Theater is the closest thing I have to a religious practice at the moment. I’ve done various production work as a hobby and as a favor to a playwriting/producing friend of mine for the past 10 or 11 years. I started out with dance productions, since I had a strong affinity for dance performance and then when my friend moved to town to get her MFA, I started helping with her plays. It took me a long time to learn how to appreciate live, “local” theater (black box, community, etc.), because I would often get hung up on any technical error that happened during the show and stew on that for the rest of the evening. In other words, I was never really a theater person.
At some point a couple of years ago that changed for me with one original production I was involved with. I was overwhelmed during tech week when I saw weeks of rehearsal in a drab space absolutely spring to to life with the addition of really wonderful lighting, sound and set design (plus good acting and a great, nonlinear, magical realism-based script). Since then, I’ve hooked up with some really wonderful, seasoned theater people and found a home among many in the burgeoning theater scene in my area. I’ve finally acted. I’ve finally directed. And what I have now is a practice that gives me something to be devoted to, something that forces teaches me to live in the present moment, and something that puts me in the center of a human energy exchange. Six weeks of rehearsals and two weeks of shows is better than TV or therapy or most anything else I can think of.
That being said, I’m still seeking my balance relative to audience size. It’s disappointing to put out all that effort for a house of 25 people or less. 75 is a good number. I’ve played for any more than that, but I would guess that 300 is my limit. Maybe even less.
I’m also less interested in many of the bigger shows, musicals, etc. My politics and aesthetics can be pretty specific, and I want my theater to offer ideas and metanarrative that you probably won’t find in big shows or on television or in movies. Because there’s less money involved, there’s more opportunity to offer something less conventional to think about or consider or celebrate. So that’s valuable to me as well.