I Wrote A Play That I Knew Would Never See A Stage

I just needed to let it out of my head.

Nov 09, 2025

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Hello! Welcome to my weekly newsletter!
Enjoy a dose of my playwriting process,
writing confessions, and all the mess in between.

Have you ever felt the deep desire to write something,
but halfway through (or even when you’ve finished it),
you just know it’s going to be shit?

Sometimes it’s necessary.
Even if you know it’ll never see the light of day.
Not now, not ever.

You just had to get it out of your system.

I have that one play.

Well, more specifically it’s a musical.
Though it was a short 10-minute musical that I was
initially wanting to submit for Short+Sweet,
I decided that it was too nasty.

In the sense that it was extremely trite,
painfully literal, and disgustingly emotional.

Without it being nuanced.

I just had to get it out of my chest because
it felt like therapy for me. But I know that
writing isn’t therapy. But it can be therapeutic.

And that’s okay!

Sometimes, it’s necessary.

By writing, you inevitably learn new things —
About yourself,
about your voice,
about your process,
about your technique.

So not everything would have gone to waste.

It just made you a better writer.

In this play…

I wanted to bring paintings in a gallery to life.
And I did!

Honestly, I used great elements and had really great lines.
But… overall it was nothing.

Would I revisit it again?

Short answer: no.

But, I did use certain elements in my other plays.
And that was great.

So the next time you’re writing,

And you get stuck or you think it’s a terrible idea.
Don’t be too quick to dismiss it.

Finish it if you can.
Make the ending shitty.
Make it gross.
Make it ugly.

It doesn’t need to be staged/published,
it just needs to be written.

Because even in the mess, there are lessons.
And those lessons make you better.

Do you have a piece of writing that will never see the light of day?
Tell me about it!