There are some parts of this process of seeing something I’ve written come to life for an audience that still always catch me off guard with their potential to move me deeply.

One of those is that moment when the set arrives.

Michael Crocket’s gorgeous set has just loaded in and I’m absolutely stunned. It so beautifully reflects the strange mood of the script. I’m so grateful. And when I walked into the theater at 8AM this morning, I was the first to arrive. I switched on the house lights and gasped. I nearly wept. There’s such a visceral thing that happens when the space starts to take shape.

I recall observing a similar strong emotional charge get hold of my mother, Nechama Tec, when she and my sister and Dad visited the set of Defiance, Edward Zwick’s film adaptation of her book which I co-produced. The afternoon I brought them to see the “village of ziemlankas” that Production Designer Dan Weil had meticulously recreate from the descriptions in Mom’s book, she almost gasped. She bounced from one area to the next absolutely marveling at how details she’d pieced together in her research had found their way onto our set. Potatoes hanging on a line of string, shoes and other leather goods lined up in a makeshift tannery.

As I looked at Michael’s set I could feel certain key emotional moments of my play wash over me. That’s a sign of a sensitive artist. They read the text and translate the emotional core at the heart of the story into every little detail.

God is in the details.

And big thanks to our props designer, Boris Bawnik for these lovely wedding invitations.