I’m sitting here in my office on Friday night, after Josh’s farewell party, feeling the crazy range of emotions that would normally occur with any changing of the guard. Sadness for seeing a dear colleague, friend and boss leave the theatre, yet joy in the thought of his future looking bright. I wrestle these feelings furiously as I prepare to leave for vacation. Josh just said goodbye to me with a hug and a smile, and I begin to acknowledge that Josh will no longer be in the office next to me when I return. I won’t hear the audible reactions to email, whether with a hearty laugh or a piercing expletive. I won’t get asked the question, “What’s the status of….” or “Do you have a moment to …”. I won’t get to hear his response to any particular problem begin with “Here’s what I would say.” I bite my lip at the thought, and try to imagine what is to come.

I kept silent today during the farewell party, thinking of what I should say to someone I admire so much that didn’t sound repetitive or cliche, wearing my smile like a mask of complexity. I did have some thoughts but I didn’t really think they would do justice to Josh’s contributions to the theatre. The asset we lost with his departure is enormous, and the contributions he’s given us will go on for many years to come. But I didn’t say this. I didn’t think I needed to. It’s clear to everyone who attended today that we were saying best of luck to someone special.

I’ve seen many colleagues come and go at the theatre, and I don’t think any of them have quite inspired me the way Josh has. He has given great advice, put out fires, kept me sane, kept me focused, and strenghtened us all with insight and wisdom that comes from common sense and clear thinking. He’s stood by me through every decision I’ve made; he’s supported the good ones, and helped me rethink the bad ones. He’s made me feel better about my work when I didn’t. The selfish part of me is losing a inspiration, a rock, a fellow soldier in the battle to make the theatre as content as possible, and a great boss.

A wise man once said to me “everyone loves progress, as long as there is no change.” There will be a whole new set of challenges, a new world of change and many exciting prospects that will come in the new year, and they will need to be met with both hands open and head held high. Nothing is set in stone, and the way we look at new possibilities is a reflection of our ability to adapt and grow. And that’s what it should be about. Looking forward with hope, looking back with fondness.

It was Josh who spoke those wise words to me.

Josh: I’m forever indebted to you for all you’ve taught me. I sincerely thank you for being a great boss and a good friend. Best of luck,

~Matt*

Did you see the recent Times Style magazine? It was the one with Natalie Portman on the cover. I was particularly struck by Editor Stefano Tonchi’s note concerning the introduction of the magazine on the web. He professes his love for the feel of magazines, the weight of the paper, the feeling of flipping the pages, but knows that the electronic version of his magazine can reach so many more people. He states that much of what we see on the web is visually unpleasant, busy and clunky. So true. In an effort to make the “virtual experience as sensual as the written one,” he has focused on the things that the paper version can never supply: sound and movement.—————————————— The theatre has just hired an email content management company to handle all our email blasts. Yet this requires the acquisition of email addresses from our patrons. I don’t know about you, but I am very selective about giving out my email address. But one cannot fight this technology; it is here to stay, to evolve, to be one with our lives. Someday historians will look back on this period of web infancy and muse about our attempts to create, become comfortable, understand and navigate around our fairly new virtual world.

12/17/07

Last night I played a game of football - water polo-style with the New York Giants. Their coach wore a yellow slicker and hat and called plays from a World War I airplane (the kind with the enormous propellors). The plane turned into a ship when the water rose too quickly in the third quarter. I think this could mean that I’m overwhelmed. Dream Moods (http://www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary/) says: Water is the living essence of the psyche and the flow of life energy. It is also symbolic of spirituality, knowledge, healing and refreshment. To see a raging flood with its muddy debris, signifies that you will have much unsettling occurrences and tribulations in life. Your repressed emotions may be overwhelming you. If someone could fill in the meaning of the New York Giants, I might sleep better. I was losing the game and the crashing of waves kept waking me in a panic, but not stirring me enough to tell my body to move to the sofa or get the dog to calm me.

 12/18/07

I’ve been spinning in the anxiety of a water-polo-football-airplane/ship-hurricane/flood-holiday-winter-wonderland dream for two days now. Is it needing to close on sponsors for Shipwrecked? Is it holiday preparations that do not interest me in the least, yet need to be addressed. Is it the mortgage, utilities and medical bills, the check engine light that has been on since August, and the paycheck that can’t support any of it? Is it the avoidance my my mother’s request for advice on how to mask the empty places at the holiday table - there used to be so many chairs and the cane sags where they sat for so long - but they’re not coming back now. Or is it needing to find a way to catch up on a decade of no sleep - or rather a decade of actually being asleep but getting no rest? Is it this new language I need to learn or the 23 X 30 foot trench I need to dig, but can’t because it has frozen over? That plane from the dream kept crashing into the places I wanted to stand and the water eventually froze so that I could walk over it - with trepidation.

12/19/07

There’s play and competition, then overwhelm and the spinning, there’s trying to find a place to stand where it’s safe - but it’s always too cold. The referee jumped plane - then ship - and stopped keeping order. He changed the rules of the game - the tradition of it - and here I am at 2:00 am, baking a new version of what was once my ex-husband’s favorite dessert. I realize that in the last year I’ve had to find a new way to do everything - a new twist to tackle it alone and make it truly mine, a new strategy and the strength to ask for help, a new method to build a healthy community around me.

We (at LWT) have been so focused on a new vision - a new strategy revolving around community - perhaps the overwhelm, the team, the game, the coach , and the pilot/captain of that plane/ship have been sitting at the back of my thoughts laughing as I try to articulate their strategy. Are we ready internally for the crashing of waves? Intellectually, it is natural to embrace this new vision, but what will our bodies and our psyches do when we hit a spin and the referee becomes a deserter? Do we know what it will take to make it real - and then comes the overwhelm. 

Building a new tradition - especially when so many existing and powerful ones are in place - takes every bit of emotional, intellectual, and physical strength you have. It takes the attention of a new lover, the compassion of a dear friend, and the patience of a spider to remain still when things are crashing and spinning and filling with water around you. It takes careful analysis of what hasn’t worked, what has gone terribly wrong and why, and even an analysis of what you’ve managed to choose that happened to be the right direction. It takes a mercury sence of humor that rises and falls with the heat of something new and the chill of the unknown or unforeseen challenge. It takes food - home grown and cooked in your own kitchen so that it is enjoyed and appreciated to the fullest when shared with others.

Are we ready for this? I mean truthfully prepared, each and every one of us? Does it matter? Regardless of whether we’re ready, the game is in play, the storm is here, and it’s cold outside. I can only speak for myself to this new vision of LWT and these new traditions I am now crafting. I will play fiercely, I will fight, I will still feel the overwhelm and learn to walk immediately after spinning. I will bake this new version of the dessert that was my ex-husband’s favorite - and he will not get to enjoy it, but I’m sure it will show up in Development one of these days. In the dream, the plane/ship never stopped moving forward, no one (not even the New York Giants) succumbed to the water or the cold, now we just need to find the safe place to stand.

Anna Deavere Smith’s process is rigorous. She believes in discipline of the body and mind and spirit. As I was writing an essay about her this weekend, I was particularly aware of the powers of procrastination… (I launched myself in a SCARF-reorganization project to postpone writing…among other things. And I have a lot of scarves.)  In her Letters to a Young Artist, she says: “I am in awe of the power of procrastination. I am so in awe of it that if I have something I have to do, I try to program myself to do it so quickly that procrastination cannot possibly set in. At one point I was afraid of not fulfilling my commitment to swim every day that I slept in my bathing suit! I would sleep in my suit, through on a swim parka at five a.m., and, without thinking about it, head to my car and off to the pool.” And that was at 5 a.m.! Every morning … Hem.

I was sitting in a Board meeting the other day, and we were hashing out some important issues, when our “working dad” spoke about the idea of filling 100% of our houses every performance as a goal. What a genius! No, seriously, that comment struck me as a particularly profound and inspiring idea. We are so used in our industry to playing below capacity, especially when we come to budgeting, and we have to realistic, so we project for houses that are indeed way below capacity. And in the process, we translate our current reality to be an unchangeable fact. So, it follows, that at some point we forget that consistently full houses were the goal from day one.

Its both interesting and useful for me, to take it back to the most simple and obvious of notions, because they are the ones we tend most easily to forget, or at least to take for granted, at which point we have effectively forgotten. So the question is perhaps not, how do we earn enough income from a show to remain viable as a theatre, but instead, how do we fill each and every one of our houses, while making sure we make enough money to stay alive. I see this as a subtle but important distinction, and perhaps one that will help us stay important and sustainable as an art form. But what do I know? These are just some thoughts. I’d love to hear what people think. Here’s a picture of the La Scala opera house to perhaps motivate some inspiration.

Today I read an article in the CT Post about “The Santaland Diaries.” Thomas Sadoski, who plays “Crumpet” was talking about having “eureka!” moments: where the solution to a particular stage problem will suddenly pop into his head…often months later. It is the same feeling I’m sure we’ve all had when reacting to certain situations. It is always easier to figure out the most appropriate reaction in hindsight. Designing is often like that as well. Sometimes you see things in the final printed piece that you never would have noticed while in the design process. There are times I have looked at my work and thought “what possessed me to do THAT?” Other times I have worked on a design to the point where I cannot imagine why I was initially excited about it. Often I will pull out these pieces years later and realize that they actually were good, and that they succeeded in doing what they were supposed to do. Time and distance often helps.