Apparently there was 13th Disaster

If you remember my last post, I mentioned the dozen disasters that stalk me. I thought I had outsmarted them all, for the moment. Perhaps I did. But there was one more disaster. 

First, the good news - rehearsals for Benches and Couches are going well. Personally, I started off slowly, and it took a couple of nights before I really got my directorial feet back under me, but now that post-rehearsal rush is back, and stronger than it's been in a long time, and that's a very empowering thing to work with. We've come together quickly as an ensemble, and already the play has taken on new dimensions, thanks to everyone's enthusiastic input. We've added, discarded and rewritten scenes, and have wrested a plausible narrative out of a series of what seemed at first just a random jumble of sketches. We're all having a lot of fun. 

But of course this is Grinder, so for every high it seems there must always be a low. Just as we were on the cusp of starting rehearsals for the "Week 2" production of Maid of Stone we lost two of the three actors cast in the show, in both cases due to factors beyond their control. I've had this happen to me before, lots of times, but this time I didn't take it as well as I usually do. It threw me for a loop, and I've spent way more time than I care to admit sulking about it over the past couple of weeks, instead of doing what I should have been doing, which was coming up with a plan B. 

I really wanted Maid of Stone to see the stage this summer. I had invested so much of my creative energy in the piece, and I was excited about bringing it to life. Even as it dawned on me that it wasn't perhaps the best play I'd ever written, and that it probably wouldn't have the impact that I'd hoped it would have, it was, and still is, a good play. It has something to say. It's one of those shows with impact, the kind of work that isn't an escape from reality, but a reality check. 

Turns out I was the one who got the reality check. 

So now that I'm done feeling sorry for myself, it is indeed time to move on to plan B. Now I could have simply walked away, and not done a Week 2 show this year, but that would have meant giving up. I've done that in the past, and I don't like feeling like that any more. And now that I've had some time in my new role as the bookings person on the Ennotville Library board I know full well that other people wanted the weekend I have rented. People have been inconvenienced, plans have been changed, potential income for the Library has gone away, because I have those dates booked. I see those booked dates as a promise made, so I feel like I have a moral obligation to use them. 

I could have tried to re-cast the show - I even had ideas in my head of possible people that might have worked, had they been available. It would have been tight, but a new cast could have just pulled the show together in time. However, that ship has sailed - I spent too much time being the creative person, ruled by my emotions, when I should have been the ruthless executive, ruled by my carefully-crafted production calendar. 

But in the end, the ruthless executive, driven by his brutal moral compass, has finally pulled the recalcitrant creative out of his self-pity, reminded him of the 70 (yes, 70, I counted) other times this company has successfully mounted a production, and together they have come up with plan B. Here it is:

We're hosting an open stage. Everyone is welcome. No experience necessary, or even your own material. Because I'd rather do something with you than do nothing alone. 

Maybe 13 will turn out to be my lucky number after all.