We recently connected with Dr. Max Branscomb and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. Max, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?
A turning point in my career as a playwright was an opportunity to write a musical-comedy called “La Pastorela Magica” at the San Diego Old Globe Theater. La Pastorela is a spicy, rhyming Christmas tradition from Mexico that a Globe staff member first brought to the United States in 1991. In 1993 the Globe commissioned me to write a new version. I was honored to be chosen and motivated to write a wonderful script for San Diego County’s greatest theater company. Unfortunately, the rehearsal process started out unpleasantly. The director was, well, difficult. He was often unkind toward me and dismissive of my script. I started to wonder if my 75-page rhyming comedy was good enough for the “Major Leagues.”
During one particularly bumpy rehearsal the revered founder of the Old Globe, Mr. Craig Noel, sauntered into the theater to watch. Everyone noticed, turning their gaze briefly to see the ivory-haired octogenarian gingerly hobble up the stairs to the top, back row. Mr. Noel watched for 5-6 minutes, then closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.
“Damn!” I thought. “Craig Noel just fell asleep watching my show!”
I bowed my head and shuffled off to the stage door, exiting out into the cool, misty November air of Balboa Park. I stood numbly on the rail of the second level of the building I regarded as a temple, gazing out over the park’s lovely Spanish revival architecture. I thought my brief flirtation with a major project at a Tony Award-winning regional theater was spiraling like a damaged jet toward a fiery collision with a mountain.
I was startled by a tap on the shoulder. I resisted the urge to spin around and tell the person intruding on my melancholy to go away and leave me alone. Thank goodness my manners prevailed. It was Mr. Noel standing next to me on the balcony.
“I was looking for you,” he said. “I wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your play. It is creative and really funny. You are a very talented young man. This is going to be a fabulous show.”
I thought I was dreaming, and I tried hard not to cry in front of the great man. That was the single most meaningful moment in my creative life. I felt a warmth fill my soul and a lightness cleanse my body of doubt.
Mr. Noel spent several minutes going through specific aspects of the script he liked, as well as a few much-appreciated suggestions which I jotted down in my battered, guacamole-stained reporter’s notebook. When San Diego’s god of theater was finished sharing his wisdom, I took a deep breath.
“Mr. Noel,” I said, “I noticed that shortly after you came in you closed your eyes. I thought you had fallen sleep.”
He smiled faintly.
“No,” he said. “I liked the words I was hearing. I often close my eyes to really listen to the words. You can get distracted by the spectacle of theater sometimes, but nothing is more important than the language.”
When I direct plays now, I often sit near the back and close my eyes just like Craig Noel did so I can hear the dialogue and the actors’ choices — although I warn the cast first!
“La Pastorela Magica” received rave reviews and sold out its run. It launched a run for La Pastorela that is now in its fourth decade. It is San Diego’s longest-running holiday tradition and is embedded in the culture of our wonderful diverse borderlands region. I write a new script every year based on current events and popular culture. I have had the privilege to work with hundreds of gifted and kind creatives.
I am still so thankful for the tap on the shoulder and validation from a person I respected like no other. My 10 minutes on the balcony with Craig Noel changed the trajectory of my life.
Dr. Max, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My mother started teaching me to write when I was a baby, though neither of us knew it at the time. She enjoyed reading Dr. Suess books she purchased at the checkout counters of grocery stores in Oak Harbor, Washington and other dreary Navy towns we were ordered to by the Vietnam-era military. I loved Dr. Suess’s jaunty stories and lockstep rhymes which grounded his fanciful characters in his unconstrained language. Transient Navy kids were America’s scruffy mid-century gypsies — unwanted and unpopular among the rooted townies. Two things saved me from a childhood of black eyes and eating lunch alone — my athletic ability appreciated by the other boys, and my ability to make up rhyming stories and songs on the spot. Pretty little girls liked giving me silly prompts and I would riff out a fantastical tale that often drew a giggling audience. On a really good day I might receive a tip like a Hostess Cupcake or Twinkie.
Telling stories was always enjoyable, whether they were real or fictional. I fell in love with journalism as a fourth grader and was always a leader or chief writer for my k-12 school newspapers and literary publications. I was majoring in journalism at San Diego State University when I accidentally became a playwright and songwriter. I was a teenage reporter working for the local newspaper when my editor asked me to cover an evening meeting of a group of community leaders determined to produce a comedic melodrama based on local history. All I knew of melodramas was the over-the-top Snidely Whiplash character from the Saturday morning Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Turns out Snidely was a pretty good template.
Organizers of the meeting hung blank butcher paper on the walls of a spacious room at the local cemetery and asked senior citizens to write down their memories of the region’s history. It did not work. The august collection of the area’s pioneers was content to sit at their tables, nibble snacks and talk to old friends. I could not resist the opportunity to capture the community’s rarely recorded history from so many folks who had lived it. My notebook bulged with tales of triumph, tragedy, heels and heroes by the time the host of the event introduced the young junior high school teacher who had agreed to direct the play. To her horror she learned at the mic that she was also expected to write it. As fate would have it, we were seated at the same card table.
“They just asked me to direct,” she told me ashen faced. “I’m no writer.”
My social butterfly boss flitted by at just that moment.
“Oh honey, Max is a great writer, I bet he’ll help you.” My panicked 19-year-old self was trying to signal my boss to stop talking, but the director wrote her name and phone number on a wrinkled napkin she yanked out from under a wine glass and stuffed it into my shirt pocket.
“You call me!” she commanded.
I did.
We met at a Mexican restaurant a few days later. I brought a couple canary legal pads and a barely germinated idea to borrow from “Romeo and Juliet” for a show based on the real life 1916 epic flood caused when the Sweetwater Dam washed out. Our star-crossed lovers were the son of a lima bean farmer and the daughter of the largest lemon grower in the valley. We banged out a first draft of “Thin Skins and Hayseeds” in a day. I added details and dialogue over the next couple weeks while writing the first songs of my life. We held auditions, rehearsed in the cafeteria of the junior high school, and opened the show in September 1978 in a building-sized blue and white circus tent in the center of town.
I remember reading once that John Lennon used to get so nervous before Beatles performances he would throw up. I did the same on opening night, sharing a nauseous rite of passage with one of my heroes. The term imposter syndrome had yet to be coined, but I had a near fatal case as I watched a capacity crowd purchase tickets and stream into the canvas theater. “My god,” I thought. “Who the hell do you think you are to write a musical and actually sell tickets?”
Miraculously (luckily!) the show was a hit! I’ll never forget the rush I had when the audience laughed at the first joke and cheered the first song. A woman a few chairs down my row cried during a tender duet between the lemon grower’s daughter and her mother. It was an intoxicating to realize that I had created so much that moved people in so many ways.
Echoes of that first theater experience reverberate today. I was so astonished to see people pull money from their pockets to buy tickets. I will never take a single member of our audiences for granted. They are people who decide to attend our plays, get dressed up, maybe hire a babysitter, drive to the theater, buy tickets and spend 2-3 hours watching and listening to our art. It is new and wonderful each and every time we open the doors. Our dear audience members deserve our best efforts and best work at all times. I decided to study play writing, Joseph Campbell’s mythological story structure, music and directing. Kindly audiences encouraged me to keep going. Some even donated generous amounts of money so we could do subsequent shows. Respect, integrity and good intentions by artists are returned many times over by audiences who feel it.
I have been the Artistic Director of the Bonitafest Melodrama for 47 years, still writing musical-comedies about the borderlands and its remarkable people. We are the longest-running theater tradition in San Diego County. Every year it starts the same, with a pen and a pad of blank paper.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Most creative people, I believe, have a special talent for communicating emotion and values. A rewarding aspect of being a writer is that sometimes we can use our art to change people’s minds or at least inspire them to consider other points of view. Human rights, fairness and stewardship of our planet and its living things are things I am passionate about. Theater, film, poetry, long form journalism and other forms of art can often create empathy and allow people to consider other points of view. One of my favorite moments as a writer came after a performance of “La Pastorela” at the San Diego Repertory Theater. An overdressed, conservative looking woman marched over to me clearly with a mission.
“I got dragged to this show by friends who told me it was funny,” she said. “I said I didn’t want to go to some leftwing, hippy show talking about issues I don’t agree with.”
I braced for a tongue lashing about something I had written.
“But you know,” she continued, “this play made me think about immigration. I always thought we needed to keep all these people from Mexico out of here. But now I think maybe there is enough here for everyone and that we could use people from other places who love America and want to contribute. Thank you.”
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
My mission is evolving. Now that I am older (66), have two daughters who love the performing arts and had the opportunity to produce more than 100 of my plays, I am free of much of the ego and the need to prove myself that were part of my youth. I get most of my joy now from working with young people and teaching them a few of the things I have learned. Youth theater in San Diego County is in a dark period. At least three of the largest youth theater programs have had sexual abuse scandals involving children. Most of the rest are “pay to play” outfits that (unintentionally) exclude low-income children and young adults who are disproportionally people of color. Our Bonitafest Melodrama and La Pastorela projects are multiracial, transgenerational and free of charge. Casting is based on merit, and we always try to find a place in the production for all people in the community who want to join in.
To lift the financial burden from participants we have to fund raise and write grants like crazy, but that gives us the freedom to do ethical, service-based theater. I enjoy teaching young actors and watching them develop self-confidence. I enjoy running into a young genius who needs encouragement and mentoring. I love having the platform to make people think about important societal issues disguised as an evening of musical comedy.
Another part of our mission is to write parts for actors from underrepresented segments of our community. Asian Americans, Native Americans and members of the LGBTQ community are talented and often well trained but are grossly underrepresented in the performing arts because there is a dearth of roles written for them. This is improving due to the slow, but steady increase in the number of writers from these communities, but the problem lingers. We also work to find and support talented writers, directors and producers from underserved communities by giving them opportunities to create and lead.
Contact Info:
- Other: email: [email protected]. / [email protected]
Image Credits
Photo by Misael Virgen