So I haven't posted in some time. For the past month, I've definitely been in what we in theater call "production mode." For the past several years The Vermont Playwrights Circle (VPC) has been running a summer reading series. Once a month, whether the moon be full or nay, (for my WICCAN friends) we gather and read a new script by a local playwright. The public is invited, Lost Nation Theater opens their doors to us when the theater is 'dark' (i.e. no main stage show is running) and we come in, set up, read, talk-back, have cookies and punch and go home. Reading complete.
Sometimes the play is something one of our core members has written, sometimes it's a play by someone brand new to us, something submitted into the ether after VPC has posted a call for scripts. We are lucky enough to receive dozens of scripts each year, which we comb through with loving care, while the author holds their breath hoping for a 'yes.' Either way, what has usually happened between our posting a call for scripts and the actual night of the reading is a mayhem and flurry of phone calls from me asking folks to help us, either by reading, posting fliers, bringing brownies for intermission or handing out programs.
That's when run the series once a month.
Last year, one of our member's lovely wives, Caroline, suggested we put all our efforts into something more concentrated, say a week or two, and ride along on the coat tails of some other festival or event. This seemed a great idea, and I think it was, however, in retrospect, it's like that saying parents have about children. One is a lot of work, two is three times the work, three is five times the work... etc. To be running 8 plays in two weeks is a bit crazy! But we've been doing it, and having a blast, and I hope the audiences only continue to grow. (The core audience for a reading of a new work usually consists of the friends & relatives of the author and the actors.) We'll see.
Meanwhile, as I've scrambled around, culling names and numbers of readers from tiny scraps of paper, old cast lists, my yahoo address book, suggestions from friends and really just people on the street that I know, (We asked some girls who work at Subway and a friend who works at the toy store to read.) I've come to realize that at the age of 42, I am no longer a viable stand-in for the part of "Lizzie, the 17 year old girlfriend to Joe" in "My Son, My Son," which we'll be performing tonight.
WHAT?! When could that possibly have happened?!!
When did I go from being 17, 125 lbs (I just changed that on my licence this year... ahem.) to being 179 lbs, 42, a bit 'long in the tooth' to play the teenage girlfriend? Ugh. (And yet... it was thanks to my age I got to play Abigail Adams in 1776 a few years back too, so the perks sometimes balance out the weight of the years (pun intended).)
So yes, I've been pretty busy. Yes, I have done nothing but eat, sleep, dream, eat, drink theater for the past several days while I have been 'on vacation' from work, and yes, after this week, my summer seems to open up in my mind like a wide vista of swimming, sunbathing, sipping tea and perhaps even going out with friends at night. Still, Terri and I have made it a point NOT to skip an early drive to rehearsal for a baby creamie at the local stand. I've made a point to sit outside in the glorious sun and eat my dinner before going into the darkened theater, and I've tried to just relax on the porch with breakfast each morning. These are the things that keep you going.
As far as I can tell, my family and friends still have no idea why I do it. Why do all of this theater when I'm not even on Broadway or getting a salary from it? Heck, I have no idea, some days, as I am slogging through the work end of it all. Until the answer appears on the faces of the audience (remember; friends & family of the playwright) and of the playwright when the lights come up, and they are wiping their eyes, nodding, saying under their breath "uh huh. Yes." THAT is why I do it. That, and the moment when you hear and see the story take off on its own.
As Grace and Joan lay back in an imaginary parking garage at the Miss United States Pageant, talking about the silence, bonding, wondering if their heifer will win the contest in "The Heifer Pageant" by Eddie Gale of Johnson and as Rosalee and her mentor talk for the last time in the classroom in "Rosalee was Here" by Maura Campbell of Burlington, or as I myself am onstage playing the character of Jennifer who is at her friend Katie's party, and I look around and see six amazing women and 4wonderful men acting out this zany moment when Katie is trying - via Power Point show, to decide who the right man is to marry in "The Wedding Party" by Maureen Hennigan - I know, without a doubt, that if there were nothing else in my life but theater, I would be content.
This is why we do this, and this is why I hope someday to be able to entice others who don't always think of a night at the theater as a way to spend the evening - or who go to the theater but are worried to take a chance on something brand new and unpolished - to take a chance on new works. I hope to convince people that the adventure of stepping into the darkened theater knowing the playwright sits in the audience chewing their nails, that the characters they are about to watch, and the story that is about to unfold are new, just born, just stumbling to their toddler legs, is one of the wonderful adventures worth experiencing.
www.vermontplaywrightscircle.org/SummerSeries.html
