WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY
DAVID VASS
“YOU’LL LAUGH, YOU’LL CRY, YOU’LL DEMAND A REFUND!"
MUSINGS OF AN ECCENTRIC RACONTEUR
WHO HAPPENED TO BE AT THE RIGHT PLACES AT THE RIGHT TIMES
Hello, I’m diarist David Vass
An offering of a quick overview on the birth of this production... my first attempt to create What Could Go Wrong began in 2018 and was frustrating. I decided to do the show, mostly improv, with some test audiences. My 40 years of diaries askew and so full of post-its they looked like Agnes Gooch took an Adderall and went to work! Luckily, I also wrote a punch-list of larger topics.
This led to 3 performances before live audiences, and I hired a video crew to record them all, then edited the video to a 4-minute teaser reel. That’s show business talk for what you send to bookers, producers, agents and rich friends to try to interest them in underwriting the play.
I was told “you have to have a written script” so I happened on a company that would take any audio source, type every word verbatim, and hand back a huge heap of pages. Many bottles of wine and 5 red pencils later, I had a script. Now I could send a teaser video, a script and a link to the website, What Could Go Wrong?
Offers did NOT pour in but my money sure did pour out! $50 K on this 72 year-old's retirement money on the costs of what I incurred that first year. In the 80’s when I had written a different show Elaine Stritch said to me: “so you wrote a play – the line starts over there (points to stage door). Sweetheart, if you ever put more than $500 clams in a show, you’re a fucking moron. I know because I did and here I am playing cabarets that hire flamenco dancers to kill the roaches”