continue rehearsal.”
“I’m pretty sure Charlotte wouldn’t say ‘Y’all’, Kelly. Uh, Charlotte.”
She was staring at me with a faint smile on her lips when Jim returned.
“So, how are we doing?” he asked.
“I was giving them some notes,” I said, “but I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. I’m going out for coffee.”
And thus my directorial career was dashed before it had begun. I’m meant to write the words, not interpret them, I guess. And it's a good thing, too, because Jim's expert direction and concept for the set transformed what would have simply been some clever words on a page into a real production.
More on the play and the other great people behind it in my next installment. Now, the speeches.
For weeks, Mark, Ben and I had been working in a vacuum, hoping for some feedback from the executive for whom I was writing the material, but every time he had a meeting scheduled with us, he would cancel at the last minute. In his defense, the guy did have other things to do like, oh, I don’t know, running the worldwide operations of a Fortune 100 company. As a result, when he had to cancel, Mark would say, “He’s on the jet to Turkey...to Russia...to Bolivia,” and we’d have to wait until next time.
Finally, a week before the event, at the same time as play rehearsals, he gave us a few days of rehearsal time. Let me say that the executive in question is a very amiable man, not at all the pretentious corporate stick-in-the-ass that you might expect. He grew up in Detroit, played Division I college football and has a wonderful, sonorous speaking voice. At the podium, he has terrific presence. However, when he did his first run-through, he read the speech like a cattle auctioneer. There were no pauses between sentences with one sentence running right into the next one like this but we couldn’t say anything too harsh because he’s the client so we were in this uncomfortable position of needing to be honest with the man but not being able to. Mark, Ben and I just looked at each other as he read, and I don’t know about those guys, but here’s what the cartoon bubble over my head looked like:
“WE’RE F-CKED.”
If Mark and I had been drinkers, we probably would have gone out for a shot (or eleven) afterwards. For all I know, Ben, who does enjoy an occasional cocktail, did just that.
In the days that followed, the executive improved exponentially. We put his material on the TelePrompTer, and he read from the Presidential glass (those glass thingys that stand at an angle in front of the President; yes, they might be bulletproof, but if so, that’s not their main purpose). Trouble was, he was still skipping punctuation. I considered putting a >>PAUSE<< in between every sentence, but decided that would be excessive. Not to mention it would extend his speaking time to about 17 hours.
Frankly, I was getting impatient and started to wonder if my speech was causing the problems. But then I went up to the podium myself and tried reading what the executive had to read. I quickly discovered that it’s not as easy as it looks because only two (or at most, three) words fit on one line:
The quick
brown fox
jumps over
the lazy dog.
Four score
and seven years
ago, our
fathers brought
forth on this
continent a
new nation, con-
ceived in Liberty,
and dedicated to
the proposi-
tion that all men
are created e-
qual.
You get the idea. Well, we worked our tails off that last week, me rewriting sections of the speech, Mark building slides, and Ben and Fusion Ops Director Jen Pesce creating a game show for the event while somehow keeping the other Fusion staff from committing mutiny.
And then time was up and we were heading to the event. One week at a resort in Scottsdale, AZ, then a second week at a resort in Orlando, FL. What had begun for me as an abstraction—a phone conversation in June—was now very much a reality. In a few days, an audience would see our work, and it would either be effective or it wouldn’t. It would be entertaining or it wouldn’t. Making matters worse were the questions tumbling around in my head before we left.
Would the executive land in Scottsdale and want a complete rewrite? Was he ready or would he freeze up in front of the crowd? Would he keep skipping periods? Had Alexas packed me enough boxer shorts? Would I get an aisle seat? Was there something between Kelly and me, or was I just imagining it? What would the food be like? And when they said, “breakfast buffet,” did that include sausage and bacon?
The answers to these and other important questions will be revealed in my next installment. Thank you for tuning in.
TO BE CONTINUED...
