Real-Life Decision Making
When sitting down to write a play, a playwright must first have a strong motivating idea, something that sparks that creative fire. More often than not, a good play will incorporate a message. The plays with the strongest messages are often most successful.
In order to market a play, a playwright must find accepting venues. If these are scarce, and they often are, the playwright may be tempted to rewrite the play, or write a new one that would be popular with the largest audience. This could establish the playwright's career.
This is just the sort of situation that Angela Brumett found herself in when a theater troupe, financially supported by many religious organizations, accepted her drama, Rubenstein's, for production. Later, after the troupe had read the play thoroughly, they found a scene of violence within the script.
The scene involved an innocent young girl finding someone else's gun and using it to kill someone who was threatening to kill the young man she loved.
The point Brumett was trying to make was that the young man's choice to be a part of a dangerous crowd ended up putting his sweetheart into a situation where she felt compelled to save him from violence by using violence. Brumett's point was not to show that violence was a solution for the problem, but that violence kills innocence.
However, the troupe wanted her to remove the scene completely and replace it with a scene where the girl compassionately talks her beloved's way out of trouble. Of course Brumett didn't want to change the message of her play, but if she refused to make the requested changes, they could refuse to produce the play. Then Brumett would have to find another venue.
What would you do in this situation?