Heck, I do. I’ve been there, both as a director of a new work, and as the writer. It is the epitome of an ethics conflict.

The writer believes that the product is his (or hers), that the inspiration and purpose of the work was determined by that writer and thus should not be re-thought, re-interpreted or materially changed by anyone else, including the producer, who is paying for the production, or the director, whose job is to bring a play or musical to the stage while ensuring that it is both financially successful, respectful of the playwright’s vision, and entertaining.

Because I believe that all stage works benefit from the input of designers, actors and directors, whose unique perspectives often, but not always, can enhance and improve the writer’s product, I always took the position when I was the writer that my director had to have free reign. For that reason, I never attended rehearsals. Sometimes there were aspects of the final production that drove me crazy every time I saw the show. Nonetheless, I remained convinced, and still am convinced, that this problem can only be resolved by trust: the writer must trust the director, and get out of the way.

As a director, I’ve had to endure the dilemma created by the playwright who insists on attending rehearsals, and I’ve dealt with each variation on that theme in different ways. In one production, the elderly playwright had to visit the bathroom frequently and I made the most substantive alterations in the staging and dialogue while he was absent. In another production, a one- woman musical starring a close friend of the playwright-compsoer who thought every word of his script was like holy scripture, I had the absolute trust of the star. She made it clear to her freind that my having the final say on all aspects of the production was a non-negotiable condition of her doing the show at all.

In the original script of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Tennessee Williams reduced the role of Big Daddy, played on stage as in the film by the domineering Burl Ives, to a voice off stage screaming in pain from an incurable cancer. In rehearsals, the director of the Broadway premier, Elia Kazan, decided that Ives was such a powerful presence that losing him in the third act hurt the play. He told…didn’t ask, but told…one of the greatest American playwrights that his drama worked on the printed page but had to be substantially altered to be a success on stage. Kazan insisted that Williams re-write his third act, giving Tennessee detailed notes on what needed to change.

Williams did as he was told, because he trusted Kazan, who was, after all, one of the most brilliant stage and screen directors this country has ever produced. The ethics lesson of the director-writer problem is the necessity of trust and respect in any collaboration. Both director and writer have to trust the talent and judgment of the other. When a writer gets kicked out of rehearsals, the likelihood is strong that the production is doomed.

I wouldn’t recommend investing in “Dog Day Afternoon.”