Tag: #Theatre

  • A Bad Rehearsal

    Yesterday, I finished a second draft of a story. I had been working on it since September, when the kid went back to school and I got some more free time during the week. I had been sticking to my paradigm of writing, which is to outline the story, and then, you know, do it – write the thing. There’s nothing special there, I have been following this pattern since the summer, and it’s been a help. I have been getting ideas and drafts down on paper. Whether they are good or not is a completely different discussion.

    Anyway, so when I complete a draft, normally, there is a feeling of accomplishment. You know, I got something done. Not like a huge feeling, like I won the big game. More like, I was able to put the Kallax shelf together by myself; that type of accomplishment feeling.

    So, yesterday, when I finished the second draft… I didn’t have that feeling. That feeling of accomplishment didn’t come over me. What I felt was like taking the garbage out. Something happened, but nothing I am proud of.

    I don’t think it’s the story’s fault. At this moment, I like the idea, but that doesn’t mean it will see the light of day.  I could read the thing again, and hate it. Or, I could see it needs another draft.

    As I thought about it, I guess what this most closely feels like is a bad rehearsal for a show. And I love rehearsing. I think I like rehearsing more than I like performing. I like trying out ideas, and seeing what the other performs do, or how they react. I like when someone changes things slightly, and that causes me to trying something new in return. That type of working makes me feel like I am being creative, and makes the rehearsal feel fulfilling.

    Maybe that’s it. It was a bad rehearsal draft. I might need to listen to my gut. It might be a bad draft.

  • The Jobs I’ve Had

    Over the past couple of mornings, I have been thinking about all the jobs that I have had. From my first job sacking groceries at 16, to the last one, at the start of the pandemic, running a kids dance studio. And I will define “job” as paid employment. Not work, because I have worked on a lot of things, and never got paid.

    The first job was at a grocery store. Then I worked as a telemarketer, and at a Blockbuster Video. I worked at a Barnes and Noble, and delivered pizzas, then made pizzas, and then managed a pizza shop. I managed a costume shop at my university, and then did marketing for an outdoor theatre. I also did marketing for a small publisher, and a little copy editing, too. I was a background investigation specialist, and theatre director. Then I was a temp around NYC, doing a lot of emailing for different companies. Then I was an office manager for a rehearsal studio. I was a working actor, puppeteer, director, and even did a short stint as a producer. Then I managed another rehearsal studio, then ran all of their operations, and finally I was the managing director of the whole joint. Then I was the managing director of a different joint. I got paid to write a review of a B movie for an online magazine. Then I was the operations director for an art center, thus ending on running the kids dance studio.

    I think that’s all the job’s I’ve had. I might have missed one or two.

    And I can say with 100% Honesty, I worked the hardest for the jobs that paid me the least.

  • Missing Friends and Theatre

    The other day, a very good friend of mine, let’s call him “Shawn”, who lives back in Dallas, posted some pictures of a performance he took part in of “A Midsummers Night’s Dream” for the Shakespeare Everywhere company. He posted a video as well of the cast backstage. Then another friend put up some pictures of a group of our college friends, some I have known for close to twenty years, all going to the show. I was really excited and happy for “Shawn” to be in front of an audience again. He’s a theatre whore, and that is meant as a complement, as his joy and excitement of preforming is boundless and contagious.

    I won’t lie, I do miss my college friends, and it would be nice to see all of them in person again. (Which is possible now!) It would appear that we are all approaching forty still in one piece, and having learned a thing or two. I didn’t so much have a pang of missing out, in so much as I had a pang of missing talking to them. I miss the diversity of our group, and their individual experiences that they brought. But I miss how we all made each other laugh.

    The other thing that happened was that I got a little bug in the back of my head that kept saying to me, “You miss audiences, too.” The last time I performed for an audience was in September 2018, in Eau Clair, Wisconsin – almost three years. Normally, I would say that I miss the camaraderie of a being in a cast, and working together, But… But, I started thinking about being in front of people, making them laugh, or making them pin-drop silent hanging on the next word that comes out of my mouth. I miss fighting to get an audience on your side, or when they get ahead of you and you have to catch up to them… To be a player in a troupe of actors…

    Stupid theatre whore making me want to be a theatre whore…

  • Making My Own Writing Work

    We started the conversation last night about my returning to work. It was an open ended, “let’s just start talking about this topic” kind of conversation. We were just sharing our thoughts a feelings, before we actually have to sit down and make a plan.

    The first fact of our situation, that we both agreed on, is that I am taking care of the kid while she is in remote school for the next three weeks, and for the Summer vacation as well. Come September, when the kid is back in school, like actually back in the school building, then that will be my first opportunity to work.

    And I need to work. We are getting by, which is good, but we are not getting ahead. I’ve talked about our debt before, and that is the albatross in our life. Until that’s put to rest, we can’t save in a meaningful way, or get a new place to live, or retirement, or the kid’s college. So… the second income is needed.

    Now, what will that work be? That’s the trick.

    I will clean up the old resume this Summer, and keep an eye out in the theatre and arts world to see if something shows up.

    Professionally writing fiction is about a ten-year journey, and I’m about year one into it. I say that because all the people I know who are published, it took them about ten years of writing, submitting, networking, and just persevering. And there is still no guarantee there.

    I like blogging, but that also isn’t a guarantee either. All the professional and unsolicited advice I have received has all told me the same thing; blog about something that you are passionate about, and that no one else does. My first response was, ME, but that seems narcissistic and counterproductive. After having created a list of topics I care about, the only one that popped out to me was to blog about the puppetry community in New York. That seemed to make sense to me.

    I mean, I have been working as a puppeteer on and off since 2006. I have friends in the community. I go and see puppet shows on my own accord. Then, I see that there aren’t a lot of people writing about puppets. Maybe it’s worth exploring.

    Either way… Albatross!

  • SPRING BREAK with THE KID

    The kid is off from school, and I had it in my mind that somehow this might be a little vacation for me as well. That was very inaccurate. When there is no school, I become chief entertainer. Now, what can I come up with for this week?

    The park is an easy go-to, and we’ll be doing lots of that, weather permitting.

    Then, I have been putting off a home project of hanging a spice rack in the kitchen. That I think is something that we can do together. You know, a 44-year-old dad and his six-year-old daughter hanging something on the wall; can they do it without one of them getting angry, crying, or saying, “You can help dad by getting him a beer.”

    I also have a family picture project, which is getting up on the wall of the pictures of our family; Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and all. We have boxes of framed family pictures that for whatever reason we never get around to putting up. In fact, as I look at the living room, we don’t have any pictures of the kid. We have like twenty pieces of her artwork up on the wall, but not an actual photograph. Does that say something about us as a family?

    The big project that I want to tackle with the kid is to make a puppet show out of a story she told me about a girl and three friendly ghosts. There is a very fine line I walk with this stuff and her. I would love for us to make a puppet show together, but at the same time, I don’t want to force her to do it. She knows that her dad has worked as a puppeteer before the Covid times, and has every now and then asked me about it, but she doesn’t asked to make a show. And I also don’t want to take her story and make something out of it without her. So, I want to see if I can encourage her to do this with me.

    Either way, we gotta pass the time.