Just the Ticket

• Author: Philip N. Meyer
• Pages: 22-23

Just the Ticket

3 storytelling lessons useful to law yers can be gleaned from Springsteen on Broadway

By Philip N. Meyer

There was a nor’easter las t March when

I drove down from Vermont to see Bruce

Springsteen’s live show on Broadway. The

ticket was outrageou sly expensive. But I

had never seen Springst een live; this was

a once-in-a lifetime oppor tunity to see

“the Boss” perform i n a small venue.

The storm was brut al, and it was a harrowing st ruggle

to make it down to New York City in ti me for the show.

Cars slid o the highway and there were several cr ashes.

The tra c dead- stopped in Massachusetts for a n overturned

semitrailer. Miracu lously, the tra c thinned closer to the

city; many dri vers were, thankfully, stay ing o the roads .

There was just enough time to c heck in at my hotel on the

east side. The city seemed de ad now, and there weren’t any

cabs. I borrowed an u mbrella from the bellman and headed

crosstown. A s I walked, the crosswi nd and sleet picked up.

My umbrella turned inside out and folded i nto pieces. I was

completely soaked by the time I a rrived at the Walter Kerr

Theatre on West 48th.

I had a terrifi c seat just above the st age. It must have been

a return or canc ellation because of the anticipated ar rival

of the storm. And now the the ater was fi lling. Certainly, it

didn’t look like what I had imag ined a typical Springs teen

audience to be. The patrons seemed w ell-to-do, meticulously

dressed and coi ed. Many were my age, lat e middle-aged.

I’m the same age as Springs teen, both of us born in 1950. At

precisely 8 o’clock, Springste en came out without fanfare.

There was only a piano on the bare , sparsely lit stage.

Springsteen wore a blac k T-shirt and tight , black stovepipe

jeans and car ried a guitar. He seemed so close that I could

almost rea ch out and touch him.

Springsteen’s spare set, a nd his skill in distill ing the

complexities of his life int o simple stories, would defi ne his

performance a nd inspire me to draw my own story telling

lessons—lessons that ca n be useful to lawyers.

I was struck by Spr ingsteen’s physicality and by his

strength and self-pos session. He had performed the same

show for many months by then. Night aft er night he had

said these same words over and over, had su ng the identical

songs. Yet Springsteen was im mersed in the moment. As

he put it, “People come to see you be completely present.

Anytime you’re tr ying to do that, it takes a lot of energ y.”

Springsteen sang a nd played as if his life depended upon

it. Perhaps it did. This was wha t he had

been born to do. His perfor mance was

his gift t o the audience. And I was riveted.

SPRINGSTEEN’S JOURNEY

Although Springst een had never written or direc ted

a Broadway show, he knew exactly what he w as doing. He

played a set list that span ned his career, abetted by commen-

tary adapt ed from his autobiography, Born to Run. While

the performance s eemed spontaneous, it was not; it was a

meticulously scripte d composition. Springsteen even had

a teleprompter displaying the t ext of his monologue in soft

light at the back of the theater. But I never noticed . It was as

if he was speak ing directly to me, with noth ing between us.

Springsteen had pa red down the vast canvas of h is 500-

page autobiography and the endless r epertoire of more than

50 years of songs, retrofi tting stor y pieces and song selection

into three movements or act s with a clear narrative a rc

—beginning, midd le and end.

There were only 15

songs on Springsteen’s

set list. The stor y was all

about his jour ney. The

journey is a c ommon

22 || ABA JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2018

Storytelling

EDITED BY KEVIN DAVIS,

LIANE JACKSON

Practice