A New Plan to Keep In Contact

Hello, friends.  :)

Obviously, the blog thing just isn't clicking with me anymore . . .  I just can't make myself do it!  It simply never registers as something I have time to do.  I think I have a mental block that puts too much pressure on writing in the blog.  But I still want to keep in touch!

So here's what I'm thinking:  I'm going to try something different.  Instead of writing on a blog page . . . I'm going to try sending emails home more regularly.  There are three different benefits to this that *might* actually help me *actually* do it:  1) Less pressure.  An email is just an email: It doesn't have to be a volume-by-volume piece of literature.  (I know that blogs don't have to be either, but I just can't seem to convince myself of it . . . )   2) More privacy.  I used to share very openly on here with the naive trust that the only ones who would read it were the people whom I had invited to read it.  I discovered that wasn't always the case . . . kinda shook up my ability to share as openly as I had been about my experiences.  And 3) I'm on my email all the time anyway!  So it just makes it that much easier.

It also has another big benefit for my piece of mind: 4) Less guilt about people I love checking this site to see day in and day out that I still haven't posted anything.  I have discovered that guilt is a tremendous downer for me . . . but unfortunately not a good motivator!

The one thing that I don't want to do, though, is cut off anyone who is still reading my posts and still wants to be kept in the loop about what I'm experiencing here!  If you're family, you should just know: I'm going to include you in my emails.  (You better tell me if you would rather disown me!)  If you're not family, and you do want to receive my news emails -- feel free to let me know that you want to be included!!  The best way to communicate that to me may be to send me an email . . .  I'm not going to just post my email here.  I don't want to be spammed.  But, in case you don't already know it, I'll tell you that it's my first name dot my middle initial dot my last name at gmail dot com.  :)

We'll see how it goes . . .  What harm could it do?  It certainly couldn't *increase* my lack of communication . . .  :P

I love you all!  Stay blessed and warm in God's peace.

Time Management: my call to arms

A couple of quick updates:

So, the SLAMBoston one-act play festival went well this week . . .  The piece I had directed won the festival!!  Which means that it gets to perform again in April (4/12-13) at the "SuperSLAM," where all the winners from the past twelve months worth of SLAMs get to compete against each other.  Should be fun!  Of course, we (the actors, playwright and I) were all pretty excited when the winner was announced at the end of the third day of performances on Wednesday.  The script ("Physics of Love") was the strongest one-act I'd ever gotten to direct, and my actors were really great to work with, so I'm glad my directing didn't screw things up . . .   Plus, I learned a lot during the process about what works and what doesn't, which is really what made it a great experience.  I'll let you know how the SuperSLAM goes when it comes around next month . . .

Tomorrow evening (Sunday evening), I start rehearsals for "The Zoo Story" (and "For Whom The Southern Belle Tolls").  I really am looking forward to it!  It's going to be a beast to memorize, not to mention a wild character to find, connect with and perform . . . but I absolutely adore a challenge.

**

And a new topic of conversation:

Another thing that God is doing right now is kicking my butt about being more self-disciplined time-wise -- particularly as regards not being late to things, going to bed at night and getting up in the morning.  Over the years, I had gotten into some really bad habits: Leaving late for things, staying up mindlessly late at night and then hitting my snooze multiple times in the morning, forcing me to race last minute to work in the morning and frequently being late.  I could discuss a lot of reasons I've come up with for why I have these troubles (being too one-track-minded and needing to finish whatever I start, having a time-handicap inheritance, trying to get too much done all the time, being a night person, craving human connection at night, loving too much the peacefulness of my bed covers in the morning [and being too sleepy in the morning to intelligently fight against my addiction] . . . ), and God has been dealing with me for some time about dealing with them, and I've been bewildered at my lack (or brevity) of success in all prior attempts to change. 

But toward the first of the year, God spoke to me through a Scripture (His most common means of communicating to me personally): I had recently begun studying the life of Joshua and was rereading the account in Exodus 17 of Joshua's first mention, as he is chosen to lead the armies of Israel against the Amalekites, while Aaron and Hur hold Moses' hands up on the hill.  At the end of that victorious battle, God says something very significant to Moses in verse 14: "Write this in the book as a memorial, and recite it to Joshua: that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."  And then in verse 16, after building an alter and naming it "The LORD is my banner," Moses says, "The LORD has sworn: the LORD will have war against Amalek from generation to generation."  As I was reading these verses for the third or fourth time in those couple of weeks, the Holy Spirit got my attention and let me know that time management was my Amalek.  That it was something against which I would have to fight time and time again, but that it was a war that He was waging -- and that He wanted me to know and constantly remember that it was His plan to utterly defeat that part of me -- in fact, to wipe it out of me.  There would come a time when people would no longer know me as the guy who was always running late to things; the memory of that part of me would be blotted out, and my identity would be based on other things -- qualities of the LORD's choosing.

Coming to that realization had an amazingly empowering effect on me.  No longer were my efforts at self-improvement a string of vague actions based on wishful thinking.  I had a mission, a battle, a call to arms, and a knowledge of the One who was leading me forward -- and promising me victory, though it would not be easy.  I immediately set a new set of standards and goals for myself, in which I have been seeing increasing success since then -- and tasting the wonderful benefits: To bed nightly before midnight, sometimes by 11pm.  Up on the first alarm in the morning: no snooze button.  Out of the house in time to get to work by 8:15am -- even though I am not expected until 8:30.  Fifteen minutes early to everywhere I am scheduled to be.  No, I am not perfect in these areas yet (particularly the arriving places 15 minutes early), but these are my new standards, and I have really begun to see and taste the fruit of abiding by them . . . and its sweetness is motiving me to press on further into the battle.

**

May you all be blessed today, as it is Sunday!  I will be attending service at Epiphany Episcopal Church in the morning with Rachel, Nate and Jake, and then seeing Nate dance in the afternoon (I got to see Jake dance yesterday!) prior to my evening rehearsal with NERC in Mansfield for "Zoo Story."  Hopefully I'll write again soon!  Peace to all, and you each.

Some Of What God Is Doing

The first entry after a long break might be the hardest to write . . . but the second entry is the second hardest.  I actually started this entry last weekend, but then got distracted.  Of course, Heather is right: Quick, short posts is the key!  That way I should have no more excuse not to write . . .  Easier said than done, though.

Since I have so much to say about both a) the year that you missed and b) the things that are going on now, I'm thinking of letting my posts alternate between those two subjects freely.  Sometimes I may write a little on both subjects!  Sometimes I may only write on only one subject or the other.  Guess it will depend on how I'm feeling. 

Today I'm just going to talk some about what's going on right now.

Since the summer, my theatrical commitments have been few and not overly time-consuming, a welcome change of pace, as I could feel my focus shifting from the drive to perform to the drive to direct or produce.  At the moment, I'm involved in directing another 10-minute play for this month's SLAM festival: a really great little script called "Physics of Love."  I'll have to tell you more about it later, but for now, let it suffice to say: I'm having a blast with it!!  Two great actors, a great acting technique . . .  Very rewarding stuff.  Reminds me of just how much I love directing.  Opens a week from tomorrow for three nights!

Right after that, I'll begin rehearsing as an actor again -- for the first time in months!  That, too, is for an evening of one-acts, this time with NERC in Mansfield (the same group with whom I performed as the Young Man in "Hello Out There" and Eugene in Broadway Bound, and directed Shadowlands).  I'll be performing in two of their one-acts.  First, I'll be in a short Durang piece, which is a spoof on The Glass Menagerie, called For Whom The Southern Belle Tolls.  It's pretty hilarious and perfect for NERC to do, since at this time last year, NERC was performing Glass Menagerie -- and as I played Tom in that production, I'll be reprising that role here, too (although Tom is a bit different in Durang's imagination than he was in Williams').  Mike will be directing it.

That piece is performing in the "first act" of an evening leading up to the main, headlining event: a performance of The Zoo Story, the two man play that first made Edward Albee famous.  In that play, I will be playing Jerry (who has one of the longest monologues in contemporary theatre -- or at least, contemporary theatre not written to be a one-man show).  It's also one of the most challenging roles out there, so I'm really looking forward to it.  The aspect of that to which I am perhaps most looking forward is the chance to be directed by Tom Hunter, one of the retired founders of the theatre whose resume includes several Broadway appearances -- and he's just an all around great guy and knowledgeable acting teacher.  I've taken acting workshops with him before, but this will be my first chance to experience him as a director.  That program will perform in May. 

Beyond that, I have absolutely no theatrical commitments currently on the calendar.

**

But if ever asked what God is up to in my life right now, I say two main things: 1) Learning what it means to love Rachel and her boys; and 2) Learning with Rachel how to start a theatre company.  And it's that second one that I want to write about right now.

Part of the supernatural gravity that brought Rachel and me together was, ultimately, a shared calling to use theatre to bring others to God.  In November, due to recent, massively significant & independently discovered renewals/ developments in those callings, we started not only dreaming but also planning explicitly how we might start a long-lasting theatre company that would let God onto the stage (and into the backstage) -- not in the midst of those who are already God's sympathetic children, but in the midst of the seekers, the hungry, the darkened and lonely, the atheists and Jews and Muslims, the Wiccans and humanists and uncertains. 

From the start, several things seemed very obviously important both to God and to us: a) to be doing the plays God wants us to do; b) to be performing with the artists and for the audiences that God most envisions for us; c) to be doing excellent, compelling theatre of the most doubtless quality; and d) to be wise in our organization and operation, that we might be financially and structurally sound, that the organization might last for a very, very long time and be deserving of as much trust businesswise as it will be artistically.

Soon it became very obvious that to really move forward, we were going to need to glean as much information as we could from others.  So since December, we've met with a number of producers who have started their own theatre companies, and through them have gathered a lot of helpful information, experiences and philosophies.  But one of the primary things we've learned is: There are about as many methods and paths to starting a theatre company as there are theatre companies.  Everyone has had a different take on how that journey should go and how a theatre should be structured -- sometimes wildly different.  But it still has been very helpful to us in refining for us how it is that we want to operate, and in helping guide our thoughts on what our first next steps should be.

Two of the very first topics of heaviest discussion for us was a) a name and b) a mission statement.  We've recently settled, I believe, on a name for this company: Face To Face Productions.  And the most recent manifestation of our mission statement is something to this effect: To create breathtaking productions of live theatre that explore the presence of a redemptive God in the real world.  That statement will probably continue to change and refine itself as we learn how to best express ourselves to our intended audiences, supporters and artistic base . . .

One thing is certain: The "real world" part is as crucial to us as the "redemptive God" part.  We don't see ourselves doing a lot of sentimental productions.  We want our theatre to have the kind of edge about it that will keep the audience always captivated, surprised, and awakened -- and an honest view of the world will always be central to everything we do.  And even as regards that central subject of God's presence, what we'll be aiming at is the kind of transparency and open-mindedness that will draw in people from all walks and persuasions, rather than limiting the discussion up front to Christianity.  We have a strong idea that God's vision for us will be centered around asking the right people the right questions, rather than trying to claim to anybody that we have all the right answers.  The Holy Spirit will always be the one doing the real work, answering the questions we ask in His own way, place and timing -- probably outside of the theatre itself, usually -- for each individual He brings our way.

And we're envisioning, now more confidently than ever, a one-act play festival [notice a theme?] as our first project -- possibly late this year, possibly sometime next year.  We pray that such would be an opportunity to draw together a lot of different artists, to estabish ourselves as a viable artistic presence, and to guide our public's expectations of what we will and will not be about.

**

So that's just some of what God is doing in my life at the moment . . .  Enough for one entry, anyway!

Love you all, and look forward to connecting with each of you more in the future . . .

Yes: I'm Writing Again

Um . . .   Hello everyone!!

It is amazing to me how Xanga itself seems not to have changed one iota since I wrote here last, fifteen months ago . . . 

I, on the other hand, have changed a lot.  Or, perhaps I should say, my situation has changed.  My life has been changed.  (In fact, I might just name my next entry, "The Year That Changed My Life . . . ")

I apologize for disappearing . . .  such was never my intention.  If you look back on my last entries made, you can see how the lengths of time between entries were becoming greater and greater . . . I simply didn't realize when I wrote about my favorite autumnal driving routes in Boston on November 20, 2008 that I was simply not going to find the motivation to write the next entry . . .  until today.

I remember writing more than once in 2008 about how sometimes there is simply too much to write to actually get any of it written . . .  That was definitely one of the factors behind my mysterious disappearance.  But it wasn't just the immense quantity that I had to write about that shut me up as a writer . . .  It was the subject matter.  Because, you see, what was happening to me in a big way at that time . . . was a girl.

Yes, I was falling in love . . . and I'm simply not practiced at talking about such matters.  And it didn't seem honest to write about anything else, as very little else in my life escaped its impact.

The girl's name was Rachel, a wildly intelligent, ludicrously funny, disarmingly strong-willed, breathtakingly beautiful, stunningly caring Episcopalian, talented singer, dancer and theatre artist, lover of power tools, and 33-year-old, recently-divorced mother of two wonderfully intelligent, personable and talented Irish-step-dancing young boys, Nate and Jake, ages 9 and 6.  By the time I stopped writing in mid-November, I was just beginning to come to the unmistakable, undeniable realization that, for the first time ever, I was falling in love with someone who was also falling in love with me.  And a month later, I had at the age of 28 my very first serious romantic relationship on my hands -- something for which I had been quietly, passionately and patiently yearning for about the previous fifteen years.

In the months that followed, that relationship saw a lot of incredibly high ups and amazingly low downs, including two or three breakups of increasing intensity and apparent finality.  And now, as we stand here in early 2010, the changes that have occurred are that Nate and Jake are now 10 and 7, Rachel is 34 and I 29 . . . and she is no longer my girlfriend. 

She is my fiancee.

And for those of you for whom this is news . . . don't get too excited:  It'll probably be a while before we set a wedding date.  ;)

So one of the reasons that I couldn't continue blogging is that I was completely unpracticed -- and frankly uncomfortable -- at talking about matters of the heart.  I desperately wanted to talk about it . . .  but I didn't know how.  Now, though, that discomfort has gone away.  Perhaps that is because I feel secure now that this is the real thing, that this is a God-thing . . . and that she and I will always be together.  We were meant to be together . . . we were made to be together.  And so, knowing now that this girl is not just a phase but is indeed my other half:  I want everyone to know about her and my love for her.  Because these are now central aspects of who I am, and of where I'm going in life.

So -- I'm going to start blogging again!!  YAY!!!    :D    I've missed you . . .  You who were my faithful readers of the past: You never ceased to be important to me, and you never left my heart.  I'm just sorry that I allowed such an important year of my life slip away without your active inclusion . . .  I will do my best to fill you in, catch you up to speed, and most of all, to let you know regularly what's going on in my life.  (And yes, it does still have a lot to do with theatre . . . now more than ever. :) )   I'm not going to promise you a certain frequency (like "daily," or "monthly," or "every third Saturday") . . .  I just want you to know me again.  

And I want to know you again, as well.  :)  If you have blogs going on on other sites -- let me know what they are!!  And if you don't . . . maybe it's time to start writing (again or for the first time).  [Of course, most of you could always write me an email, too . . . or just give me a phone call . . . ]  :)

Peace and joy to you all:  very, very sincerely, and with much excitement, and much love.          Lucas

Changing Seasons

On this rare occasion, when rehearsal was let out early and I have nothing else on my plate for the evening, I take great pleasure in sharing with you some of my thoughts and appreciations of late.  If you're only interested in news, then you can skip the bulk of this blog (just skip down to the third set of asterisks), as news is not my primary interest at the moment.

**

I totally missed both opportunities to celebrate with you my two-year anniversary of the move -- Sept. 2 marking my first day living in Massachusetts, and Oct. 1 marking my first day living in Boston.  Can you believe it's been more than two years now?

A lot of the wonder of the city, I must admit, has faded away, as should be expected, but there are still stretches of road that I travel on that take my breath away every time I'm on them.  Traveling south into the city on I-93 from points north (such as Beverly and Stoneham) is truly amazing, especially after dark.  Great care has obviously been taken to make this major entryway into the city breathtaking, and all I can say is they've succeeded.  (Interesting, no such care is taken to make the entrances from the south impressive.  Sometimes it is anyway, but it's purely accidental.)  The first sign of it is yet a few minutes away from the edge of the city: there's a bend in the highway that you take and suddenly, there it is looming over the horizon: the magnificent Boston skyline.  As you approach the city, the concrete highway system twists and turns all around itself, with all its complex entrances and exits and interchanges, running over and under and alongside you in various configurations, as if you're traveling through a fantastic fantasy world from the future (one that may well have been designed by M.C. Escher himself).  And in front of you, through the twists of concrete around you, tower the beautiful skyscrapers of Boston's financial district.  The most wonderful moment is at the point where you're finally crossing over to make your entrance; you cross a grand bridge, supported by this monumental cable-system forming gigantic, triangular arches above you, which they light with purple lights at night.  This cabled bridge is the most recognizeable sight in Boston. 

And just as you are coming right upon all those skyscrapers that you've been ogling for miles, you drop down into a tunnel under the city.  (Yes, folks -- the "Big Dig," billions of your tax dollars at work, and the savior of the Boston road system, not to mention much of its beauty, as the center of town used to be overrun by this massive, and massively ugly, elevated highway system.  I've only seen pictures, but the stories people tell of it are horrendous.  The center of the Financial District is now an incredibly beautiful place.)  The tunnel system itself is kind of a neat place to experience, full of curves, up and down, side to side, similar to the highways that got you there, such that you sometimes feel like you're inside a video game.  When you come out the other side several minutes later, you're on the opposite end of the city, the south side, which is noticeably less picturesque; but once, I came out of the tunnel just as the sun was setting on that side of the sky, and the moment was so wonderful, I was quite nearly transported; I almost had to stop my car in ecstacy.  (Which, of course, I did not do, lest I be honked into oblivion.)

The second most breath-taking stretches of road in Boston are the bridges that span the Charles River.  There are two of them, and they're equally gorgeous.  The Charles River, flowing in off the bay, separates Boston from Cambridge, a journey I make every Sunday on my way to and from church, as well as on many other occasions (there are several theatre and theatre groups in Cambridge, not to mention a lot of theatre artists, including several of my closest friends; Boston and Cambridge are essentially two halves of the same theatre community.  We had our "Like" rehearsals in Cambridge, for example, in one of the MIT classrooms [I felt like Good Will Hunting every time we rehearsed there]).  The Harvard Bridge (Massachusetts Avenue) is the one I normally take when I'm driving, though occasionally I'll choose to walk it instead.  It's absolutely glorious.  The bridge is probably a half-mile long, and the river is beautiful, frequently populated with scores of sailboats, oftentimes dozens of rowers, and sometimes just lots of geese and seagulls.  The sun is often rising or setting right over the water.  But most amazing of all, once again, is the city skyline -- this time stretched out from one horizon to the other in both directions in front of you.  When you're traveling north into Cambridge, the city you see is impressive for its beauty and stately respectability, for its line of trees along the edge of the river, and its simplicity.  When you're traveling southward into Boston, the view of towering skyscrapers and city architecture is simply grand, magnificent, and at night, shimmering with city life against the starry sky.  The view from the Longfellow Bridge is just as wonderful as the Harvard Bridge, but with one added benefit: You ride across it on the T.  When you're letting someone else man the wheel, you can peer out the windows and admire.  I always do.

The third and final stretch of road that continues to take my breath away is very different.  In the first two paths I described, massive roadways and buildings and the gigantic Boston skyline dominates the attention.  But this road, one that I travel almost every morning that I take my car to work (which is almost every day now that I'm in It's A Wonderful Life rehearsals and need to drive straight to Stoneham from work every afternoon), is tucked away in the southwest corner of the city, away from all the glitz and glamour.  It passes through a community called Jamaica Plain, and the road itself is called the Jamaicaway, and the road passes by a large body of water called Jamaica Pond.  We don't have "ponds" like this in Tennessee; in Tennessee when we see bodies of water this size, we call them "lakes," though I think there is a technical difference: Lakes do eventually flow into other bodies of water (albeit very slowly), whereas ponds do not (at least, I believe that is the difference).  This particular pond was created by the melting of a glacier many thousands of years ago.  There has been some debate about whether or not swimming should be allowed in the pond; currently it is not, because of the threat humans would pose to the unique eco system of it.  But rowing and boating is permitted, and I often see small boats in the water.  It's also circumnavigated frequently by joggers (an activity I took occasion to do one summer Saturday myself, with great enjoyment). The water is gorgeous:  Perpetually serene and still, but for the occasional stirring of a small fish or other marine life, or rowboat.  But what makes the drive through that entire area so wonderful is not just the pond; it's all the trees as well.  It's one of the few places I've gotten to experience in Boston that is still dominated by trees, and not by buildings.  Even though the tight and winding 4-lane roads are always packed with morning commuters, the drive is a peaceful one for me.  I find it easier to pray there.  I've felt so blessed to have my path to work be through such a beautiful place -- especially as I've gotten to witness the changing of seasons.  Not many Bostoners can say that they have a work commute as beautiful as mine.

**

Ah, the changing of seasons.  I was somewhat disappointed in my first two fall seasons in Boston, I have to admit that.  Probably because I'd heard so much about "Boston in the fall," I came expecting to be blown over by beauty, but I never found it to be any better than Tennessee -- perhaps not as good, because in the city, the trees are so outnumbered by the buildings.  Each of my first two Columbus Days, I drove up into New Hampshire to enjoy more of nature, but that wasn't Boston; that wasn't even Massachusetts.

This year I did not take any such a northward trip, but I didn't need to.  The autumn this year was as gorgeous as I have ever seen an autumn in my life. 

I thought at first that this year was going to be more of the same.  I don't think autumns smell exactly the same here as they do in Tennessee, and this year I had a kind of strange experience related (I think) to that phenomenon.  It was a very unusual experience for me: I started feeling Christmasy way back in September, as soon as the heat of the summer started to go away!  Ordinarily, I think I'm vigilant to keep my Christmas spirit at bay until after Thanksgiving, purely by conviction that seasons should be kept unadulterated; but sometimes when I do that, I have to fight just to allow the Christmas spirit to hit me at all when the time comes.  This year I just decided to feel what I was feeling, and I was feeling very Christmasy at the first sign of cooler weather.  I'm not sure I can explain it, but I was certain that it would mean the passing over of fall altogether, which had been my favorite season of them all until moving north.

Well, very fortunately for me, fall happened anyway, and when it did, it was wonderful.  It took its time, not really showing much of anything until suddenly the colors were all around in force like a gust of fresh air, a sudden leap into flaming technicolor that happened about mid-October, just before I came home for my high school reunion.  They deepened into prime time as the month went on, and I enjoyed watching it happen very much.

But as wonderful as it was to see the leaves on the trees, it was just as wonderful when the leaves began to fall.  The first few days in which the leaves were falling from the trees in droves, it was also raining a lot, off and on.  Some might have found this unbecoming, but because of the rain, no one could rake.  So the piles of leaves that would ordinarily be swept swiftly up and carted away were left to cover not only the ground, but the sidewalks as well, such that my 5-minute walk to work from my parking spot each morning (which is down a side road in a pleasant little residential community) was like walking on sheets and sheets of the most brightly-colored flannel you've ever seen.  And when the leaves finally dried and were raked into piles along the sides of the sidewalks, that was beautiful, too. 

Now most of the trees are bare, except for a handful that are still covered with the hard, brown leaf variety, or a scattered few still populated with the deepest shades of red you can find.  The piles of leaves beside the sidewalks and roadways are all brown and brittle now -- but even those brittle browns carry a kind of beauty about them.

It never did actually smell like a Tennessee autumn.  It's hard to describe, and certainly I don't know the explanation.  But for much of the fall, really ever since my last blog entry, I've carried a kind of peace about me that has helped me to enjoy the scenery.  God is the one that granted me that peace.

Most of the last four or five weeks have actually been unseasonably warm (for Massachusetts), with temperatures hanging out regularly in the 60s.  I enjoyed it, though many people complained.  But this week, it definitely made a sharp transition, dropping more than twenty degrees in two days.  There's a big difference between a high of 60 and a high of 40, and today's high was only 33.  On Sunday morning, I was content to wear my light jacket over my normal clothes when I went outside and that was it, perfectly comfortable.  This morning I had on my heavy jacket, my long johns, my wool cap pulled down over my ears, gloves, and a scarf wrapped around my neck, nose and mouth, and I was still frigid.  Because you have to remember: 40 degrees in Boston is never just 40 degrees -- it's 40 degrees plus wind, always.  And this morning it was in the mid-20s.  From the look of the 5-day forecast, this colder weather appears to be here to stay.  It makes those Christmas songs on my iTunes playlist feel even more at home.

You can always find things to complain about, particularly when it comes to the weather -- too warm, too cold, too wet, too cloudy, too windy -- but I simply choose to enjoy whatever it is that I'm given.  And I'm learning that the same can apply to all of life.  I can wish that certain things would change, or wish that certain things would not change; but the real key is to appreciate life for what it is: a road by which many, many seasons are experienced, and taken together, they make us into who we are: something beautiful.

**

Now for the news.

The performance of "Like," which I directed for last week's SLAMBoston 10-Minute Play Festival, went well!  It was not perfect, but it was positive.  I always set my bar really high for what I want to accomplish, and so far in my career, I am not a great enough director to make that high bar a reality.  But I definitely learned from some things that I thought worked well, and from some aspects of my directing that I think came up short.

I'm very excited about the challenge and thrill of directing Shadowlands, which will begin rehearsals in a little under three weeks.  We had our second production meeting this past Sunday night, and things continue to fall into place in terms of the design of our performance space (in the round!! I can't wait), lighting, etc.  I'm privileged to work with a team of designers that love to design, are incredibly experienced at designing shows in that space, and are just as excited as I am by the thrill of doing something different.  My producer Mike (same as my Jack Lewis Mike) has given me some great mentoring on how to work with a creative team: Cast your vision early to express the essence of what you're after, and then let the creators do what they love with as little meddling as possible.  This makes for a happy team of people that will enjoy working with you now and look forward to the time that they'll get to work under you again.  Obviously it's the director's job to guard the vision and make sure that all the creators remain on the same page, but that is very different from trying to make every creative decision along the way.  This is a rather difficult thing for me to accept and learn, as I like to feel I'm in control; but it's also a wonderfully freeing thing to learn -- especially since it's all that technical stuff that I'm so unadept at anyway.  Let them do what they know and love best, and let me do what I know and love best: Work with the actors.

And so my primary task of late, regarding Shadowlands, has been to get the show cast.  We had two days of auditions a week and a half ago, and from them we were able to cast about half the show.  The other half I've been having to cast by sending out emails to people that we simply think might be good in the show.  There's a definite community of actors surrounding the theatre in Mansfield, which provides a natural pool from which to draw, and most of the actors in that pool I've gotten to see perform at some point over the past year, so that helps.  But it's a tedious/unfun task of contacting the right people (emphasis on the right people) and beckoning them to join without twisting anyone's arm, which generally means leaving a message and waiting (urgh, waiting) for a response.  Mike was very wise when he advised we hold our auditions a month prior to the start of rehearsals.  Fortunately, progress has been positive, and although we're still one or two people short of a full slate, I think we're assembling a good team of actors, who will not only be capable of performing this show, but will also be good to work with.

**

Fortunately, my creative outlet is not limited to sending solicitous messages and waiting for responses.  No, my main creative outlet at the moment is rehearsing It's A Wonderful Life full-time in Stoneham.

It's been a great experience so far, primarily just for the opportunity to observe how an Equity production is run -- or, at least, how this particular Equity production is run.  Rehearsals regularly last for hours at a time, and for most of those hours, all actors are asked to be present, even though only a few are needed at a time.  Which gives me lots of time for note-taking, and I have a small notebook that I write in just for that purpose.  I write down my observations and reactions. 

Though there are some things that he does that many of the actors complain about (like asking everybody to be there all the time, which I personally think is a mistake), and though there are some creative things that I disagree with or would do differently, in general I feel like he is a good director.  He's solid, sensible, in control, and generally gives good direction.  His vision is simple and relatively clear, without lots of scene changes or clunky "wagons" moving sets around; it's based around a single set with simple pieces of multiple use, and I like that a lot.

Only six of our twenty-one actors are actually Equity (George, Mary, Clarence, Potter, Violet, and Ma).  Among them, different actors have very different styles of finding and performing a character, but in general they work together well, and they're all quite talented.  Our George is a really good actor, but I can't help but imagine at times how I think Matthew would do it, and I usually like my imagined Matthew's performance better.  He actually resembles Matthew to a notable degree -- tall, skinny, dark-haired, with a kind of pleasant everyman face.  But he's most certainly in his 40s, and he's cleanly bald on the top of his head -- lots of dark brown hair all around the sides, but on top, nothing.  He's going to be getting a toupe for the show . . .

There are two actors (actresses) that I would say strike me as remarkable in their connectedness and reality and everything that I love about acting: our Mary Hatch and Ma Bailey.  The man playing our Mr. Gower and Mr. Potter (two very different characters) is remarkable, but in a different way: He's an impeccable character actor, with a tendency to create exaggerations & caricatures that he then pulls back and makes more real over time as he lives in those extremes.

Interestingly, I'm getting to tackle both styles of acting in this show, and I'm loving the challenge.  My Harry Bailey was fairly simple to find, very "close to the bone," like me in a lot of ways, realistic, and I get to perform him essentially in my natural style.  But Sam Wainwright is very different.  Our director was big on getting us to make large choices, especially for those of us playing multiple roles, to help us differentiate between one character and another.  We kept trying out different things with Sam, until just last night we found a cigar-chomping, big-office, straight-shooting type of character that we both really liked.  For some characters that are very different from who I naturally am, it's simply a matter of finding an emotional connection to them and inhabiting that; but for Sam Wainwright, it's much more a physical transformation than anything else, and I'm not used to working from the outside in like that, but I'm discovering that sometimes it's absolutely necessary (for example, when that's how the director is telling you to do it).  He wants me standing up straight (I tend to put all my weight on one side when I stand), chest up, speaking in the lower ranges of my voice, finding a short and clipped speech pattern, and abandoning the theatrically expressive way of talking that I naturally employ and instead keeping the vocal inflection relatively flat and even dropping the energy at ends of sentences (like we're told never to do). 

Sam only appears in one scene, talking on the phone with George and Mary (trying to get them to buy stock in his father's plastics factory, completely unaware that George and Mary are falling in love with each other on the other line and barely listening to him).  Tonight we worked that scene several times, and every time, I felt like I found him more and more.  It's quite fun.  While the director was working with George and Mary on their portion of the action, I simply walked around the stage in my new persona and improvised conversation with imagined people, my father, older brothers, fellow business guys, another high school friend that came to New York with me, etc.  I was also getting used to my new prop: a cigar.  This is the first time I've ever played a character with a cigar, and obviously I have no personal experience with one.  But I've seen movies.  I can remember how the big guys in the movies like to play with them, chewing on them and puffing on them, rotating them, drawing them out and admiring them, how they would hold them in their fingers.  I had fun playing with it.  The interesting thing is, when I was first handed it, I assumed it was fake; I immediately stuck it in my mouth and started playing with it.  I also immediately noticed that the brown paper on this prop had a very unique taste.  Turns out, the cigar wasn't fake: it's a real cigar!  I think maybe my chewing was a little premature, as by the end of the night, I was finding little bits of tobacco (? or was it bits of cigar paper? I don't know, little brown bits of something) in my mouth (which I always tried to spit or fish out in character), and by the end of the evening, I could feel the edges of my lips on the left side of my mouth, where the cigar tended to hang, tingling up a storm . . .

The other non-Equity actors are a mixed bag, some are talented enough that they could be Equity themselves; others seem like your typical community theatre stock.  But overall, the presence of the professionals and the professional environment lifts the general feeling of expectation to a place that is a little different from most of the other theatre environments I've worked in -- and it's a level of expectation that I can certainly appreciate.  It pushes everybody to be professional, and to be of high quality.

As far as the personalities of the other actors go, they couldn't be more friendly.  Equity and non-Equity alike, I really see no difference in this bunch; everyone is great to work with.  The one really positive thing about being called to every rehearsal is that the cast gets to know each other really fast.  The Equity actress playing Violet was actually born in Knoxville, and lived most of her life in North Carolina, so we found an instant connection at our first rehearsal (she spotted me because my first attempt at a voice for Sam had a distinctly southern quality to it . . . ) and have become good friends already, along with the only other person in the cast in our twenties (most are older, plus one teenager and five children), going out together for our dinner breaks and occasionally after rehearsal for a little bit as well.  But really, almost everyone has spent ample time together and appears to enjoy each other's company (for the most part).  It definitely helps our onstage vibe as a group.  And getting to know new people is one of the biggest joys of the theatre.

In short, I'm having a good time with it all, and I absolutely cannot complain.  God has been true to His promise to give me rest in the midst of all the busyness -- even when sleep is kind of scarce to come by. 

Peace to you.