Hello Beautiful People,
Steve Cuden is a writer, screenwriter, teacher, lighting designer, and artist. To say that he is a mover and shaker of the theater world is an understatement. Steve has countless credits in television and film, and Steve is one of the original co-creators and co-lyricists of the international sensation, Jekyll and Hyde, The Musical, which ran for four years at the Plymouth Theater on Broadway, and which opens at the Marquis Theatre for its first Broadway Revival on April 18, 2013. Currently, Steve is working on a new book, and is teaching screenwriting at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA.
TWT: Did you always want to work in the entertainment industry?
SC: Yes, I’ve been involved in show business one way, shape, or form since I was about fifteen years old. So yes, it’s the thing I know best and the thing I’ve spent most of my life doing. When I was in high school, (in Pittsburgh), I became involved in a small children’s theatre company called Kid-A-Lot Productions, which no longer exists. I did virtually everything that I could with that company. I helped with technical aspects, I performed, I was able to write – I did all I could. I also did the high school musical, but outside of school I was involved with Kid-A-Lot Productions, which is where “the theater bug” truly bit me.
TWT: What is the best piece of advice that you whether it is for television, film, and/or the stage?
SC: There is really no substitute whatsoever for just writing and writing and writing. Writing is like a muscle. You cannot become a good writer unless you exercise the muscle and put words to paper on an ongoing basis. Even the great genius playwrights and artists and musicians have all worked very diligently at their craft. They worked at it every single day and became masters. And so, even if you are gifted with tremendous talent and intellect, you still have to work at it to become great. The more you do it, the better you will get. I tell my students all the time that the only difference between a non-writer and a writer is that a writer writes. The only difference between a writer and a professional writer is that the professional gets paid. Professionals have figured out how to get a check. Thinking about writing doesn’t get you anywhere. The only way to become a writer is to actually write. Use it or lose it. Just look at professional baseball players – they constantly have to work at what they do. It’s what spring training is all about. They still train, and yet they’re at the highest end of the sport. Just because you have talent does not give you any right to be well thought of. You still must work at what you do. You cannot reach a level of professionalism and mastery without working at it.
TWT: If you had to choose another profession other than your own, what would you choose?
SC: Two years ago I started working at Point Park University as a screenwriting teacher, which is something that I’ve always wanted to do, so I’ve now fulfilled that dream. In my early years, I was a very poorly paid lighting designer in the theater for a long time, which is something I still love but no longer do. Another thing that I enjoy a lot and work at is painting, but that’s never going to become a career.
TWT: If you were stranded on a desert island, what movies would you want to have with you?
SC: The French Connection, Goldfinger, The Godfather Part II, and Chinatown. Those films are the most entertaining to me, not necessarily the most “soul-filling”.
TWT: What sound do you love?
SC: I love the sound of laughter.
TWT: What sound do you hate?
SC: I hate the sound of tires screeching in the night.
TWT: In today’s economy, arts programs are being cut. What reasons would you give to a politician and/or school board for preserving the arts?
SC: Well, the arts are food for the soul. If you want to actually take artistic food off of the plates of our citizens who are starving for the arts, then you’re going to have starving citizens. Arts are the way we communicate with one another; it’s our form of expression. The way that we talk to each other and express ourselves is through the arts: drama, music, journalism, novels, painting, sculpture, dance and so on – all of the arts are of vital importance to a society and a culture. The arts are essential in terms of feeding the soul, and it’s as important to the intellect as food is to the body in terms of sustaining us. The principal thing that separates us from the rest of the animals on the face of the planet is that we communicate in a meaningful way that enables us to think beyond that which is right in front of us. This enables us to transcend being just animals. The arts are a big part of what makes us human. The arts make us civilized. This is one of the reasons so many despotic dictators want to remove the arts from the world, because the arts inform people about what they should be considering, questioning, and thinking about.
TWT: Who is/was your greatest teacher?
SC: Aside from my father, the greatest teacher I’ve had was Norman Corwin. He was the greatest radio playwright of is era. He was quite well known and highly regarded. Norman used to have a show on CBS Radio for many years, before television existed, called Norman Corwin Presents, and every year he would do twenty six weeks of original anthologized half hour radio plays. He would write them, produce them, and direct them. His casts were a virtual “Who’s Who” of Hollywood. When I was getting my B.A in Theater at USC, I was able to take two semesters of playwriting with Norman, and he became a very good, lifelong friend. He probably had the greatest influence on me. The curious part of it is that most of my work is so far removed from what Norman did it’s like from another planet. I wound up writing a lot of cartoons and a lot of shoot ‘em up stuff. Of course, Jekyll and Hyde is a horror story with a love story in it. Norman wrote these fantastic, intellectual, thoughtful, thought provoking works that people admire on a very high intellectual level because his words are poetry and literature and art. I can’t hold a candle to Norman, which is fine by me. I admire him probably more than anyone else as a teacher.
Thank you, Steve!
Live, Love, Learn,