Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson goes into previews September 20 and when it does I can proudly say I contributed to a Broadway musical. Others made bigger contributions to the show (already hailed as the best of the season by the New York Times and Rolling Stone). Alex Timbers wrote and directed it. Michael Friedman created the score. Anne Davison made countless editorial and production advisements over a period of six years. Also, there are producers who raised the millions to finance it, assorted designers who collaborated on the staging, and actors who actually perform it (notably lead Ben Walker, who is the rare man to turn down a role in the X-Men series and get engaged to a daughter of Meryl Streep before the age of 30). It features my input nonetheless and you’ll know you’ve reached it when you hear absolutely nothing.

I’ve known Alex, Michael, and Anne for some time — indeed, I actually crashed at Alex’s place the night my apartment burned down; in addition to his other virtues, Mr. Timbers is an excellent source of shelter — so after I attended some readings and earlier productions of the show at Alex’s request I took a look at a new draft of the play to see if I could make any suggestions. I proceeded to offer a number of ideas that were, at the risk of immodesty, utterly useless. (When told they were looking to make a significant cut in the run time, I helpfully proposed a new 10 minute sequence –- in fairness, this sequence was pretty sweet.) Useless, that is, with one notable exception. Excuse me, two notable exceptions.

For those unfamiliar, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson is a rock musical about Andrew Jackson (our seventh President/ dude on the twenty), who fought the British, the Spanish, the Native Americans, the Washington elite, and pretty much everyone else he encountered — he remains our only commander-in-chief known to have intentionally killed a man during the course of going about his everyday civilian life. It’s funny and fast and perceptive and generally makes up for how thoroughly unwatchable pretty much all theater is, with the exceptions of Avenue Q and some of the better revivals of Oklahoma and maybe three plays by Eugene O’Neill and two by Joe Orton. During the show Jackson enlists a chief to help get tribes to sign over their lands to the United States, paving the way for an influx of white settlers. The two men enjoy each other’s company, but they’re on a collision course, each envisioning a different fate for the Indians. It seemed to me it was worth foreshadowing this eventual rift, and if it could be done in a way that got a laugh so much the better.

That’s why I suggested putting in a pause. Actually, two pauses. The first comes after the chief agrees with Jackson’s assertion that the betrayals of his people aren’t haunting him; the night I caught it the silence received a nice chuckle as the audience sensed the tension beneath the courtesy. Then a moment later there’s a declaration of loyalty again followed by an odd quiet –- this time it got a few guffaws, but it was now genuinely uncomfortable, almost poisonous. Soon the two longtime friends are at one another’s throats, and it feels surprising yet organic to the story: the twist that in hindsight seems inevitable. And should you see it on Broadway (tix are available here), you’ll experience that silence, except on the night I’m there because that evening you’ll hear me announce, “That sucker’s mine.”

And I’ll be grateful that I know people who continually produce quality work so I can say, “I enjoyed that” without having to avoid eye contact and be thrilled that the rest the rest of the world is starting to pick up on it and be satisfied I could offer an infinitesimal assist to their success.

Unless the pauses got cut, in which case I still say that utterly unnecessary sequence would have been awesome.

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