Spring Pastures

I'm a little late with this month's post. That's because every spare moment of my time in the past couple of weeks has been spent working on posts of a different sort - fence posts. Every spring the cows like to test the fence, and see if the grass truly is greener on the other side (which they invariably decide that it is). One close call with Claribell, pictured here, and farmer Jules and I agreed that the time for radical action was now due.

So tonight's the first night in a long while that I've actually not been either at work or out in the pasture till all hours, pulling wire, shovelling dirt, or pinching my fingers. I'm still pretty tired and sore, but I'll give this a try, and see how it goes. 

This past month was a very busy one, on the farm and off. The Wellington County Writer's Festival was a great success - I even sold one copy of my play - and I got to talk to a lot of great people. It's also where I had the pleasure of breaking out my new Front-of-House display: 

I had hoped to post a picture of the set for this year's Ennotville shows as well, but it's still to be painted. I have built a few of the smaller pieces that we'll need, in the few spare moments that I've had, and I've really enjoyed getting back to building props again - it's not something that I get to do very often, given the types of plays that I write. Technical preparations for the Ennotville shows are, on the whole, coming along very well, despite the limited time, and I'm confident that things will be where I need them to be in time to make the most of rehearsals. 

Casting continues - ah, that old curse is still alive and well, though not living quite the high life that it once did. Believe it or not, I do have some cast already in place for this summer, and other people who are actually interested in being on board. A few follow-up nudges are in order, of course, and I don't want to jinx it, but I'm actually thinking we may just be able to start rehearsals with all shows fully cast this year. I'll see in another few weeks if I end up eating my words on that one. 

We do still need some people, specifically younger women. Casting this demographic has been the particular strain of the casting curse that has afflicted me in my later years. Part of this is my own fault - in my younger days as a playwright I quickly realized that there were many more young women than men who wanted to become actors, and most of the plays that were being done had mostly male casts, so I figured that if I wrote plays with female parts it would be easier to find good actors to play them. The other part of the problem is that I'm no longer in my younger days, and thus I don't have a lot of opportunities to mix, mingle, and build relationships with the kinds of people that I've written so many of my plays for. So if you know of any women under about 30 years of age who are looking to do some theatre this summer, please send them my way.

Preparations are coming along as well for the third show in the Grinder Season, "Have You Flogged Your Crew Today?" A better show poster is coming, once I know the schedule and venue, along with a more expansive post about the show and the process of creating/recreating it, but in the meantime here's the teaser (because you know how much I love self-portraiture...):

 

I promise the show is funnier than either picture. And just to get that image out of your mind, here are a few shots from kidding season, that other massive job we're right in the middle of right now, on top of everything else and trying to rebuild a fence:

So yeah, there's a lot going on around here, and a lot that's going on in other places that affects what's going on around here. It doesn't leave one much time to cast shows, plant gardens, build things, or sit down and write something. Despite that, I remain upbeat, and grateful for the opportunity to continue on this adventure. Sure, there are plenty of bumps along the way - for example the "secret projects" that I mentioned in the last post have, so far, gloriously failed to materialize. But unlike our cows I don't feel the need to break things in order to get to greener pastures. My life right now is a lot of work, hard work, but I'm right where I need to be.