Theatre Without Limits

It's been a busy month since my last post - the cold persisted bitterly, and we only got around to tapping the trees yesterday. Looks like it's going to be a very short maple syrup season this year. I haven't had a chance to get anything done in the shop since early January. Otherwise, I'd be showing off pictures of my new Front-of-House display board that I just managed to get started on before the cold weather shut me down. Maybe next month. 

And no, I still can't announce that mysterious 3rd project in the Grinder season - but I promise you that there is one! I'm really looking forward to it, so once I have the all-clear you're probably going to get sick of me going on about it. 

I'm pleased to report that last month I successfully completed the "28 Plays Later" challenge, and did manage to write a play a day in February, however cringe-worthy some of them might have been. Most of these plays will never see the light of day, and I'm okay with that. I still think that I'm a better writer for having completed the challenge. 

Finally, I'm very pleased to report that casting for this summer's shows is now underway, and some people have already said yes! It is great to see a mixture of old friends and new faces coming forward, and while it's early days yet and we still have a long ways to go to get to the first rehearsal, let alone opening night, I'm feeling much better now that the casting process is underway, and it's no longer just me who's thinking about this year's shows. 

So a lot of things are falling into place, which is great. Yet it was Stanislavsky who said "contentment is the enemy of the artist," and I think he was right - despite doing a lot of art-making right now, I do not believe myself to be content. 

I'm sure you're all watching the news - if you aren't, you should be. My writing, directing, design, etc, is influenced by and respond to the world around me, whether I want it to be or not. Right now the world seems very bleak, and getting bleaker. How do I create meaningfully, respectfully, honestly and positively in this moment, in the face of all this darkness?

I don't know the answer to that, though I wish I did, and I'm sure that some people do, and they'll create some amazing things with that knowledge. All a journeyman theatre-maker like me can offer is to continue to create, fearlessly, ceaselessly, and without limits. Savour the experience. Dare to reach for perfection. Treat each play as if it's my last. 

Maybe that sounds a tad macabre, or even melodramatic, and perhaps it is - I'm no expert on public health, geo-politics, or the half-life of radioactive isotopes. But I do know that after two decades of struggle and creative heartache, two years of pestilence-induced creative denial, and just over three weeks of being reminded how tenuous the freedom to create actually is... I'm done with limits. I'm just going to create. 

See you next month.