The Blessed Unrest

Haven't written much lately. No - lately my life has been about that other art form. The one that relies on the multi-faceted elements of live storytelling. The one that begins with text. Layers in music and lyrics. The one that is interpreted and translated through actors, dancers, and singers in order to become something off of the page - living, breathing, moving. The one that needs space not a desk. The one that comes into being moment by moment, piece by piece. The one that uses costume and light. The one that is best expressed through gesture and pause. The one that cannot simply come together with the final punctuation point, stroke of the pen, or tap of the keyboard of the solitary artist. This one involves a lot of people. It is a collaboration. The sum of its parts greater than any one part and those parts can't come together until the very end which is then, the beginning. As Stephen Sondheim wrote "Everything depends on execution. The art of making art is putting it together bit by bit." It is a process.

I've been at this art form for a long time. And every time I find myself nearly brought to my knees by the shear magnitude of details involved in mounting a musical. Ask Julie Taymor. I'm sure she would agree that executing one's creative vision takes a kind of courage and boldness. Right or wrong. Good or bad. Better or worse. Richer or Poorer - the marriage between director and musical is a commitment of one's life for a certain period of time.

Should the snake head puppet turn this way or that on the lyric, "no pain, no gain?" Should Cain clench his fists, drop to his knees, plie or stand in a wide second on the lyric "lost, slowly dying in the wilderness?" " What is wrong with that transition? Hold one more second, then walk away. No another second. " These directions, only after digging deeply into story, subtext, and character to understand exactly what story is being told.

In educational theatre, there is the added responsibility of teaching. Teaching the craft. Teaching discipline. Teaching commitment. Teaching technique. Teaching them to dance. Teaching them to sing. Teaching them not to play with the props. Teaching them what it means to be a team. And hopefully, inspiring them along the way. Instilling in them a love for the theatre.

This path is not for the faint of heart. It takes enormous stamina. And then the dreams begin. Whole numbers running through your mind at night when rest eludes and sleeping becomes found work time. I have staged entire numbers in my sleep.

It has been six years since last I directed a musical. Surprising to me, who for two decades marked the years not by dates, but by shows. '94 Into the Woods. '95 Carousel. '96 Fiddler. '97 Secret Garden. '04 King & I and so on. My six year hiatus from musical theatre was not a hiatus from the theatre. I directed plays, cabarets, dramatic collages - all in alternative, challenging, non-theatrical spaces. Expanding my imagination, sharpening skills that simply had not been developed having had the luxury of working in a fully-equipped theatre in my early years as a director. But most importantly, during this time, I saw a lot of theatre. I continued to hone my craft as a spectator.

Years of experience, a certain aesthetic, a propensity to zero in on minute details, the right collaborators, and an obsessive compulsive scheduling gene have brought me now to this point. Three more rehearsals until we come back for "tech." As I look out onto the vast set-less, costume-less, light-less stage, I see the makings of a show. I see it in its barest state before color, texture, and dimension are added. I see the work of the actors on their own telling a story with every ounce of their beings. The beauty of the theatre is that when all of the other production elements come together, something magical happens. There is transcendence.

In her famous quote, Martha Graham says,

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others"

I never tire of this quote. It inspires me every day. And so I keep on marching.