Love Letter to the Guardians of the Text

L to R: Stage Manager Charlie Gould, Lisa Barnes and Director Suze Allen on the set of Roland Tec’s What We Get to Keep.

There’s a special relationship between the script writer and the person on set whose responsibility it is to check and double-check and correct the actors as they set down the printed page and go off-book.

On a film set the Script Supervisor is my guardian of the text.

And in the theater it’s the Stage Manager.

Ours is a delight. Charlie Gould is deeply familiar with every page of my play by now and it’s lovely for me every time an actor calls “line” or he breaks in to correct a small error.

Every writer knows that the difference between “I told you already” “I told you so” and “I already told you that” matters. But deep down we harbor a secret fear: That no one else appreciates the importance of such details.

So when sitting in the back of the hall I hear Charlie shout out a rapid-fire correction followed immediately by the actor absorbing and then spitting it out seamlessly, I feel just a little bit safer.

Thank you, Charlie. And thanks to all you ‘Guardians of the Text.’