A TRAGEDIAN'S TALE
Sometimes, things just plain work out.
Back in January, getting involved in another indie theatre production was the precise opposite of what I was looking to do. I was nursing scars that wouldn't heal from my last venture into independent theatre; a catastrophic disaster that left my spirit in a shredded heap and my wallet flattened from the 100% loss of a nearly $1,000 investment (a crippling sum for me). I had more or less sworn off theatre forever at that point. I thought it was over; a love since childhood beaten dead.
When my roommate Chris passed me an e-mail he'd gotten about auditions for a first production by some new company called Theatre@First, I think I said something like "Oh ferchrissake, not again." My armor was up and my first instinct was to give it a curt pfft and throw it away. I read it instead.
The play was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, one I like because of its clever Shakespearean twist. My inner creative soul and my protective outer shell were going head to head. Want to do it. Shouldn't do it. We miss theatre. No we don't! Gollum-girl sat on her bed fighting with herself about it. Feeling a guilty sense of self-betrayal, I signed up to audition.
The night of auditions came on the coldest evening of winter. I had prepared nothing and figured I'd just go in with my old Emilia monologue, be stiff from the cold, suck, leave, and never hear from them again. I said to myself, these people don't need anything I can do. Nobody needs me for anything. Stay home. I blew off auditions without even calling to cancel.
Two days later I got an e-mail from director Elizabeth Hunter. They were short a few people for the non-speaking roles, and would I like to talk with her about taking one? Before my sensibilities could cast their dank shadow, I said yes. I assured myself that if the energy was in any way toxic, I could just quit.
How different things often are from the way our minds pre-paint them. I went to the first read-through expecting what I'm accustomed to - cold cordiality and an all-business atmosphere. Instead, I walked into the church basement to find a cheerful, raggle-taggle collection of actors and artists from my own community, all strangers but somehow all friends. I said little to anyone that first night; just sat there in my coat enjoying the read-through and letting the energy melt my armor just a tiny bit.
In the earliest days of production, I got to know the Tragedians first. All women, playing men and boys in a down-at-heal wandering theatre troupe. There was a fun humor to that, part of the scrappy make-do spirit of community theatre that would bond us as the weeks went by. If you'd asked me 10 years ago if I would ever appear onstage before the world wearing a painted-on beard, I would have rolled my eyes and gone back to my morose performance poetry. When did I change? We were short two Tragedians, and things felt good enough that I coaxed my friend Jane, a trained mime, to come onboard and become a "trag queen" with us.
Around the onset of the production, two things happened: the first was that I lost my job of 5 years at MIT due to a layoff that I'd known deep down was coming. The other was that I began attending meditation classes in Davis Square as lead by my dear friend Premananda. The light and warmth of those classes reminded me that all the strength I need is already right here inside me, and I could weather this suddenly uncertain future on my own power if I open my heart to give and receive. The giddy snowball of the play kept my mood aloft, and gave me something happy and stable to look forward to in these newly unstructured days.
My favorite part of the play is the "dumb show," a play-within-a-play in which the Tragedians give a pantomime outline of the Hamlet narrative. Each of the Tragedian characters mirrored one of the main characters in the play, and mine was Guildenstern. I have a childish love of dying onstage, and I got to do it twice for every performance.
As we progressed to the midpoint of the production schedule and rehearsals started interfacing whole sections, I began getting to know the phenomenal crew and the other cast members. These were the Shakespeareans and the three leading men. It was at this point that I began to feel a genuine sense of family forming. It was so spontaneous and natural that I didn't even notice it evolving, until suddenly it was just there. At a rehearsal one evening, the actor playing the real Guildenstern, whom I barely knew yet, came up and gave me a hug for no reason. That really cracked my ice, and before I knew it I was out drinking after rehearsals with real heartfelt friends who had found each other through this theatre company. Funny how the universe leads us along a chalk line into each others orbits. Many of us live within a golfball hit of each other and have hung out in the same local venues all along, but the veil hadn't revealed us to one another yet. Somerville, you keep surprising me in wonderful ways.
Tech week came with the usual tribulations and scrambles of any production, but we were able to push through on the collective strength we'd built up. There were falling backdrops, last minute changes, lost costume pieces, headaches and very tough struggles. But the magic was there in full force, and even the rough spots felt vital and dynamically affirming to me. For once, I felt truly needed. LIFE for all ages and occasions.
This was the first show ever in my experience where there was no undercurrent of malcontent, no mutiny against the director, no infighting or rival cliques. We were (and are) one light, together. I'd always had faith that such as pure collaboration could exist, but I'd never before experienced it. This is what synergy feels like.
As a veteran of indie and community theatre, I knew better than to expect much of an audience on a brand new company's first run. I had a cheer-up speech all ready for the cast and crew, a variation on the theme of "Hey you guys, 20 people in the house is good for a new company, and we're only at opening night! Those are 20 people are here to see US! Lets get out there and knock all 40 of their socks off!" When opening night finally came, suffice it to say the speech wasn't needed.
A standing-room-only house on opening night of a first-run, unfunded company is nothing short of a miracle. That kind of thing just doesn't happen, especially in urban areas where there is a plethora of competing entertainment. Except it did happen. And the next night as well, and a hearty matinee crowd on Sunday. The next weekend followed suit, with packed houses for all shows. The house crew had to pillage the green room for extra chairs. Our producers made their investment back with money to spare.
The show grew tighter and tighter with each performance. By opening night we had really only run the whole show once, and we walked that first performance on a narrow balance beam. But we got to the other side, and each night as the run moved forward, people found ways to polish in-progress, adding embellishments and new gags once things became cohesive. The final Saturday night was the hammer swing that rung the bell, I think. I was wishing I had a second pair of eyes out in the audience.
And so it is -- Davis Square has itself a community theatre company. I'm writing this because: A) I'm sad that it's over, and B) I'm happy that it's just beginning. I got teary-eyed part way through the final performance at the reality that I was never going to do those scenes again. But I reminded myself that it isn't the scenes themselves that made the magic; it was the magic that made the scenes.
And that part isn't going away.
I've left at the end of productions feeling burned and spent; I've gotten evicted for spending my rent money on my one-woman shows and not making it back; I've left sadly, or satisfied, but there was always a walking away process that carried one pain or another with it. But this time, I won't be walking away. Its all just starting for Theatre@First. I'm grinning big to quote our wild and beautiful Hamlet backstage shouting: "Places, motherf_ckers!"
I drank way too much wine at the cast party, but I made it to my 9:30 interview at MIT yesterday. I sailed through the 3-hour interview with a confidence and velocity that I haven't known in a very long time. What I put into the show came back out with me, and I owe it to my theatre family's energy. At 4:30, there was a voicemail for me. I got the job. A great job. I'm back at MIT where I belong.
When I first came into this production, no one could have known I was a closed fist of resentment and hurt. I was at a stage where I could neither give nor receive creative energy, and I never expected what came out of this show. It changed something, let the many doors and windows of my life begin to open to let the light out, and in. My journey through this first show culminated in what can be summarized in half a sentence of Stoppard's brilliant text:
Now you see me.
:-)
Back in January, getting involved in another indie theatre production was the precise opposite of what I was looking to do. I was nursing scars that wouldn't heal from my last venture into independent theatre; a catastrophic disaster that left my spirit in a shredded heap and my wallet flattened from the 100% loss of a nearly $1,000 investment (a crippling sum for me). I had more or less sworn off theatre forever at that point. I thought it was over; a love since childhood beaten dead.
When my roommate Chris passed me an e-mail he'd gotten about auditions for a first production by some new company called Theatre@First, I think I said something like "Oh ferchrissake, not again." My armor was up and my first instinct was to give it a curt pfft and throw it away. I read it instead.
The play was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, one I like because of its clever Shakespearean twist. My inner creative soul and my protective outer shell were going head to head. Want to do it. Shouldn't do it. We miss theatre. No we don't! Gollum-girl sat on her bed fighting with herself about it. Feeling a guilty sense of self-betrayal, I signed up to audition.
The night of auditions came on the coldest evening of winter. I had prepared nothing and figured I'd just go in with my old Emilia monologue, be stiff from the cold, suck, leave, and never hear from them again. I said to myself, these people don't need anything I can do. Nobody needs me for anything. Stay home. I blew off auditions without even calling to cancel.
Two days later I got an e-mail from director Elizabeth Hunter. They were short a few people for the non-speaking roles, and would I like to talk with her about taking one? Before my sensibilities could cast their dank shadow, I said yes. I assured myself that if the energy was in any way toxic, I could just quit.
How different things often are from the way our minds pre-paint them. I went to the first read-through expecting what I'm accustomed to - cold cordiality and an all-business atmosphere. Instead, I walked into the church basement to find a cheerful, raggle-taggle collection of actors and artists from my own community, all strangers but somehow all friends. I said little to anyone that first night; just sat there in my coat enjoying the read-through and letting the energy melt my armor just a tiny bit.
In the earliest days of production, I got to know the Tragedians first. All women, playing men and boys in a down-at-heal wandering theatre troupe. There was a fun humor to that, part of the scrappy make-do spirit of community theatre that would bond us as the weeks went by. If you'd asked me 10 years ago if I would ever appear onstage before the world wearing a painted-on beard, I would have rolled my eyes and gone back to my morose performance poetry. When did I change? We were short two Tragedians, and things felt good enough that I coaxed my friend Jane, a trained mime, to come onboard and become a "trag queen" with us.
Around the onset of the production, two things happened: the first was that I lost my job of 5 years at MIT due to a layoff that I'd known deep down was coming. The other was that I began attending meditation classes in Davis Square as lead by my dear friend Premananda. The light and warmth of those classes reminded me that all the strength I need is already right here inside me, and I could weather this suddenly uncertain future on my own power if I open my heart to give and receive. The giddy snowball of the play kept my mood aloft, and gave me something happy and stable to look forward to in these newly unstructured days.
My favorite part of the play is the "dumb show," a play-within-a-play in which the Tragedians give a pantomime outline of the Hamlet narrative. Each of the Tragedian characters mirrored one of the main characters in the play, and mine was Guildenstern. I have a childish love of dying onstage, and I got to do it twice for every performance.
As we progressed to the midpoint of the production schedule and rehearsals started interfacing whole sections, I began getting to know the phenomenal crew and the other cast members. These were the Shakespeareans and the three leading men. It was at this point that I began to feel a genuine sense of family forming. It was so spontaneous and natural that I didn't even notice it evolving, until suddenly it was just there. At a rehearsal one evening, the actor playing the real Guildenstern, whom I barely knew yet, came up and gave me a hug for no reason. That really cracked my ice, and before I knew it I was out drinking after rehearsals with real heartfelt friends who had found each other through this theatre company. Funny how the universe leads us along a chalk line into each others orbits. Many of us live within a golfball hit of each other and have hung out in the same local venues all along, but the veil hadn't revealed us to one another yet. Somerville, you keep surprising me in wonderful ways.
Tech week came with the usual tribulations and scrambles of any production, but we were able to push through on the collective strength we'd built up. There were falling backdrops, last minute changes, lost costume pieces, headaches and very tough struggles. But the magic was there in full force, and even the rough spots felt vital and dynamically affirming to me. For once, I felt truly needed. LIFE for all ages and occasions.
This was the first show ever in my experience where there was no undercurrent of malcontent, no mutiny against the director, no infighting or rival cliques. We were (and are) one light, together. I'd always had faith that such as pure collaboration could exist, but I'd never before experienced it. This is what synergy feels like.
As a veteran of indie and community theatre, I knew better than to expect much of an audience on a brand new company's first run. I had a cheer-up speech all ready for the cast and crew, a variation on the theme of "Hey you guys, 20 people in the house is good for a new company, and we're only at opening night! Those are 20 people are here to see US! Lets get out there and knock all 40 of their socks off!" When opening night finally came, suffice it to say the speech wasn't needed.
A standing-room-only house on opening night of a first-run, unfunded company is nothing short of a miracle. That kind of thing just doesn't happen, especially in urban areas where there is a plethora of competing entertainment. Except it did happen. And the next night as well, and a hearty matinee crowd on Sunday. The next weekend followed suit, with packed houses for all shows. The house crew had to pillage the green room for extra chairs. Our producers made their investment back with money to spare.
The show grew tighter and tighter with each performance. By opening night we had really only run the whole show once, and we walked that first performance on a narrow balance beam. But we got to the other side, and each night as the run moved forward, people found ways to polish in-progress, adding embellishments and new gags once things became cohesive. The final Saturday night was the hammer swing that rung the bell, I think. I was wishing I had a second pair of eyes out in the audience.
And so it is -- Davis Square has itself a community theatre company. I'm writing this because: A) I'm sad that it's over, and B) I'm happy that it's just beginning. I got teary-eyed part way through the final performance at the reality that I was never going to do those scenes again. But I reminded myself that it isn't the scenes themselves that made the magic; it was the magic that made the scenes.
And that part isn't going away.
I've left at the end of productions feeling burned and spent; I've gotten evicted for spending my rent money on my one-woman shows and not making it back; I've left sadly, or satisfied, but there was always a walking away process that carried one pain or another with it. But this time, I won't be walking away. Its all just starting for Theatre@First. I'm grinning big to quote our wild and beautiful Hamlet backstage shouting: "Places, motherf_ckers!"
I drank way too much wine at the cast party, but I made it to my 9:30 interview at MIT yesterday. I sailed through the 3-hour interview with a confidence and velocity that I haven't known in a very long time. What I put into the show came back out with me, and I owe it to my theatre family's energy. At 4:30, there was a voicemail for me. I got the job. A great job. I'm back at MIT where I belong.
When I first came into this production, no one could have known I was a closed fist of resentment and hurt. I was at a stage where I could neither give nor receive creative energy, and I never expected what came out of this show. It changed something, let the many doors and windows of my life begin to open to let the light out, and in. My journey through this first show culminated in what can be summarized in half a sentence of Stoppard's brilliant text:
Now you see me.
:-)