Shadow Boxing

I was happy to be stood up today.  A group was contemplating renting the theater, and were due in this afternoon to look at the space.  After further consideration, they decided it was too far, and left me a voicemail letting me know that they were going to go with another venue.  I am constantly lame about having my ringer off, so I missed the message.  After meeting with some of the staff at the high school, I went back to the theater to await their arrival.

Turned on the lights.

Threw open the doors.

Waited.

Puttered around, put stuff away...

Opened up my journal, started writing in my very rusty schoolgirl French, for shits and giggles.  Arreted by le principal.  He was struck by the fact I had all the lights on, and an empty stool center stage.  We parled.  He left, I went back to journaling- at this point it was some 40 minutes after the ETA, but I was happy to be in the theater when it was quiet.  Went back to my ecriving. 

And then a face peeked in.  It was the most elusive type- the early teen boy type.  I spoke in a low voice and didn't make any sudden moves.  "Hey."

Yep, I'm that good with words.

As an opening it worked.  The next thing I know one boy has taken the stage- filling the vacuum created by the bright lights and solo seat.  Another boy had sidled in, eyes on the stage, but sticking to the audience.

Soon the boy on stage was playing with his shadows- two strong silhouettes from two different sources.  The boy in the audience was making suggestions.  Enter two more boys, house left, drawn immediately to the stage.  Three boys + one stage + one stool = stage combat scene.  That's just the math of middle school.  I quickly managed to break it up (since unschooled, it was more like "combat"), and taught the first lesson of stage combat: "take care of your partner."  Soon I had them shadow fighting- nice safe distance, but satisfyingly rowdy and kick-ass.  This was followed by the other major tenet of acting: that it is not enough to act, you must react.

So I stepped in, to show them the responsibility of selling the punches was as much on the punchee: "Tyson, punch my shadow!"

Eventually they headed off to the sports practice they'd been waiting for- "we play sports- so and so (other boy in their class) is the actor..." The lights, the stool, and the stage said different.

Here's An Old One

A post that traveled through time (from January!) and space (from Letters from the Saltbox!) to land here, as a reminder:

Here's a New One

“When from our better selves we have too long
Been parted by the hurrying world, and droop,
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign, is solitude.”

Okay, I lied.  There's nothing new under the sun, or on this blog.  So it's an old one- a bit from Wordsworth that a kindly NYT reader included in their response to this essay.  And it brings up my favorite life theme: Hey hurrying world, step off so I can putter around at home, in my slippers and/or muck boots, working on curious little projects as though I was an adult being home-schooled.

Point being, I am drooping.  I have been parted from my better self.

But since the hurrying world is not going to get less hurried, and I need to regain backbone, vim, and vigor, I guess I will need to find a way to spiff up my soul.  And so I will resolve to embrace the alarm set for Crazy O'Clock in the Morning, when I can soldier through a more regimented to-do list in gracious solitude.

Finally, a question for future self: are you feeling better?  Less droopy?  I hope so.  I thought maybe if we made the move, you would be better able to pull our shit together.  Also, remember when (and if) you are scraping and painting 246, that back in January you were daydreaming about doing just that as a vacation activity.  That you looked on it as a blessed leisure activity.

So quit whining.

Inhale, Exhale, Repeat

Being new at a job is awful.  For the directorship at the Performing Arts Center, there was no real training, just a passing of the keys.  The keys had a good luck fish on the chain, which then broke off somewhere in mid-October.  I should have reattached the damned thing.  You would think a theater-type would attend to lucky charms, but I blithely let it go: I accept good luck with a glad heart, but do not curry its favor.

Fish or no, I just had to approach this job at a dead run, because the ground beneath me was always moving, demand to demand.  Facilities, productions, volunteers, partnerships, financing, planning, publicity, residencies, programming... seating charts and emergency exits oh my!  This on the plate of a woman who would happily spend her days up to her armpits in herring and lobster, daydreaming up musical theater numbers to film for YouTube about scrubbing scuzzy lobster buoys.  A woman who loves Alexander Graham Bell for his searching mind, big heart and brilliance, but hates the telephone- and occasionally email- with a passion.  I hate being tied to desks, telephones, or time lines I didn't make up myself and can't remake to suit circumstances when they change.  That was one of the beauties of Isle au Haut!

For the record, I have only managed a few things with anything like aplomb, but have had to approach the whole shebang with an internal cry of "onward and upward, Amen!"  Breathe in- just make it through the year- breathe out- you can always quit after the newness has worn off- breathe in- if you aren't a good fit- breathe out- but you won't know- breathe in- until you make it through this year- breathe out.

So I have made it though 3/4 of the year, breathing erratically and with a wicked stitch in my side.

But 3/4.  That's waltz time.  I like a good waltz.

I now have two more big musicals notched in the lipstick case on which I engrave my director's resume (I never expected to have a director's resume at all).  And I now know that I need to move away from Major Musicals and toward Many Smaller Projects, where my heart lies.  Not that I will get away from the work and expense of musicals altogether, but if I can pull together a show choir, it will ease the burden of having to produce student musicals every semester, or even every year. 

This year I learn, next year, I own. 

(I hope... I dream...)