theater – BethSings

Having your Cake and Eating it Too

Nine weeks seems like a long time in May. It’s not.

Once, when little ones were under foot and summer days were filled with ‘what are we doing today, Mommy?”, days were adventures. Without our even recognizing it, days and weeks change. This summer’s delight has been spending time – quality time with family and friends.

Anthony DeMello

I’ve long said that social media is often twisted, taken way too seriously and could very well be the downfall of real conversation. Sometimes it’s the best we can do but I wouldn’t consider it ‘quality time’ although I do miss exchanging the occasional bon mot with a few people.

To keep focused on the present, I purposefully didn’t take my camera on three trips so that I could remember each adventure in my mind’s eye. I did take a few snapshots on my phone…. Boston 4th Only once did I wish I had my Nikon.

Last week I took it on a day trip then when editing those photos

Longwood roof compressed 2

I noticed that the last shots I took were on my birthday last November, nearly eight months ago. Good grief! Longwood long view compressed

It may sound odd but that camera had been a friend just as others have been, when I didn’t feel I had a voice. I discovered in these years the importance of listening over talking or singing, patience in letting go. Picking up that camera last week was similar to the visits I’ve enjoyed with friends and family this summer. Talks over delicious meals, coming home to a comfortable place where the conversation was just as we left it. Here’s to welcome change, new adventures and much more…..

Tea and Scone

Much More

A Happy Resting Place

I don’t claim that I am psychic
But one look at you and I kick
Away every scruple
I learnt as a pupil
In school my dear

I’m not one to make predictions
But I’ve thrown off all restrictions,
And I don’t mind confessing
I think it’s a blessing
That you are here

Though I’m prepared to find I’m wrong
I’ve got a funny feeling we belong together

Home from rehearsal —pumped! Sleep eludes…..so I write….

For the last two months I’ve been working as music director with the Young Actors Program for the local community theater for the musical comedy, The Boyfriend. This is my fourth year to work with the company. It’s been a pleasure being a part of these young artists’ lives, seeing them grow in every way.

Brooke Bell as The Widow looks with disgust at Thomas Prochaska (Hortensio)-001

Mitchel Boyle (Lucentio) gazes at Kaitlin Perry (Bianca)

Since the weekend we have been in technical rehearsals, an exhilarating, exhausting week (some call hell) prior to the show’s opening night this Thursday. During tech all of the whistles and bells are added to the production: costumes, lights, sound, set, scenery, props, orchestra. These actors, musicians and designers have developed life-long skills – they’ve learned balance simply by the choices they make with hours spent in rehearsal and finishing homework. Many of them are honor students.

Tech Week can be a challenge for adults and professionals. It requires patience while technical problems are resolved or set changes are rehearsed so that what the audience sees is seamless.

On the drives home recently my thoughts have been on these young actors and on my own theater mentors: Chris Ringham, long-time director at Monroe’s Strauss Playhouse. Dr. Bill Rambin, Head of the Theater Department at Northeast Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana at Monroe) Both encouraged and shaped my love of theater—inspired me to be and do better, to make adventurous choices. I learned from both Chris and Bill that there are no rights or wrongs on the stage – only choice. The theater is, at it’s best, an understanding community where choices are welcome. On the stage we are a reflection of the world -both best and worst.

Chris Ringham formed my understanding of community theater. Anyone who knew Chris still hears his raspy voice barking directions from the back of the dark Strauss theater. Chris believed in the power of people but more importantly the power that art had within community. He was organized, funny, salty, innovative, a quick mind. He had vision, expected excellence. The art and the audience were foremost in his mind.

It dawned on me last week that it’s been forty years since Chris cast me in my first musical. I was a junior in high school. He guided me through auditions at his theater then beyond.

Chris Ringham

Fantasticks

One of those Chris–suggestions came when NLU announced Tony-award winner Ron Holgate would be joining a student production of The Fantasticks as El Gallo . I remember Chris sitting in the Strauss Playhouse box office, his asking to see me, if I planned on auditioning. He strongly suggested it so I did. It was during The Fantasticks I met Dr. Bill Rambin who directed the show, his wife Linda, choreographed; Andy Isca was music director. The Fantasticks will always be the one.

Bill Rambin was the perfect director…fun, smart, charming. He inspired…and still does. He probably knew how scared I was. He always said the right thing at the right time and still does. He taught me the importance of time management, to be professional. How to say thank you. He was never afraid so we couldn’t be. Bill Rambin is fantastic!

During break at rehearsal last week I was playing on one of those phone ‘throwback’ apps and found some pictures from productions over the last few years. Those photos caused my thoughts to drift to Chris and Bill. Their legacy. My legacy. The support we give to each other when we least suspect it. How grateful I am to have the support from these two artists and the communities they served. They shaped me and so did the communities.

I could be happy with you
If you could be happy with me
I’d be contented to live anywhere
What would I care
As long as you were there?
Skies may not always be blue
But one thing is clear as can be
I know that I could be happy with you, my darling
If you could be happy with me.

Singing this song from The Boyfriend everyday for the last eight weeks….interestingly enough I’ve rediscovered contentment not just from my children, family, friends but a simple contentment that’s from and in me. Instead of perpetually striving and living unsatisfied, I could be happy. Chris and Bill described, maybe not in so many words, that contentment in the building up of community….finding the gift in yourself….then sharing it with others….

It’s something to hang your hat on.. a happy resting place.

Take Flight

Discovering a healthy balance of solitude and community in a world that’s sometimes filled with distractions. I never thought I’d write those words let alone think them.

I wrote those words two weeks ago, preparing to write after nearly a month’s hiatus from the blog. Partly seeking that healthy balance, I suppose, the other part living. Keeping the quiet actually quiet….and not filled with another activity. Photography and writing are not activities.

In the last two weeks I picked up my camera and found that rhythm in the shutter. With the help of a valued and experienced teacher new light was shed on where to look. Finding light. Vision.

Very early this morning I explored….with one word burned in my mind…community. Like all of us I wear many hats: daughter, sister, friend, mother, musician, director. I’ve spent my life building community. Short-term. Long-term.

Maybe it’s the goings-on in the world this weekend in Paris, how the world has been joined together but this question, “what is community” has been on my mind. The thought “who is my neighbor” isn’t a new one to me. Geography has nothing to do with it.

Performing artists create community very quickly. Granted, like lots of families some function better than others. We do our best showing support, each in their own way. Friendships. Families. Workplace. Building communities of encouragement, loyalty with honesty, integrity, love and the freedom to express—individually and corporately. It’s when those freedoms are absent we feel stifled, less creative, less ourselves. As individuals. The community suffers.

So back to that early morning adventure. Some people have a skewed definition of community. . . my way or the highway. No freedom. It was with that thought that I drove to a local lake before 6am this morning.

For photos. For perspective. For peace.

I found COMMUNITY defined as “with UNITY.” It struck me that the community is stronger when each individual is stronger and more centered, joining with unity.

So on this day, hug your friends and family where ever they may be. Smile at your neighbors who ever they are. Create good will in yourself and in others.

Celebrate diversity….the spark found in yourself and in others.

Join together.

Then take flight.

Plenty Left

A family joke… When my typically loquacious grandfather hit his 54th birthday he became quiet and reflective. It was the age his father had died. Papa waited a year for something to happen. A heart attack. Bad news from the doctor. None came. At 55 he moved on. This all happened several years before I was born but I remembered the story. The waiting and the moving on. It must be something about the age 55.

The quiet drive back to Baton Rouge after helping my daughter move a few weeks ago cleared my head. I’ve always been of the opinion that music and the arts have value, what we do matters, what I do matters. It’s the life I would lead even if I weren’t paid for it. Thankfully, I have been able to make a living while supporting my family.

A full, fun life! This month alone…. Working on a production of The Taming of the Shrew. Working as a substitute liturgy coordinator while a colleague was recuperating from surgery. Working teaching, directing. Work.

On the drive back from Austin I reflected not just about the rigor of work but the opus – the body. The people and the beauty of creation. Loving and honest family and friends. Blessings all. So much to be grateful for! Not that there hasn’t been struggle. Those struggles help us appreciate the good times and know who the real people are. They help us find the stuff we’re made of….Yvonne Nash called it “character building”.

One year ago, driving from the theater, I was hit from behind by a car going at a high rate of speed. I had never been in a serious car accident before. It totaled my car. A few feet more, personal injury would have been much more serious than a concussion and back pain. The what if haunted me longer than I cared to admit….I avoided talking about the accident.

Then I remembered my grandfather’s story…..and that I was his granddaughter.

What’s the take away……

The first half of life is about building a strong container; the second half is about discovering the contents the container was meant to hold. Yet far too often, solidifying one’s personal container becomes a substitute for finding the contents themselves! Richard Rohr

My grandfather lived 94 years discovering both the container and contents. He, along with my parents and grandparents, taught me to build a fine container. There’s PLENTY left to fill.

Cheers!

Just Singing

Teaching, like all professions has it’s challenges.

While friends were planning last minute trips to the beach three weeks ago we began the journey into this new school year; my thirty-third. What joy, unwrapping the gift of music (and now theater) with young people. A year of new possibilities.

But teaching, like life has had it’s ups and downs.

Sunday night blues. Monday Morning mayhem. TGIFs. Days. Weeks. Months. Years of inquisitive faces. A blessed life.

A poem by Mary Oliver reminded me of those bittersweet early teaching days and the not-so-distant-crazy-hormonal-menopausal early 50’s. They had a lot in common.

With the support of trusted friends and colleagues “I took my old body and went into the morning….and SANG.”

Here’s to continuing to find that still place..not looking back or forward….just singing.

Creative Waiting

For years there have been two books kept consistently on my bedside. One is my journal. The other is a copy of Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth”. Bedtime. Rising. His words challenge and encourage.

Yesterday I finished a journal that I began in May 2011. The first entry was written in an airport on the way to Prague. I had no idea when I started that journey and journal the adventures that were in store.

Travel. Home. Joys. Challenges.

“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.” Joseph Campbell

Thumbing through this journal was enlightening. A Rosetta Stone.

That first journal entry on May 19, 2011 was from the Dublin airport. My plane had been rerouted from Helsinki on the way to Prague. I wrote: “Not exactly where I thought ‘d be. Then again, life has a way of surprising us if we’re open on the adventure. Delays turn into journeys. Sleepless nights turn into card games (I played cards all night with the people from Texas who sat next to me on the plane). So I stay in the moment. Open. Eyes open. Looking at the vision surrounding me. Bringing the past into the future. “And so I ceased, I carred my father. I sought my way to the mountains.” Homer?

That last line is from some place in The Odyssey. I remember having more than a slight buzz from no sleep, being in Ireland and knowing I was going to see my daughter for the first time nine months. The Homer was about letting go and moving forward simultaneously. That tug-of-war has been a theme these four years. Maybe longer.

This weekend was filled to the brim with activity…. My mother and my friend Leslie might call it “burning the candle at both ends”. The “candle” is a little weary by the end of April and ready for the soft flicker of summer.

Driving home tonight after supper with a friend it struck me that the bliss Joseph Campbell is talking about is really just peace in knowing yourself. Lessons learned. Talk less, listen more. Waiting. Creative waiting is following your bliss.

An Elephant’s Eye

One day I will find the right words and they will be simple.

Jack Kerouac~The Dharma Burns

Almost midnight. I’ve just returned from the theater. A preview for the musical Oklahoma that’s opening tomorrow night. Between performances of Madama Butterfly and music directing this show there have been a lot of late nights this month. Tonight the right words came to me watching this cast capture the simplicity of these characters.

Life is pretty simple. We complicate it. We create drama. Sometimes operatic….hiding behind masks.

Don’t get me wrong…music, opera, theater is glorious. But at the end of the very long day drama belongs on the stage. There’s plenty enough pathos and comedy in our lives without creating more.

Growing up Oklahoma would come on television every Thanksgiving evening. It was part of our family tradition to watch it. “Family picnic” in the living room my mother would call it. A happy memory. Watching the video monitor at tonight’s final dress rehearsal I looked down to find a text from my brother just about the time my favorite childhood scene was happening. Newlywed Laurey discusses the problems facing her with Aunt Eller. Upset, she says: “I don’t see why this had to happen when everything was so fine.” Aunt Eller’s response: “That’s alright, Laurey baby. You can’t forget, just don’t try to. Oh, lots of things happen to folks. Sickness or being poor and hungry, being old and a feared to die. That’s the way it is, cradle to grave, and you can stand it. There’s just one way: you gotta be hardy. You gotta be. You can’t deserve the sweet and tender in life unless’n you’re tough.”

Laurey’s wish is to be like Aunt Eller. When I was younger my dreams were of Laurey. The trappings. The things that fade. What did I know about hardships. Now I think Laurey had it right. Aunt Eller is a pretty wise bird.

Sure, it’s fun to play…but at the end of the long day. Or the long month it’s going to be just as nice to discover the simplicity in a nice shot with my camera again.

That message I got from brother Foley…..

Strike

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

C.S. Lewis

Character building. Strike.

The last month was lovely, spending time with family, friends…in person or via technology.Work had been rewarding and productive. Life was content and settled. There had been moments for gratitude.

The production of As You Like It went well—those young actors worked hard and were some of the most professional and dedicated people I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Strike. After the final performance everyone takes part in tearing down the set, a community they’ve built together for weeks. It’s called strike. . . so we can load-in the next play. Life in the theatre is always moving forward.

Strike.

Opening Night, driving home from the theatre….early evening….it is abridged Shakespeare after all…I was in the first significant auto accident of my life. Rear-ended by another car who was driving at a high rate of speed. Rattled. Shaken. Strike.

So very grateful…that although there were minor injuries, people walked away….grateful for the love and support of family and friends far and near. After following doctors orders to rest, it was good to be back teaching the latter part of this week…to sing….. It’s easy to take people and a mundane thing like going to work for granted.

Strike.

Kindness of strangers: the “witnesses” who stayed with me. James, the salesman at the car dealership. The reality of everything set in while in his office. He reminded me how lucky I was. He and my son had me laughing…..I like to laugh. I chucked about transforming experiences from the past. No situation in life….good, bad or indifferent is permanent. Take-away….find a solution and strike. Move forward…..

I like that egg in the C. S. Lewis story.

Strike.

An ordinary egg . . .making a choice…to either hatch or go bad….

Me….I’m choosing to hatch….

Strike! Move on……with gratitude…..

Coq au Vin with Julia and others

Sundays. I have always loved the rhythm of Sundays. Quiet peace. They were special growing up. I tried to make them that way for my children.

My mother cooked Sunday dinner or in summer we’d visit my grandparents. Nurturing through food. It’s part of why I like to cook. Cooking is not a chore but a creative art. The smells remind me of home. Monroe and my children. Happy memories. I process when I cook. Yes the past is a part of that but planning for the future. Relaxation especially on a rainy day like today. There was always music playing in mother’s kitchen….I follow suit.

I started cooking for myself a few years back once the kids left and enjoyed it. . . but I stopped. It seemed indulgent. It didn’t occur to me that I could still do that for myself until a few weeks ago visiting my daughter in Boston. . . so last Sunday and today….I pulled out cookbooks, music and cooked. Foods I enjoy preparing, will last the week. Rediscovering this joy has centered my life….just like photography has. And certainly saved money and calories….

Thanks Julia Child for this advice. In life and the kitchen. The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you’ve got to have a what-the-hell attitude.

Today’s endeavor: Coq au vin. One of the first fancy dishes I ever prepared. I remember cooking it from my mother’s Julia Child cookbook. This one is from a special cookbook sent by my best friend since kindergarten. As I cook I thought about life’s relationships. Then I thought how friendships are built through theater….some are temporary, just for the run of the show…or a few shows…. some are for the long haul. Just like the ingredients in the coq au vin, these relationships are all crucial to the outcome of the dish. I’m that coq au vin….. . . how lucky and grateful I am to have so many and varied ingredients in my life… near and far…

Cooking is all about patience, creativity and staying positive! Thank heaven I’ve had that in my life….and that life still tastes really good at this age!