with that was he had no idea what he was going to do next; he was suffering from an extreme case of writer’s block and was certain that the collection of plays in his library were not ready for Broadway yet. Each and every one of them demanded a certain level of tweaking that he just was incapable of giving them right now. He sat alone in his study at night and stared at page after page of the words that he himself had written and not a thing came to mind about what to add or take away. He was helpless in his own world.
He gritted his teeth at the thought of what was being done to him and searched for that determination that had always gotten him through every other crisis in his life, every long night of staring at a blank page, and the horrible, chopped-liver shortage of 1997.
Schultz, Fujikawa, and Jacob Stone may have thought they had beaten Jeffrey, that he was about to submit and beg for mercy, and that he was on the precipice of acknowledging defeat, but they were wrong. He would fight them with everything he had. He knew that he was a better man than the three of them combined and that his talent would win the day. The fans would come back and the accolades would once again ring out his name; he just wasn’t sure how long it was going to take for him to find those words, the momentum, and the fighter’s heart to retake what was his.
Broadway had been his kingdom for a long time, he had been the darling of the Great White Way since his early twenties, and now here, in his mid-forties and beginning to feel the stress of the years on his creative half, he was afraid that he no longer possessed the heart or the desire to fight back the way he thought he was capable of. The truth was that he had never really had to fight hard for anything in his life, and now that a fight was in front of him, staring him in the eye, it scared the hell out of him.
He looked at the contact list on his phone and thought that maybe he could find an old backer who could fight the wealth of Heinrich Schultz for Jeffrey and give the large kraut a taste of his own medicine, but quickly realized that the majority of his backers over the years were older people who mainly wanted to prove to their kids that you can’t take it with you. None of them had the killer spirit or the desire to fight somebody else’s battles. He knew that the first step in winning this war was to beat them at his own game, and that game was to write another play, even though A Dreidel Spins in Yonkers was still viable.
What he needed to do was write something that was so ear searing and distasteful that the audiences would be clamoring to be the first to see it. He needed to dig deep and find that man whom he thought had once resided in the depths of his soul, the one who was evil and vindictive, the one who could hurt another with his words and his work without batting an eye, the one whose only song in his heart was Hail the Conquering King.
He stared at his blank page, and that man was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Nine: Ups and Downs
Peaks and valleys, ups and downs, highs and lows—whatever your choice of words were, that is how best to describe the meteoric rise of Jacob Stone while trying to accurately depict the plight of Jeffrey David Rothstein.
Where Jacob was the toast of the town, being invited to one party after another, the favorite target of the paparazzi, and the object of desire for a new legion of adoring fans, Jeffrey was as low as a man could possibly be in the short period of time that it took to send his career into a tailspin. He was unable to find a new venue for A Dreidel Spins in Yonkers , so his latest masterpiece quietly went away and out of the thoughts of even the most avid Broadway enthusiasts. He tried to find backers to help him keep the show running as a national production, touring from one city to another, but the same people who had backed him on every other venture now mysteriously wanted nothing to do with him or his
He gritted his teeth at the thought of what was being done to him and searched for that determination that had always gotten him through every other crisis in his life, every long night of staring at a blank page, and the horrible, chopped-liver shortage of 1997.
Schultz, Fujikawa, and Jacob Stone may have thought they had beaten Jeffrey, that he was about to submit and beg for mercy, and that he was on the precipice of acknowledging defeat, but they were wrong. He would fight them with everything he had. He knew that he was a better man than the three of them combined and that his talent would win the day. The fans would come back and the accolades would once again ring out his name; he just wasn’t sure how long it was going to take for him to find those words, the momentum, and the fighter’s heart to retake what was his.
Broadway had been his kingdom for a long time, he had been the darling of the Great White Way since his early twenties, and now here, in his mid-forties and beginning to feel the stress of the years on his creative half, he was afraid that he no longer possessed the heart or the desire to fight back the way he thought he was capable of. The truth was that he had never really had to fight hard for anything in his life, and now that a fight was in front of him, staring him in the eye, it scared the hell out of him.
He looked at the contact list on his phone and thought that maybe he could find an old backer who could fight the wealth of Heinrich Schultz for Jeffrey and give the large kraut a taste of his own medicine, but quickly realized that the majority of his backers over the years were older people who mainly wanted to prove to their kids that you can’t take it with you. None of them had the killer spirit or the desire to fight somebody else’s battles. He knew that the first step in winning this war was to beat them at his own game, and that game was to write another play, even though A Dreidel Spins in Yonkers was still viable.
What he needed to do was write something that was so ear searing and distasteful that the audiences would be clamoring to be the first to see it. He needed to dig deep and find that man whom he thought had once resided in the depths of his soul, the one who was evil and vindictive, the one who could hurt another with his words and his work without batting an eye, the one whose only song in his heart was Hail the Conquering King.
He stared at his blank page, and that man was nowhere to be found.
Chapter Nine: Ups and Downs
Peaks and valleys, ups and downs, highs and lows—whatever your choice of words were, that is how best to describe the meteoric rise of Jacob Stone while trying to accurately depict the plight of Jeffrey David Rothstein.
Where Jacob was the toast of the town, being invited to one party after another, the favorite target of the paparazzi, and the object of desire for a new legion of adoring fans, Jeffrey was as low as a man could possibly be in the short period of time that it took to send his career into a tailspin. He was unable to find a new venue for A Dreidel Spins in Yonkers , so his latest masterpiece quietly went away and out of the thoughts of even the most avid Broadway enthusiasts. He tried to find backers to help him keep the show running as a national production, touring from one city to another, but the same people who had backed him on every other venture now mysteriously wanted nothing to do with him or his
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