So Fresh & So New

I'm back. In Seattle. Writing this blog.

The last entry I posted still had me working at the San Jose Rep box office and freelance designing. For those of you unaware, SJ Rep closed earlier this year due to budgetary issues. I left a year before, but it still hit hard. More on this later.

After moving on from SJ Rep, I freelanced exclusively with a few on-the-side jobs like Starbucks and production management. And then I began work at Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. It was a stretch for me to commute to, but the best decision I've made about full-time employment. More on this later, too.

But just a month ago we made the move to Seattle, a decade-long dream of mine since leaving for college. When my parents moved from Seattle to North Carolina just before I graduated from Grinnell, I was so disappointed I wouldn't be able to move back to my hometown and be a part of theatre where my love of the art began. In retrospect, the journey I took instead--Portland, ME to Dallas, TX to Greensboro, NC to the Bay Area--broadened and deepened my understanding of theatre in this country and my role as a theatre-maker here. Now that I'm back in Seattle, I'm pumped and prepared to do so much more than if I'd come fresh out of college.

Now, after 18+ months hiatus from this blog, I'm also prepared to put the proverbial pen-to-paper to start talking about how I view theatre and how it can be better. When I began this blog I just wanted to write intellectual things and challenge myself to write more. That hasn't changed much, but I also want to open up the conversation. With four years of professional work under my belt in a vibrant, amazing theatre community, I have returned to a theatre community that is near-and-dear to my heart but also seems to be in trouble.

Within the first week of arriving in Seattle, Balagan Theatre, the darling-child of the mid-sized theatre scene in Seattle closed amidst very unhealthy financial practices. The closure has been covered nationally. And I encourage you to read-up because there isn't much need for me to rehash it here.

A short time later, Mike Daisy's article "The Empty Spaces" was republished in The Stranger (original publication was, reportedly, in 2008). The article struck a nerve and I expect it was re-released to coincide with the questions floating around the closure of Balagan AND Mike Daisy's performance at CalShakes earlier this month. I actually found the article, not through any Seattle channels,  but through industry friends in North Carolina. We, as the younger generation of actors and artists coming up through theatre are struggling because, as Daisy says, theatre in America is the place for administrators not artists.

Oh, yes.

Because I work as an admin again and my art is on hold as I get my foot-hold in this new community. And it hurts my heart and makes me sad. BUT! I'm not going to sit idly by. That's what resurrecting the blog is about. I've struggled for the last 18 months about wanting to write about many things but felt too afraid of getting myself in trouble because the community is small. I know I run that risk now, but I can also talk about things that I learned in the Bay Area, now removed from it, that don't run the risk of destroying my professional life. And, damnit, there has to be a way to be critical without pissing people off.

Well, here goes.

The Real World

Okay, most of you already know this, but in three weeks I'm moving to California. And in 4 weeks I start my job at California Theater Center as their Set/Prop Designer & Painter. For reals, I have a job. I will have an MFA and I will have a job. And I also have an apartment. In California. Sunnyvale, California.

Do you know what else I have: CT Hall. It's weird to think that a little less than 2 years ago I broke up with "The One." I was devastated about being alone, but I embraced all the exciting possibilities I felt I had, being untethered to someone. One of those exciting possibilities was getting to date people! And then, 8 months ago, I had coffee with the last guy I was planning on having coffee with, not because I felt that sure of his awesomeness, but because classes were starting up again and I knew dating was going to have to take a backseat to my last year in grad school.

Little did I know that the man sitting across from me would be the last person I "had coffee with" because he would be "The New One."

CT and I have come a long way in the last 8 months. And this update isn't about being super gushy about him, but I do want to give credit where credit is due. His dedication to making our relationship work and his excitement about all of the possibilities that lay before us (remember that part of the break up before?) has helped cement in my mind why we are still together. And, as far as I can tell, I probably wouldn't have take the CTC job so easily and light-heartedly if I didn't know I'd have such a wonderful person by my side.

Now, you may be wondering, like me, whether I am just incapable of being alone since I am talking about my love for CT via my need for a companion. And while I will not lie and say that that hasn't cross my mind, I honestly believe that people come in and out of our lives for a reason. In many ways, I would not have made it to graduate school if I hadn't been at the point I was with S, believing him to be by my side on that harrowing journey. And it was fortunate that we didn't break up until I was entrenched in my second year, or I may not have stuck out the rest of the program. This is not to say that CT is merely my pillar of strength to get me through this big move. This is just an example of how much better we can be together. (That's the universal "we.")

I expect that over the next few weeks I will be posting a lot about my fears and stresses over the move, but I wanted to start by talking about the sanity that CT brings to my life. Poor guy has been dealing with some very strong personalities in my family this weekend, and has been nearly a saint (but he is human, as am I, and I don't blame him for that).

Consider this a preface to the next chapter in my artistic life. I won't gush too much more about CT (really, what you will get will be merely what has to be said), but know that behind every entry is this person, who holds my hand and massages my neck and reminds me how very fortunate I am.



At Wrightsville Beach, NC

Spring Fever

Today I went to USITT... it was a trip. It's a lot more low-key than SETC, which probably has something to do with the lack of high schoolers and high-strung actors. But, what USITT lacks in stress, it makes up with over-stimulation. The Expo Floor is full of all the possible theatre companies and theatre schools... it's amazing. And if you're lucky enough, you get to pick up some fun swag from some of these companies. This year I scored an awesome tote bag from Syracuse Scenery made out of stage drapery. I also managed to get a USITT coffee cup.

But the thing that I really want to talk about is the fact that all of these conferences (SETC & USITT this year, KCACTF in past years) do one really unfortunate thing for me: make me feel incredibly inadequate. I look at work done by professionals and my peers and all I think is that I can't draw that well. While I figure I've got just as good design ideas as the next person, my inability to convey them through my sketches, well, that is a problem.

It makes me think about the holes in my education. I've gone through 7 years of schooling to be stamped with the coveted MFA diploma in just 6 weeks (yikes) and what do I have to show for it? The same level of sketching capabilities and, in some ways, less finesse in my model-making, the one place I feel like I had real talent leaving Grinnell. It also doesn't help when I get to catch up with my Grinnellian peers, one of which is finishing her first year of graduate school and one who is in his first year of freelancing (and headed to Prague in May). All I could think was that I haven't made any strides this way. I also don't know that I'm cut out for freelancing... I wonder what it is that I'm doing all of this for. What have I been striving for? What is this all worth? Am I going to try to make it by freelancing, hoping to be a resident designer, or becoming a teacher? What is it worth? Is this just a quarter-life crisis?

Or just the ramblings of a tired, overworked graduate student?