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This past Friday, “Diseducated,” a musical 
I spent the past six months writing with my 
friend Allison Taylor, was premiered through 
the Blank Space Workshop. This was a show 
I had initially conceived of this past October 
but hadn’t started working on in earnest until 
late March/early April, when Allie joined 
the project. It was something we spent the 
summer writing, something that utterly 
consumed this past September for us both as 
we worked frantically to notate the music we 
had heard in our heads for so long.
During the three-week workshop, we 
decided to make some radical changes to the 
plot structure that we hadn’t really touched in 
four or five months. In the first week, we cut 
two scenes and added one. Later, we moved 
the seventh scene into the third scene’s slot 
and the third scene to the very end of the first 
act. We cut two songs and added four. In the 
last week, we completely changed the point 
of view of the piece, deciding that making it 
take place in one character’s memory might 
make the first act more engaging.
And now, seven months after starting our 
work on the piece, Allie and I can’t help but 
think that our work has only begun. This is 
not to say we were unhappy with the piece 
we presented to our friends this past Friday. 
Deep down, however, we know that there 
are changes to be made to make the show 
even better — changes that we, as maturing 
musical theater writers, are beginning to 
understand.
This process has made me rethink one of 
my performing art pet peeves: the tendency 
of creative artists to continuously edit 
their work until it receives a professional 
premiere. It’s something that I’ve always 
struggled with as an audience member and 
a fan, particularly when it comes to seminal 
pieces of the repertoire that artists needlessly 
retouch after they reach their prime. I’ve 
always viewed it as a weakness — insecurity, 
perhaps or workaholic self-obsession — that 
these artists continue to edit their work 
despite its commercial and critical success.
Take Igor Stravinksy’s “The Firebird Suite,” 
for instance. “The Firebird” was Stravinsky’s 
first successful ballet score. It’s a staple of 
the 
contemporary 
orchestral 
repertoire. 
During his lifetime, Stravinsky created three 
different orchestral suites from the ballet 
score. Two of the suites, the 1911 and 1919, 
are both intended solely for the concert hall. 
The third, the 1945 suite commonly referred 
to as a “ballet suite,” comes much closer to 
approximating the ballet in full.
Was it really necessary for Stravinsky to 
continue editing after publishing his first 
suite? The discrepancies between these 
suites, after all, leads to much confusion 
among musicians and audience members. 
And though one of the suites does tend 
to be performed more than the others, no 
clear victor has won out. Is it not a point 
of weakness that Stravinsky continued to 
edit the work, that it took him 34 years to 
finally feel satisfied with his many different 
iterations of it?
One criterion that I used to apply to 
determine whether I thought this after-

publication “editing” was permissible or not 
is whether work had been changed to the 
point that it formed a new work. If the artist 
had stumbled upon a new form for their work, 
perhaps, or a different means of organizing it 
that better delivered it’s point, who was I to 
judge them for this?
Take Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No. 
1,” for example. Between 1888 and 1898, 
Mahler created or edited six different 
editions of the orchestral score that have 
survived to the modern day. These different 
editions have lead to great confusion among 
orchestras, particularly when it comes to 
some of the minor edits that Mahler made to 
orchestration and the development sections 
of a few of the movements.
Nevertheless, I’ve always felt that Mahler’s 
editing was justified because of the big 
change that he makes to the overall structure 
of the work: between 1888 and 1898, Mahler 
decided to omit an entire movement. This 
large scale change completely alters a 
listener’s perception of the work; it is more 
than justified, in my view, though it was made 
so late after the work’s first publication.
Perhaps it was the size and substance of the 
edits that justified their latent application? 
Perhaps I was becoming annoyed not with 
the substance of the edits but with their knit 
picky nature. Perhaps grand, substantial 
edits were always justified, whereas minor 
semantic edits were not.
But then I thought about Francis Ford 
Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now Redux,” a 2001 
director’s cut of sorts that restored 41 minutes 
of previously cut footage to Coppola’s seminal 
film. Though Coppola’s additions added 
much to the film, it did little to change the 
substance of it. If anything, it added needless 
footage, making the plot more meandering, 
less direct and less entertaining overall.
Do we have to wait until an artist dies, I 
wondered, before we can assume that we’ve 
witnessed the artist’s complete artistic 
vision? And assuming that one agrees with 
my judgement of the two “Apocalypse Now” 
films, which should be considered to be the 
primary “Apocalypse Now” used to introduce 
new viewers to this film?
This leads me back to my own project, 
“Diseducated.” 
Though 
we’ve 
already 
premiered the piece, Allie and I plan on 
spending many more months revamping it. 
We hope to completely change it to make 
it more effective. Though we know that 
some audience members from our premiere 
probably have a vision of the show in their 
head, we are confident that we can improve 
upon it.
Rather than being annoyed at creative 
artists’s 
predilection 
towards 
constant 
editing, I’ve thus learned to accept it as a 
byproduct of this unusual profession. Allie 
and I, for example, can’t see any means 
of being happy with our show without 
extensively editing it and improving upon it. 
And even if we never stop editing it, I hope 
that audiences will be able to select between 
the different versions to find their personal 
favorite.
Perhaps it is ultimately up to fans and 
critics to determine which version of a work 
they are most happy with, and which they 
want to ignore. And rather than viewing this 
as a weakness, as an indicator of insecurity or 
self-obsession, perhaps it indicates a creative 
artist’s pride in their work and the degree to 
which they take it seriously. Perhaps instead 
of wishing for fewer late-stage edits, I should 
wish for more artists taking such an active 
role in the ongoing life of their work.

The editor’s dilemma, or,
never being fully satisfied

SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Community Culture Columnist

HBO

HBO’s 
new 
teen 
drama, 
“Euphoria,” 
dominated social media in the summer of 2019 
and influenced teenagers across the nation 
to experiment with glittery eyeshadow and 
rhinestone eyelashes. The show’s Instagram 
account has amassed over one million followers, 
with many of the cast members boasting similar 
follower counts on social media. With a second 
season airing in 2020, “Euphoria” currently 
has the ratings for renewal and a stronghold on 
viewers’ attention, even a few months after its 
first season’s finale.
Throughout the airing of the first season, the 
show gained a popular following through Twitter 
as its explicit and shocking content made for great 
live-tweeting material. Once “Euphoria” gained 
traction online, influencers immediately jumped 
to replicate the street fashion that makes each 
character pop on an already mesmerizing show. 
The makeup and costuming departments have 
appeared in fashion publications like InStyle 
and Allure to explain how the 2019 show caught 
the audience’s attention with its unconventional 
stylistic choices.
Costume designer Heidi Bivens references 
real-world 
examples 
of 
streetwear 
and 
pedestrian yet fashion-forward looks to develop 
each character’s unique personal style. In 
an interview with Ssense, Bivens said main 
characters Jules and Rue were her favorite 
characters to develop visually, adding “There 
were no real rules in the approach with them, 
and when your creativity is boundless in terms of 
where you can go to in your mind to glean ideas, 
that’s the most exciting.” While the elaborate 
costumes maintain an air of fantasy and couture, 
each outfit seeks to mirror the images teenagers 
want to project in their own clothing.
The characters of “Euphoria” mix designer 
pieces with more pedestrian articles to heighten 
the most fashionable trends in American high 
schools. Some ready-to-wear pieces come from 
popular retailers like Target or Nordstrom, while 
designers like Zana Bayne and Akna provide more 
show-stopping items for moments of dramatic 
flair. Entire Instagram accounts and websites 
are dedicated to documenting every identifiable 
piece of clothing available to consumers looking 
to incorporate into their own wardrobes. 
While every episode features now-iconic 
looks, the clear stand-out is “The Next Episode” 
which plays on TV’s best trope: the Halloween 
party. In the context of a holiday celebrating 
the beauty of absurd costumes, “Euphoria” is 
at its stylistic height. Characters’ looks range 
from Marlene Dietrich’s tuxedoed glamor to a 

flawlessly executed Bob Ross, beard and all. The 
episode garnered so much media attention that 
websites like E! Online have published articles 
on how to reproduce Kat’s take on Thana from 
“Ms. 45” or Maddy’s modernized version of Jodie 
Foster in “Taxi Driver.”
“Euphoria” shows how much teen Halloween 
has changed since the highly memorable 
commentary in the 2004 comedy “Mean Girls.” 
In this film, the main character Cady describes 
the holiday as the opportunity for “the hardcore 
girls (to) just wear lingerie and some form of 
animal ears.” Although this may ring true for 
high school kids in the early 2000s, “Euphoria” 
demonstrates how Halloween has become about 
a lot more than wearing the quintessential 
“sexy” costume. While some characters’ outfits 
are revealing or sexualized versions of pop 
culture figures, the artistry and concepts of their 
ensemble are far more important. 
In one particularly emotional scene of “The 
Next Episode,” Cassie attends a Halloween party 
at her boyfriend’s college but is told to change 
her risqué costume based on Alabama Worley 
from “True Romance.” Her boyfriend feels the 
outfit would attract too much sexual attention 
from other men and offers her his football jersey 
to wear instead. Cassie sadly responds, “This 
isn’t even a real costume.” Her disappointment at 
being told to switch outfits comes not only from 
the manipulative behavior that guilted her into 
changing but also from her inability to express 
herself and show off what she had made. 
For the characters of “Euphoria,” the clothes 
they wear are not just clothes. The makeup 
they wear is not just makeup. The goal isn’t to 
look pretty or desirable or cool. For Rue, Jules, 
Maddy, Cassie, Kat and everyone else on the 
show, how you present yourself is the best and 
only way to show who you are or, in some cases, 
who you want to be. In the wash of neon lights 
and glitter-soaked tears, each costume or outfit 
worn brilliantly reflects the growth and conflict 
within each character’s arc.
“Euphoria” at its core wants to depict life as 
it is, or even how it seems to be, in 2019. Issues 
like revenge porn, opioid addiction and climate 
change define the lives of the East Highland 
students the show follows. Even if the content of 
the series is heightened for dramatic effect, the 
key elements are grounded in the reality of how it 
feels to be in high school right now. Every day is 
a chance to reinvent yourself to your classmates, 
and the young audience of “Euphoria” is 
inspired by the creativity of these fan-favorite 
characters they see themselves in. As Halloween 
approaches, there’s no doubt social media will 
be full of “Euphoria”-themed costumes as fans 
get a chance to go all out and pay tribute to TV’s 
newest hit.

Ripping through the artful
seams of HBO’s ‘Euphoria’

ANYA SOLLER
Daily Arts Writer

B-SIDE: TV NOTEBOOK
COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

Do we have to 
wait until an 
artist dies, I 
wondered, before 
we can assume 
that we’ve 
witnessed the 
artist’s complete 
artistic vision?

Once “Euphoria” gained traction online, 
influencers immediately jumped to replicate the 
street fashion that makes each character pop on 
an already mesmerizing show. The makeup and 
costuming departments have appeared in fashion 
publications like InStyle and Allure to explain how 
the 2019 show caught the audience’s attention with 
its unconventional stylistic choices.

Allie and I, for 
example, can’t 
see any means of 
being happy with 
our show without 
extensively editing 
it and improving 
upon it. And even 
if we never stop 
editing it, I hope 
that audiences 
will be able to 
select between the 
different versions 
to find their 
personal favorite.

4B —Thursday, October 31, 2019
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com