John drank a gallon of barium and I had to float the class twice.
Katie Sue tore her ACL doing the Julie Olsen.
Clark left for London.
Daniel's coming too.
I don't come over for the movies.
Kyle said my show should have been called "Lil Bitches".
That made me mad.
Andrew kissed the pavement. Road rash hickies everywhere. Love hurts.
I never sleep at night.
Anton said I was his favorite.
Jess and Nick are delights.
Porter's doing well.
Scott is full of wisdom (especially with children).
Liz has got a nue gig.
We all wish Daniel was getting paid more.
Deep down inside, I'm a terrible, terrible friend. (most of the time)
On 15 Days Gone By
Garabedian
“Your style was kind of astonishing”
said Jameson.
"It was never there in the notebook at all"
he replied.
And Jameson thought back the the large desk Paul had kept in his office at NYU. The large desk that was entirely bare except for when Garabedian sat behind it feverishly plotting away in the small 4x6 notebook.
"That notebook was just somewhere for me to hold it, to keep it tied down so it wouldn't blow away until I'd put it all together. Good ideas are like kites--they want to take off without you, and unless you keep them under your thumbs til they're ready, you'll have a mess of string up in the trees before you now it and you'll be wondering how the whole thing got up there in the first place."
Grassroots Opening
Really I thrive under stressful conditions. Do my best work when things are tight.
Had a blast performing with Grassroots on Friday. Everyone was late, half the cast lacked the foresight to realize that there would be nowhere to change into costume at the festival. I got lost. Everyone got lost. There was nowhere to park. It was noisy. It was hot, then overcast, then the wind picked up and blew our set over before we had even started. They were giving helicopter rides a few blocks away.
But
It was magical, the fading blue evening light pierced by twirling orange-yellow carnival rides, our cast holding the ladders against the wind and learning to project over the gale--demanding to be heard amidst the rush and competing attractions. Dan dressed as the Nurse, playing accordion. Trevor's pinstripe Mercutio perched on the top of a ladder waving red feather-boa from the top of his cane, drawing the crowd like pied piper. Small children peering up at Juliet in her balcony, Romeo holding his cordial against the elements.
"Go hence to have more talk of these sad things"
We did our jig and went our way.
Nothing went right; everything was perfect.
Thunderous Eagle
looming over the mountain--wanted to see it's talons flash
nick the peak with lightning claws.
But it circled until after sunset
(beating great purple feathered wings and swirling leaves and midnight and gardens below)
What a wingspan.
(at times with fists)
In the midst of it all, they kept looking up, wondering what came next. And something always did.
Cockle Burrs
Only stick to you because they want to go somewhere
--Wandering hearts with clinging spikes.
and
I'm far too young to be bitter
and just old enough not to not be.
So next time it rains and you watch for the worms to surface and seek refuge on the sidewalk, please save one there for me--not a worm, but a glance up at the sky as you wince to keep the raindrops out with your pretty eyelashes.
(That crashing of glass is, in reality, the sound of my heart)
She leaned in and whispered something so sweetly, not even he could hear her. And then, half asleep, he dreamed that she was someone else.
Tiger Hearts
This will make you bleed. Not blood--but sweat and tears. Sweat and tears that are the lifeblood of perseverance. Or something like that. And no one will remember. Not even you.
Evidence of Your Creative Life
I.
As I was looking over grad school admission requirements a few months ago, I was amazed at the variation in selection methods and processes.
One school simply asked applicants to:
"Be prepared to show evidence of your creative life"
That phrase has stuck with me over the past several months as I ponder what I could bring as evidence.
Theatre is in so many ways fleeting and ethereal--how do you capture something that's only meant to happen once? Everything a director does in hindsight appears as shadows and echoes.
II.
It's all about the process I suppose. While I cannot show you footage of what it looked like to see a flower in my garden bloom, I could probably tell you about all the watering and weeding I did to help encourage it's growth. These are things a gardener knows well, and should have no trouble explaining and practicing.
If I planned ahead, I could probably document the various stages of a flower's development, and I might be able to capture some of the experience through pictures, or even a video clip. But the fact remains that none of those things will be quite the same as actually seeing the beauty of a flower firsthand. Of feeling the velvet of it's petals, smelling it's perfume, or watching the way a honeybee might emerge from it dusted in yellow flecks of pollen. Trying to capture any of these things would result in a less than genuine understanding.
III.
But that's the trick of theatre anyway, isn't it? And isn't that precisely what a good director aims to do? The actors in Cherry Orchard are not really in Russia, nor have they ever existed in any part of the time period in which the play takes place, but all the same, if the production is successful, the audience might be persuaded that these things could be. That is how we are creative. We engage the imagination of the audience to the point of belief and wonder.
IV.
In the end, presenting convincing evidence of a life (creative or otherwise) is the ultimate aim of a theatrical experience.
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