I'm a Butterfly

One of the central themes of The Story of My Life is The Butterfly Effect, the idea that a tiny, seemingly trivial act can have profound implications. (You know, like refusing to wear a mask during a pandemic. But I digress.) The centerpiece of this show is a song called "The Butterfly," in which a butterfly learns about the Butterfly Effect.

But what we've realized while working on this incredibly rich, layered, complex show is that there are examples of the Butterfly Effect everywhere in our story. And by the end of the show, the audience realizes that the Butterfly Effect is everywhere in their lives as well. We all have Butterfly moments. We just rarely notice them.

I can think of so many in my own life. As one just example of many, when I turned 21, my mom wrote to a bunch of stage and film celebrities, asking them to send me birthday wishes. I ended up getting more than forty cards, letters, etc. It was wonderful. But the first thing that came was a letter from actors Lucie Arnaz and Larry Luckinbill. Lucie wrote a lovely letter and Larry wrote the P.S.

Go broke if you must, but always over-estimate the public's intelligence. They will thank you for it.

That one P.S. changed my life. It changed the way I thought about theatre, about musicals, about what I wanted to do as a theatre writer and director. That one P.S. became the guiding principle for New Line Theatre. Without that one P.S., I honestly don't know if I would have started New Line.

I also think back to my first Thespian conference, sophomore year in high school. I sat down on the bus headed for Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and sitting behind me was Dave Englehart, from an other high school, who would become my very best friend for years. Just because we happened to sit in those two seats.

It's a universal truth, a universal experience. And in the show, it's a lesson that Tom has to learn

Lifelong friends Alvin and Tom first meet in the school cafeteria in first grade, because their teacher Mrs. Remington introduced them. We can imagine, from her perspective, that these were just two "misfit" boys who might find something in common. Surely Mrs. Remington didn't image she was responsible for launching a lifelong friendship.

The Butterfly never knows what powerful effects it has. It just knows that it needs to flap its wings.

Later in Tom and Alvin's friendship, at age eleven, comes another seminal Butterfly moment. Alvin and Tom go down into Alvin's father's bookstore to find a birthday present for Tom. Interestingly, in this scene, Alvin believes the bookstore has mystical powers, and Tom does not. But Alvin's right, isn't he? If not the store itself, surely its contents -- books, stories -- have mystical powers. And sure enough, the book Alvin chooses does change Tom's life.

If that's not mystical, what is?

And how ironic that this bookstore, that birthed Tom's writing career, is called The Writer's Block -- and writer's block plagues Tom as we meet him, mid-career, though as symptom or cause, we don't know. And in both cases, Alvin is at the center of it all.

There so many Butterfly moments in The Story of My Life. (I'll be vague here, so as not to spill any big spoilers.) There's the discovery of the idea of eulogies, the theft of the robe, Tom's cancellation of the trip, the dinner with Ann, all of them tiny moments, often just a word or two, that change everything.

In fact, maybe the very act of sitting down to write Alvin's eulogy -- the framing device for the whole show -- is a Butterfly moment.

It's easy to see Alvin as the metaphorical Butterfly, creating changes all around him, yet ironically never really changing himself. But we can also see Tom as a Butterfly, but more like an evil butterfly. He also does several things that seem small but have massive implications. But Tom's Butterfly Effects are all negative, destructive, while Alvin's Butterfly Effects are positive. The two friends are Butterfly yin and yang.

And really, isn't the show itself, isn't The Story of My Life, an example of the Butterfly Effect? A little two-actor musical (and for this production, just me on keyboard) that reaches so many people, causing them to remember and maybe even reconnect with a lost friend, discover Butterfly moments in their own lives, understand the Butterfly moments they create in others' lives.

When our audiences walk out after the show each night, how many of them look up old friends? How many think about becoming a writer? How many are a little different having experienced our story?

The combination of Neil Bartram's music and lyrics, and Brian Hill's script, the show itself, is a butterfly. Our production of the show is a butterfly. Each of our performances is a butterfly. Storytelling itself is a butterfly.

But as the show reminds us, Butterfly Effects can be good or bad. And maybe after experiencing The Story of My Life, our audiences will be a little more careful about how carelessly we wield that awesome power. Maybe we'll all be less apt to toss off putdowns or insults, now that we're aware how consequential those tiny moments can be.

Some folks might think this is a weird time to be doing a show about writing a eulogy, after the last year and a half of relentless sickness and death. But on the contrary, right now is when we need Alvin and Tom the most. Right now, in these wild, chaotic, disorienting, and fiercely divided times, we need the twin themes of this show. First, that a person is not defined by how they died, but by how they lived; and second, that we have to recognize the fearsome power we each have to inspire, to lift up, but also to shatter.

As I've written many times, storytelling is never about escape. People don't go to the theatre or the movies or read a book or watch TV in order to escape; they do it to connect. Humans tell stories to make sense of their lives and the world around them. If ever our world needed sense-making, it's now.

The Story of My Life is about healing, after all -- and passing that healing on. At no other time in my life has that been more important than right now.

Thank you, Neil and Brian, and thank you, St. Louis audiences. It's so nice to be back in the theatre, sharing something genuinely worthwhile, telling stories again. It's what we do. Come see this wonderful show. We run till Oct. 23.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

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