30 Days of NYMF: Twilight in Manchego

By Matt Gould (Book, Music, and Lyrics)

I always fall in love with the boys.  Just when I am about to hit the climax of my creative output, "enter hot skater dude, stage left."  I think God uses men to block my ability to realize my vision.  He sits up on his throne and says, "Matt Gould?  He's a talented guy. Here's a pretty black boy who sings like Usher.  Tee hee."
 
This year, for my NYMF show, Twilight in Manchego, I told my director, Billy Porter, that we could only cast straight boys.  Little did I know these straight theatre princesses are worse than the gays. 
 
They play with your mind.  They come over to your house with their cargo shorts and their cutoff tees, straight from working out at Equinox.  You play them a killer power ballad you wrote last night and they sit on your bed and take their shoes off and tell you, with surprised admiration, "You're good, Matt.  You're really good."
 
"I'm really glad you like my song," I think.  "I'm really glad you are going to sing the hell out of it.  I'm really glad we're gonna win a million Tonys.  Take your fricken clothes off!"
 
I'm not a pig.  But writing is a lonely calling.  At the end of a show, after all the praise and the flowers and the late night greasy spoon, you go home, alone, to sit at the piano, and to write.  It's romantic in its own way.  But it's lonely.
 
Maybe these boys are tests--God's way of saying, "You have a choice.  You can get naked and have your night of unbridled passion.  OR, you can write a show about it."  I choose the latter.  Although Twilight in Manchego isn't about choosing art over unbridled passion, it IS about facing your demons and growing up.  For now, I'm growing up…alone…for now.