Over the weekend, I was fortunate to see Six The Musical — a modern telling of the story of the six wives of Henry VIII. It’s more like a pop concert than a stodgy history lesson and, in addition to being enthralled with the music, color, costumes, and dance, I was so in awe of Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss who wrote it. Never once in my history class did I think that the story of “divorced, beheaded, died” could be so uplifting!
While an undergraduate at Cambridge, Marlow was selected to write an original musical to be performed at a fringe festival and Six became his submission. He had the inspiration while in a poetry class, which reminded me of Andrew Lloyd Webber who turned T. S. Eliot’s poetry into the Cats musical. Webber also turned Bible stories into Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Lin-Manuel Miranda turned Alexander Hamilton’s biography into a cultural phenomenon.
Do only geniuses make connections? No.
I remember sitting in a restaurant with a friend who was lamenting about her lack of ideas for a column she had to write, and I know I face the same dilemma every day about where to find a topic for a dot. But the answer lies in Six, or Hamilton, or Cats. Inspiration is all around us: in what we read, what we watch, and what we experience in our everyday lives. The geniuses have strengthened their “connection muscle” so that they recognize and embrace concepts or relationships that are just waiting to be linked together, but everyone can (and should) seize the opportunity to do so.
You never have to generate an idea from a blank piece of paper or screen. Look at what already exists and challenge yourself to see how it can evolve into something else. You, too, can create links to make something new.
(And go see Six if you have the chance — 80 minutes of high-energy fun!)
