Finding time for creativity and ART.

There is something to be said about working on projects that fill your heart with joy. When work doesn't feel like work...

I have found that there is joy in my heart and a spring in my step this summer. I find myself slowly getting back into the rhythm of my life and I am so glad to be feeling this feeling. I have missed it.

There are so many responsibilities of a theater director, as many of you who follow this blog will attest to...there is the prep, the hours and hours of research and concept development. All of this prior to auditions and first design/production meetings. There is the creation of rehearsal calendars, maneuvering your way through everyone's schedules and juggling and piecing it all together. There is the work during the rehearsal process, which requires creating movement for every member of the cast on a stage with a design in mind that is not there...making sure that everyone knows where they are going, what they are wearing, what they are carrying and what they are singing while they are dancing...Thank GOD for teams of professionals who take on these massive responsibilities and do it willingly and most times without compensation.
We do it all for the love of the craft.
We do it for the love and need for creative outlet and expression.
We do it for the camaraderie and community and family aspect we experience.
We do it for the thrill of theater and the need to create something both meaningful and entertaining, while stirring the thought process as well.

The hours.
The late nights.
The aching joints.
The tired vocal chords.
The drive and thrill when you get to put those costumes on for the first time or see that set design for the first time or feel the glow of the lights.
It makes it all worth it.


Over the past many many months I have been working on Sweet Charity, both in research and in meetings and in auditions and casting and creating rehearsal schedules, and sitting in silence and working through blocking. Watching in awe as the choreographers create beauty and crisp gesture and beauty through movement. Listening to a music director mold a sound that is a pure glorious wall. I love it all.

Many would look at this as torture. Or not worth it. Or too much. Or think about the missed vacation time. Or may not even know all of the back story getting a cast to opening night. They just sit down with their programs and read the director's notes or the actor's bios and when the lights go down in the theatre, prepare themselves to be moved, to be entertained, or even perhaps forced into looking at something in a different light they may have never expected. I love that!

Over the past few weeks, I have been a little jarred by the feelings I am experiencing.
Sheer happiness.
Struggle and stress, but it doesn't feel like struggle and stress this time around?
It is happiness and energy.
It is feeling a crew of folks all on board a creative train started with ideas I had months ago.
Willing to take the risk with me.
Willing to take the journey with me.
Willing to share the story with others and all for the love of their craft.
I am thankful for this journey and know in my heart, I will need to figure out the juggle for this creative outlet to continue along with another part of my career I enjoy just as much as the months and years progress.

In the end, friends, we all will not have jobs we absolutely, 100% love love LOVE with all our hearts. And that is okay. You have to pay the bills.
But you also have to find the aspects of your life that bring you bliss.
Keep yourself open to those moments and realize when it happens that this is what you have to feed your soul with just as much as the day-to-day bill pays.

Carrying on my fellow travelers, with a new spring in your step.
If you are missing this, why not take today to be the turning point in making that change?