Yesterday afternoon I saw the musical ‘The Divine Sarah” by June Richards and Elaine Lang. Something both of them started over forty years ago, and shelved more then 39 years ago. Most things on the shelf for more than five years are simply lost in time.

In this case, good friends asked them, “What happened to that script?” Then someone found the .pdf of the typed pages. Another found some VHS tapes that were made of readings, and the songs were found on tape.

Old friends were called upon, rewrites were made, COVID forced readings on Zoom. Endless edits, a completely new second act, lots more current research, and nearly a thousand images downloaded from around the world. When the resolution was so poor, the images were redrawn, reimagined.

In a world of takers, there was a subset of “makers”.

Months of wondering what to do, now that it was nearly finished. Submit the musical to producers, and a magically a local playhouse dedicated to new works agreed to produce the musical. I began helping nearly 4 years ago. It’s been on stage for a week with three more weeks to go. The production is wonderful, the music sublime, Sarah is perfect, and the Ensemble could not be better.

So amazing to see something that existed only in text and images in your head, become alive on stage with an audience enthralled.