Blue Moon and the Fear That Your Best Work Is Behind You

You Don’t Know You’re in the Epilogue

Three weeks ago, the 98th Oscar nominations for Original Screenplay were announced. All but one had the director listed as the writer or co-writer. Under Blue Moon was a name I didn’t recognize: Robert Kaplow.

In Blue Moon, Lorenz Hart is slowly, painfully realizing that he might be in the epilogue of his life. It’s not exactly dramatic, just unexpectedly quiet. The world keeps moving, the party goes upstairs, meanwhile he’s still standing by the bar wondering when that happened. 

That feeling definitely isn't reserved to artists at the end of their life. Writers feel it all the time. The best work is behind you. That spark you had is gone. You are missing your window. That’s why I can’t stop thinking about Robert Kaplow and the story of how Blue Moon came to be.

Kaplow isn’t a Hollywood lifer. He’s a retired New Jersey high school English and film teacher who spent fourteen years turning a niche obsession into an Oscar-nominated screenplay. He’d written a play, nine novels, and years of radio comedy for NPR but Blue Moon is the rare case where the long game actually paid off.

Kaplow had known for years that Lorenz Hart attended the opening night of Oklahoma! But the screenplay didn’t click until he bought a cache of Hart’s personal letters with a young college woman at an estate sale. That’s when he decided to fuse the two ideas: the man who helped define the American songbook watching the next era of it walk onto the stage without him.

Blue Moon also isn’t Kaplow’s first trip into historical fiction. His novel Me and Orson Welles was adapted into a 2008 film directed by Richard Linklater. Years later, the two caught up on the phone. Linklater asked the quintessential Hollywood question: What are you working on? Kaplow mentioned a script about the lyricist Richard Rodgers worked with for decades before Oscar Hammerstein II. Turns out, Linklater had always been interested in Lorenz Hart. He asked Kaplow to send it.

What followed was Linklater’s unique rewriting process. The one he sharpened on the Before trilogy. Kaplow spent months workshopping and rewriting with Linklater and Ethan Hawke by hearing pages out loud, chasing what emerged in the room and rewriting again. At times, Kaplow even read scenes opposite Hawke as the female lead, Elizabeth Weiland, just to keep the work moving.

Blue Moon is about the moment you realize the story you thought you were still part of has already begun to end. But Kaplow’s personal story suggests the opposite. You don't know when you're in the epilogue. You only know if you've stopped writing. So write the weird thing. Follow the passion project. Hold onto the relationships that understand the obsession. And no matter what, keep writing.

Earn The Epigraph

For those that don't know, an epigraph is a quote at the beginning of a screenplay. It's after the title page but before FADE IN or scene one. Blue Moon's epigraph may appear to be contradictory. But it actually captures the two truths of Lorenz hart and quietly prepares the reader for the kind of character they're about to spend 83 pages with. 

That's what a good epigraph does. It sets tone and hints at the theme. It primes the reader without explaining itself. But its easy for a bad one to feel self important. Only use one if its doing the work. 

The Conversation Beneath the Conversation

When writing dialogue, don’t forget that the ways a character speak to one another says a lot about both of them They aren't just talking to each other, in a sense they're talking about each other. Tone, repetition, interruptions, what’s avoided, what’s over-said, what’s stated as fact, and what’s begging for permission are all a part of your character’s history.

For example, in the scene above, Rodgers’ repeated “come on, come on, come on” tells us everything. On the page, you can feel his impatience. Hart takes too long, circles ideas endlessly, while Rodgers is already trying to exit the conversation. Rodgers has moved on emotionally; Hart is still lost inside his own ideas.

Then there’s when Rodgers says “…willing to write it, really write it and rewrite it, and rewrite it again…” He isn’t just talking about process—he’s revealing a philosophical divide. Hart has always trusted his brilliance to carry the work. Rodgers is signaling a shift toward discipline and work ethic, something he’s likely found with his new partner, Hammerstein.

Finally, the line “That’s exactly what we’ve done for 24 years.” Hart says it with confusion, stating the obvious, unaware that anything could be wrong after all their shared success. When Rodgers repeats the line, the meaning flips. It becomes resignation. Finality. He knows that’s how they’ve worked for 24 years, and that’s exactly why he can’t keep doing it. The echo of the line is the fracture.

The scene never needs to exchange information between its characters. It reveals everything through how they see each other and how that vision has changed. When the same words land differently, the audience understands what’s breaking long before anyone has to say goodbye.