The cast – an endearing bunch of adventurous souls – took to the material with gusto. There was laughter, a few raised eyebrows, and a surprising amount of passion in trying out accents. At one point, we all watched a brave actor tackle the vocal equivalent of a high-wire act: a French man pretending to be a New Yorker who happens to be a woman. Somewhere, Meryl Streep shuddered.
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I take a breath. I think about the absurdity of musicalizing a story that already feels like an operatic fever dream. Then I say, “Let’s give it a go.”
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I spent a couple of weeks attempting to outline the thing, but how does one outline mayhem? How does one carefully plan for chaos? Eventually, I gave up and returned to the method that had gotten us this far: just start writing and see what happens.
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And yet, a few months later, there we were—our quirky little 10-minute play, making its New York debut with an entirely new cast. And—astonishingly—The Fork won again. First place, audience choice. Twice in a row, in two very different cities. At this point, we were starting to wonder if we had accidentally done something good.
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I told no one about it. So that way if I couldn’t do it in time, or if I could but it was too terrible for the festival, I could walk away whistling nonchalantly like nothing to see here folks, move along, and I’d just live with being a little sleepy the next day.
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