All roads lead to “Where is the funding coming from?”
It seems that every two weeks the last couple months I’ve been hitting the same exact wall around being a theater artist. It’s the common “Why do I do this?” existential crisis. At least that’s what it seems like. However, there’s nothing existential about it. There’s nothing philosophical about the economic reality of theater. Continue reading
Remember when people used to write letters? All Griffin and Sabine and shit?
It’s not your fault really. There’s so much schlock that promotes itself as theater that it justifies your casting off any potential enjoyment of the form. Unfortunately I’m getting majorly screwed by that way of thinking in the process. Some have said that theater is a form with two feet in the grave just waiting for the rest of the body to fall in. It’s pretty accurate. With the major component of the audience being over the age of 50, white and upper middle class, it’s only a matter of time (say 30 years) before that audience is literally dead. Continue reading
Insert imaginative expression and possible non sequitur here.
I’m constantly daydreaming. Unfortunately these wonderful and playful aspects of my imagination get met with a pragmatic set of questions:
*Could I get a grant for that?
*How much time would it take to develop into a full piece?
*Do I really need a suspended trapeze that is two feet off the ground that I only use for a 2 second inside joke? Continue reading
In the wake of the Newtown shooting there has been a lot of talk about needing to open up the conversation about mental illness. As I started listening to the coverage and conversations I started to get peeved at how the term was being thrown around as if it encapsulated every mental state that may have a negative connotation. As an artist and metalhead it also brings to light the necessity to get clear about the stereotypes associated with being a “creative type”. Continue reading
I’ve been thinking a shit ton about success as I work on the final part of my one-man trilogy on the underbelly of the self-help movement. Kicking Ass and Taking Names (tagline: Measuring Success One Failure at a Time) has been one of the projects I’ve been mind dumping onto my laptop all of December. It’s been a lot slower than expected. Continue reading
The holiday season can be one of the roughest times of year for many and I am included in that contingency. It’s when I start listening to a lot more metal with titles like Waiting Out the Winter. It’s also a double edge sword in terms of creativity. The end of November through December is when I have the biggest impulse to write. This December I started to finish a memoir, write the third part of my one-man trilogy on the underbelly of the self-help movement and began a one-act play that started percolating this past summer.
While all this energy to create is stimulated I also can hit a wall in terms of depression. Continue reading