There’s a session in theatrical rehearsals where actors, the director, and design staff sit down and discuss the vision of the show. It’s not just about recitation, but about being visions to reality.
Life is a lot like that. If we have clear visions, we’re more apt to make them reality. We can sit down with them, till then over, discuss them, and try them out.
Clear visions set the standard for quality theatre, and can also be used to create quality life.
mmm… Friday Roundup. It sounds a lot like the 1A Friday News Roundup. Not sure that’s going to stick.
What I’m reading: From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury. Plunked out Something Wicked and Halloween Tree. My deep dive into Bradbury continues with more fiction. I don’t know why I didn’t read more of his stuff when I was younger. Hard-headed, I guess. After having to read Fahrenheit 451, it was a matter of principle to not read him. A mistake. Also, found this interview from NEA’s Big Read which I enjoyed.
What I’m listening to: Miss Nelson is Missing: The Musical. My next theatre project and I’m getting a head start on the material the best I can. I never thought I’d be one for TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences), but I like it. It tends to be much lighter, and therefore you can have a lot of free-spirited fun with it. Also, kids usually are more appreciative than adult audiences. (Not always, but usually.)
What I’m spending time with: My dog. Having a light month of work means more time at home, so he gets the benefit.
Other things of interest to me this week:
Some of the things that caught my interest this week:
Some of the things that caught my interest this week.
I’ve been thinking lately about the types of posts I make here. Some are little thoughts I have about this and that (theatre and performance, or books I’m reading/have read); advice I’ve been given or came across; bits of motivation; very personal thoughts on loss and struggling; finance and investing; or even poetry. All these things are a hodgepodge of who I am and what I’m thinking right now.
Some of it may be interesting to someone. Many more may not find anything here. Others may not want to read each and every post I make, because who knows what I’ll be writing about on any given day.
I struggle with that – providing content (even content that no one may see) which goes back and forth from business to personal, and relevant to downright absurd. But, it’s who I am.
I started writing this blog because I’d kept a journal since 2015. Some times I’ve written daily. Right now I’m best at weekly in the journal, with other writing thrown in during the week. But it was entirely private, and no one was going to come across it. I may even pull a Dickens and have them all burnt before I go. Who knows…
So I put it up online, just another WordPress blog. And I’ve grown it a bit. I’ve grown a bit myself. Now it’s out there for anyone to see. Maybe no one will. But it’s out there.
For the time being, committing to one day a week blog posting. Probably Mondays.
Feeling slightly reinvigorated after several weeks of lethargy and, to be honest, mild depression. I think the season sometimes weighs on me. Later this month will be the eight-year anniversary of the crash that took my grandmother. One of the defining moments of my life, and I believe that each year brings some relief, but with it new challenges.
I wanted to write about Halloween, and will later. A bit of a post mortem (no pun intended). I think it’s one of my favorite holidays, but I’m such a fan of most holidays that it’s hard to choose one favorite (Thanksgiving is one I’m on the fence about).
A couple other future posts include one on horror movies, the long-awaited reading lists (RA Salvatore, Patrick Rothfuss, and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, to name a few), The Adventure Zone, my experiences in radio broadcasting, and some various theatrical experiences.
So, I’ll leave it there for today. I’ve started writing my morning pages again, a la Julie Cameron. When the seasonal affectations begin, it’s sometimes difficult to maintain focus. But, as has happened in the past, I slack off, then I pick back up. This is my meandering thought process anyway, and I find it best to write when the mind necessitates it.
I’ve been actively seeking a job for about a month. The current telecommunications work I’m doing has me traveling to much, and enjoying it too little. I’m reshaping my life. Lifestyle design, as Tim Ferriss calls it.
It’s odd, how things line up. When I started reading 4-Hour Work Week, I was in my final weekend of Evita. The show about Argentinian Eva Peron, and here the author is talking about tango in Argentina.
Some might call it coincidence. But I call it serendipity. My life has been filled with too many “coincidences” for it not to be something more.
For instance, I’ve never found a job looking for one. Yet, I’ve been working since I was 15. And in numerous positions. Somehow, every time I need a job, I get offered one. When I’m not even looking.
The past month nothing has come available for me. And yet over the past week, so much has happened. I’ll be hosting my own radio program (much like how Eva had her own weekly show in Evita…) and it looks like I may be going back into fundraising.
Without even trying. Serendipity.
Here it is, another opening night. I’ve been on stage in over fifty productions in the past twelve years. It’s probably over seventy-five now, but I can’t keep track. It had been one of the driving forces of my life.
This show has welcomed me back to theatre, and I appreciate it. Yet it still feels very different from before. Less joyful. Less exciting. That, sadly, has more to do with me than the show.
There are wonderful moments: the camaraderie between the fellow cast, being up on stage in front of people, singing and (pretending to be) dancing.
For a time, performing was a very social thing for me. As I got better at it, realized that I had talent and natural instincts as a performer, I started to take it more seriously. I worked professionally around Central Florida for some time. Things started going south, I guess, when I got sick.
The illness was eventually diagnosed as RA, and I continue to struggle with joint paint, fatigue, and stiffness.
I started this post to just mention that I was happy to be doing a show again. But what I’ve realized is that I have baggage tied up in performing. Baggage I’m going to have to sort it, if I plan to continue doing this.
I muse a lot while laying in bed at the end of the day. I'm having trouble sleeping, and I don't know why. I get up early enough. I'll be doing yoga in the morning. I have a pretty full day tomorrow, actually.
I'm thinking about theatre. It's been nearly a year since I was last on stage, and I've just accepted a role in a production of Annie, Get Your Gun. I'm also thinking about what I've been doing with my life these last eighteen months. Plenty of reading, loads of introspection, not much tangible to show. I'm like one of those fresh-out-of-college kids, full of ideas, but no clue on how to make a life for themselves.
Only, I'm about ten years older than most of them.
Trying to plan out the next stages of life.
Where do you want to be in five years, Michael?
Hell, I don't really know where I want to be tomorrow. But I wouldn't mind being well-rested.
Last week, I wrote about why I write. But there are a number of things that interest me, which is likely why I read so much. As I work on building my WordPress site into something that fully represents me, I wanted to lay out a few things that represent me.
For instance, I’ve been involved in theatre for over ten years now. I have two very clear memories from when I was a child, though I don’t remember exactly when these were. One was a show I was in.
I guess I was always in choirs, because I still sing today. Usually one or two days of practice every week, as well as singing on Sunday.
Anyway, in grade school (maybe first or second grade), I was in a production. I don’t know what it was, or what it was about. I just remember I had to be on stage shirtless. My little butterball self. I was some sort of aboriginal, or Pacific Islander. I wore a lei. (I’m very white, by the way. Perhaps at the time I had a tan.)
There were three of us, shirtless children on stage. The fact that I remember it even now should be some kind of indicator. As if that wouldn’t be scarring enough to a young psyche.
Then there’s the first show I remember seeing. It was when my dad was courting my stepmother, and we all went to see Grease, live on stage at a community theatre. Well, I walked out of that building saying, “What a waste of time. I would never sit through something live on stage again.”
It’s been over a hundred productions later of my own, as well as countless shows I’ve seen or sat in on for their rehearsals. I guess I can safely say: “Boy, was I wrong.”
It’s a joy for me. I love theatre, performing, seeing it, working on it. For over ten years now I’ve been goofing around, on stage. It’s really a wonderful thing.
Michael's Musings 