The spirit stirs; whose is the hand that guides her?

Today is March 1st. Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway 31 years ago today. I told this to my voice and speech class, and four of us immediately burst into "The Worst Pies in London", and proceeded to belt out the entire song. Our teacher walked in at the end with wonderful timing.

It is also Self-Injury Awareness Day. I'll spare you my long sob story, but what I will say is that SI is an issue that has far deeper reaches in my generation than most people have any idea. I am a recovering self-mutilator. I haven't done it in years, but it's still a battle, and even when I did it I seemed to most people like a bright, promising student who had a decent handle on her emotional life. I have heard there is an "unusually" high percentage of "gifted" students to self-injure--I think there's nothing unusual about that. To be honest, there is much about that experience that has helped me, but only because I was able to pull myself out of it. There are many who are not that fortunate.

Today was one of those days were I looked at what we were doing and found a great joy in the absurdity of it all. Voice and Speech was spent learning the technical skills of yelling, screaming, laughing, and crying--since all of those are "extreme" uses of the voice and actors need to be able to do that eight times a week and not lose their voices. Our teacher will let out the most bloodcurdling scream and then calmly say, "So it's just about keeping the throat open." Then in rehearsal, a communist shrimp, a water nixie, and a Grecian elf made two folding chairs fall in love. (Lindsay pointed out that I'm very predictable. Of course I bring folding chairs into a rehearsal.) Last week, I listened to a conversation between a unicorn and a piece of toast. This is what we get to do, and it's extremely valid.

Yesterday, I went to the Strand and got two books; a collection of Rumi poems and The Way of Perfection by St. Teresa of Avila. I walked into the Tisch Common Room and saw a collab group meeting. Immediately, they asked me if you had to be dead to be a saint. (The two in that group who didn't know me as well seemed surprised at how instant my response was.)

Most of my time is being spent in rehearsal, in class, in meetings, or praying/reading/meditating. Here are some claims I would like to make, based on the discussions that have arisen around The Hidden Sky, discussions that have arisen from Re-Inventions of Love, a meeting with one of my teachers where I discovered that I am not Buddhist, falling in love, and the experience of playing a legit gig in the East Village.

There is no love without suffering. Therefore, trying to find love without suffering is foolish.

The Christian model calls us to plunge ourselves into that suffering as an act of love. This is the part I am most unsure of, but I think there is a huge power in embracing suffering. I think it goes along with the idea that suffering is not bad, but part of something that is good. I do think it is healthier to embrace suffering than to fight it. I also think there's a difference between embracing suffering and surrendering to it. Love even the suffering?

No matter what, all things will end. Therefore, being afraid of their ending is foolish.

There is no need to fear or shy away from that which we already know will happen. We let those fears kill our celebration.

Complete freedom is not feeling no suffering. It is the ability to breathe that suffering in and out.

There are too many "coincidences" in my life for me NOT to believe in some kind of God.

Now I must work. If I get all that work done tonight, I'm going to the Cloisters before class tomorrow.

As a million lives come and go on this same piece of ground

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...

--Ecclesiastes

These are dangerous words.

I've mentioned it before, but I am obsessed with purpose. Based on past events in my life, I know that it's really not a good idea for me to have no sense of purpose. Really, reeeeeeally not. I have stayed far away from Ecclesiastes for a long time because it's a dangerous book for me to read. Yet, now, there are three books of the Bible printed out and on my walls--the Song of Songs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. (My inner romantic, my inner masochist, and my inner cynic?)

I haven't struggled with my purpose for a while now. It is very clear to me that I have been vigorously called. The specifics of that calling are being revealed to me constantly, almost overwhelmingly so. I am getting a lot of information rapidly, from varying sources--and that's the crazy thing. When something from a sermon echoes with something from Design class which echoes with something from rehearsal which echoes with something from Re-Inventions of Love which echoes with something from The Hidden Sky. Yes, I'm good at drawing connections between unrelated things, but many of these connections are so obvious it's difficult to take them as anything but a sign. I'm trying really hard not too seek out signs, because then I'd find them in absolutely everything. In a push-pin. But they're glaringly obvious. I have a vague idea of how they might come together, but very vague. It's something to do with love, suffering, voice, sound, sensuality, the body, asceticism, mysticism, monasticism, contradiction, trance, the miraculous, God within everyone and everything, image, synaesthesia, theater, bridging gaps. I think part of this means working to bring together theater and the church in productions both in content and production teams, and sharing skills between the two groups. That part I'm decently clear on. But there's also a lot about my relationship with God, my relationship to others, my daily ritual and how I am to approach the world that is hugely unclear, and I am simply trying to follow where I am being led. (After getting context on Rumi in class on Thursday, my brain exploded, and I yelled to God, "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME?! WILL YOU JUST GIVE ME A SIGN?!" ...and then I realized that the problem is that there are so many signs. Next time I'll ask for a burning trash can or something to talk to me and lay it out clearly.)

One of the things that IS particularly clear, though, is that I'm called to the theatrical, and I think that's why Ecclesiastes is becoming particularly important to me.

When you work in the theater, you don't work on a continuous path. It's not like working in a restaurant where every day is the same routine for 10 years. In the corporate world, there are projects, yes, but not like in theater. In the theater, you are employed for a time, during which you work to create an entire world... and then once the show is over, that particular world and experience is gone, never to return, and you're unemployed. The peaks and valleys of working in the theater are extreme, and since theater is generally so product oriented, it's very easy to put all your stake about how that product turns out. Like, if the show fails, the whole thing wasn't worth it. I think the additional danger for those of us who feel called to theater is that everything that is not a transcendent theatrical experience where we reach out towards God, we might view as "invalid".

Ecclesiastes reminds me that, ultimately, everything I do on Earth will be forgotten. Someday, the productions we spent all of our time and energy on for months will be nothing. Someday, even Shakespeare will be forgotten. All will return to dust. The towers that we build will crumble. Which means that the true meaning of life does not lie in product or accomplishment. That, once again, my calling is not to "make great art", but to DO something THROUGH that art.

I have recently started doing something, particularly this school year, that I used to never do, that I used to find terribly uncomfortable.

It's called "smiling at people".

I know, I know--I used to think it was overrated, too. Moreover, I've had this idea in my head for ages that I'm "not good with people" and therefore when I saw people who charmed the pants off of everyone I figured they just had a kind of charisma I could never have.

Then I started wearing a bowler hat, and people found me significantly more intriguing and would generally be friendlier to me, which made me less shy, so I started making connections with people that way.

But actually, it's as simple as smiling.

I swear.

Asking people how they're doing helps, too.

There are people I see almost every day. Security guards, NYU bus drivers, the breakfast cart guy on Astor, and the fact is, they're all people. They're people, I'm a person, and yet we tend to treat each other like machines. (Except for the breakfast cart guy, who treats everyone with love and humanity. I was away for a whole summer, and I came back and he was like, "HEY! Is that a new tattoo?!") It's silly, it's embarrassing, even, to be in constant denial of the humanity of those around you. On the street, sure, we're all going places, we're not going to stop and engage everyone, but at the grocery store? At Starbucks? These little exchanges we have are person to person, and if you treat them as such and just SMILE AT PEOPLE, a lot can happen. I have never had an exchange longer than "Thank you!" "Watch your step!" with the bus drivers, but when I get on the bus I have a brief moment of connection with another person, and that's good enough.

When I came back into my building tonight, there were two people swiping into the building before me, so I waited. The security guard was standing there scowling slightly, watching them swipe their IDs. I walked in, he glanced at me and his face immediately lit up, and he said, "Hey! How are you?!" and we chatted idly for the minute or so before I headed upstairs. I generally have pleasant exchanges with this particular security guard, but I've never seen that contrast before, between the people who didn't acknowledge him as a human, and then myself, who did.

And now I can't even say it's the hat. I gave up my bowler hat for Lent. So it's not the hat. I am still recognizable and loved, and I think it's because I smile.

When I came to NYU, Emily gave me a picture book she made for me called something to the effect of, "How to Meet New People". Partially as a joke, partially because I have historically been just that socially hopeless. And one of the things was "Smile at people!" (I think with something that said, "It makes you seem less scary.") And I scoffed, but now I bow to Emily's expertise.

I am struck by this particular passage in Ecclesiastes:

"If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?"

In a Book that claims that all is vanity, it seems that the connections between people are not vanity. That what is NOT meaningless are these moments of human connection.

It is difficult, as an artist, to come to terms with the fact that your work will not last. People joke about writing the "Great American Novel", but underneath the laughter is the very real, and very common desire to create something that will outlast the ages, something that will continue to speak the truth to the world without end. But I think we all know that it won't happen. No matter how many awards you win, in 2000 years, who will know?

What IS meaningful are those connections with other human lives, that affect all of us here and now and in our lives and world. Those are what are remembered where memory matters. They can be created through art, or they can be created through smiles--and those moments that I share with the security guards each day are as important as crafting a theatrical piece.

Don't you see how I need you?

I mentioned before that I wrote a paper proposing a theater piece about the Song of Songs and Job. It's about what it is to be plunged chest-first into all-consuming, divine love, with the claim that Song of Songs and Job are the two extremes of the same experience. Well, unsurprisingly, the idea has taken more and more of a hold in me and I have decided that it will happen... after college.

The reality of "after college" presses closer and closer. The necessity of survival is a very real one. I am once again grateful that I'm going to school in New York. I'm getting my first off-Broadway sound design credit in May, and while in the grand scheme of things that's not huge (sounds much more important outside of New York than inside of it), it's nice to have that before graduating. Living here I'm able to network in college far more than if I'd gone anywhere else, and while the future is of course terrifying, I've been watching graduates deal with it for years and have ideas of where to go.

One thing that has come up a lot this semester is the values or horrors of producing your own work. It's very popular to graduate, start a theater company, scrounge for resources, and make art. There are people who have gone the other route of freelancing, assisting directors, seeking out staged readings and new playwrights. Generally there's a combination of both. My loose ideal plan right now is to do a little bit of everything. I think I'm more interested in producing my own work as a director, however I don't feel the need to do 17 shows immediately after graduating. I think my focus upon graduating will be far more on design and voice work, which are the areas I feel like I am more likely to be/more interested in being hired. So the idea is, work, support myself, hopefully with some of that being in theater itself... and work on developing this piece. I want to, for once, at least, give myself the luxury of a long process of development. Not that it would be really intense rehearsal for all that time, but rather developing, experimenting, having a workshop, then time for that to land, more experimentation. There's something about there being a passage of time that I think will be useful. Something to experience once, at least. Really incubating a piece of work. That's not how things work at PHTS (it's not how things work a lot of places), but I'd like to try it out.

As I was dreaming about this, I started to make a list of people who I would love to be involved... as collaborators, designers, actors, musicians, people to invite to workshops, people to get coffee with and chat, and I found that I was listing not only people in theater... but people who are not at all involved with theater who I know through church.

And I thought, "Oh, DUH!"

It's a Biblically-based piece, yes, so of course I'll want to talk to people who know far more theology than I do for dramaturgical purposes. But my "Duh!" moment was about, "You know, a lot of these people I'm thinking of would be absolutely thrilled to be at all involved on a theatrical piece like this." If not in actual production, but coffee dates and emails and outside eye and that kind of support that is vital. There is a different way of thinking in the church than in theater, there are different resources and ideas. Cross-pollination makes SENSE, and who ever comes up to a pastor and says, "Hi, I'm working on developing a new theater piece--I'd love to get lunch and chat and hear your thoughts."? I would imagine that would spark a kind of energy that those of us who do this all the time lose.

It begs the question, "Who are we not engaging?"

In the theater world, we can get so incestuous that we forget that there are people outside of our little bubble who can really help us out.

And, similarly, in the church, we sometimes do not reach out to those who don't share our beliefs because they ask the hard questions. (And when we do, we often do it not in the spirit of learning from them, but in the spirit of converting them to stifle all of those questions.)

As someone who floats between different religious, spiritual, and secular realms, I know incredibly intelligent people of WILDLY different religious beliefs... and I DESPERATELY want to get them in a room together, talking, because it is so clear to me that we all NEED each other. It would be a messy, battling conversation and I think everyone would come out better for it.

So, the idea of starting to engage people from the church in the creation of this theater piece feels so RIGHT to me. Because staying holed up in our own little worlds is not only silly, it's a tremendous loss.

I'm going to do a lot of beginning work on the piece this summer. I mean, after all, I'll be surrounded by theologians who understand the specifics of the debate between Job and his friends far more than I do, and probably have never been approached about a theater piece before.

And there are longings well beyond what words can say...

Finally saw The Hidden Sky. I say "finally", but I've been purposefully waiting because if I saw this earlier in the run, all of my money would be gone because I'd just be in that theater all the time. (Sweeney 10 times, Gypsy 9 times, Forever Plaid 5 times, Austin's Bridge 4 times in a three week run... we know my theater-going habits.)

Encountering this piece again now, years from when I first started to know it... it's a very different experience. I'm seeing new things, identifying with different moments. I look at the journey of the main character and see intense amounts of similarities with my own spiritual journey and I wonder if that's at all because this musical has been such a part of my life. Nonetheless, it speaks hugely to me, as one of the restless reaching just out of reach, as someone who is after something, and it's not in Kelling, but has found that it's not in Adan either.

Any time I start to hate directing, please remind me that this piece exists, because I will not rest before I've directed this.

"One sip from the hand of God,

And the world begins to taste like ashes.

What would we not sacrifice

To live among the lightning flashes?"

Can't stop us now!

So, officially, every single person from AV '09 is going to be back at Montreat this summer. Last year's AV had 5 regular crew members, 2 DPTs (projections/slideshow operators) and two supervisors. All five of us who were regular crew members are back on crew again. One of the DPTs from last summer is DPTing again, the other is doing Clubs staff (the second DPT this summer was on AV in '08). One of our supervisors is back again, her sixth summer and fifth in this position. The other supervisor from last year is now the coordinator of AV and Aud crews. The second supervisor this year is also from AV in the past.

And the woman who was the AV and Aud crew coordinator last summer is on the planning team for Omega.

And someone from the Theta planning team last summer is on summer staff working in the offices.

It's gonna be a good summer.

Maker of Dreams has its workshop tomorrow (technically today). The workshop is when we show what we have of the show to a group of faculty that contains one person representing each of the following elements; directing, design, acting, voice and speech, as well as our mentor. This is an incredible opportunities to try things out on a smart, caring audience who gives us incredible feedback. It's also ridiculously nervewracking, because you're showing a toddling infant of a show to a group of people. I cannot begin to describe the feeling of showing work in this way... at least when you're acting or even presenting something, you have something to DO, whereas with directing or design, you have to sit and watch. (In these situations, I write. Sometimes it's not even taking notes. Sometimes it's literally writing, "AAAAAAH" or "Domine ad adjuvandum me festina!" I just need something to physically DO.) I maintain that the worst part of the process, as a director, is the moment between when the audience is seated and when the play begins. God, it's awful.

Luckily, though, our dramaturg was able to come to the last hour of rehearsal tonight (so it's not the FIRST time new eyes have seen it), where we did our first stumblethrough. And frankly, it was the best first stumblethrough I've seen. NOT AT ALL to say, "Oh, it was brilliant, we're done!" because there are a million things that will be changed and this is such such such a draft. But, stumblethroughs are called stumblethroughs because the first time you run things together, transitions are usually awful, people forget a lot of things, you realize all the logistical holes (how does that prop get from there to there?). Musicals are the WORST because there's so much happening. I was working on a musical last semester and I emailed Becker, "Is the first stumblethrough of an act of a musical always the most painful, disheartening thing in the world?" And he responded immediately with, "Yes."

BUT this actually wasn't even a stumblethrough--it was a run. The only logistical issue that arose came from there being a lot of noise outside so one person couldn't hear to enter. But beyond that, it was incredibly smooth. I know a ton is going to change, there are things that work and things that might not work at all. (There's one moment that I was completely undecided on in rehearsal... that it could be really cool or it could be the most awful thing in the world... so clearly we're keeping it in during the workshop, because if it fails there, nothing's lost, and if it works, great!) But the cast feels solid at this point, which honestly shows me that they're a phenomenal cast who are working HARD. We've been in rehearsal for 2 weeks. We started staging the show on Monday. (And didn't have rehearsal on Wednesday.) They're working hard, they're working well, it's a great room to be in, and I'm blessed to have all of their energies on this piece.

The workshop is more stress than it should be. I haven't felt particularly stressed out about it, but last night, all of my dreams were about the show, particularly groundplan, and while I made some great discoveries, I didn't actually get any rest, because I was working on the show in my sleep. This indicates that the workshop is more stressful than I want to admit. I am starting to feel tiny pinches of the "Tongues pressure"; the "the general consensus is that my show last semester rocked, and now people expect 159times more from me" pressure. (As one of my teachers said after Tongues, "Well, now you've screwed yourself over for next semester.") Generally, I'm pretty good at leaving that pressure behind me. It's a new show, and all I can really do it inhale and go through the process honestly and if it hits, great, and if it doesn't, that's all the more for me to learn from. It's just sometimes difficult to be that... noble?

Anyway.

Sleep now.

I'll probably dream about soundscapes tonight.

For all the dreams you had to leave behind

Lauren, Associate Pastor at Bon Air, posted this on her blog, and I am being so bold as to repost it here, because she makes a great point.

Thoughts on preparing for a memorial service:

As I tried to put together words to remember a woman who lived a long, ordinary life, I wondered about the sorts of words people use to remember one another. We remember stories and images, interactions more than accomplishments, yet we work so hard all our lives toward accomplishments, often to the detriment of relationships.

So true.

I'll be posting something soon on Ecclesiastes, a book I originally hated and have come to love, and that I feel is particularly appropriate for Lent.

God be in my head

Life moves forward. Shows are happening. Maker of Dreams is humming along quite well. My cast is great. Really, really phenomenal, creative people. We just staged half of the show and then I had a meeting with my set designer and the groundplan completely changed. Of course. I think I will continue staging the first draft with my previous groundplan, because I think there's a lot to learn from it, then revise post-workshop. (I've never had to really go through drafts of staging yet, as the process of staging in Tongues was completely different than normal staging.) I'm starting to transition from working on shows produced entirely within PHTS or NYU to projects that are not. Projects helmed by people from PHTS who know me and are starting to do work outside of school. Nice way to build up credit while still in school. Advantages of going to school in NYC.

But to the real order of business.

Tomorrow (well, technically today by the time this is posted) marks the beginning of the season of Lent.

For the record, I love Lent. Lent and Advent are my favorite seasons. The Preparation seasons. Lent is about penance, prayer, self-denial, penitence.

Tomorrow is, specifically, Ash Wednesday, which I look on as the most humiliating day of church year. It's the day when we go to church and have ashes spread on our foreheads in the sign of the cross, indicating repentance and mortality. We are all sinners. We always have been sinners. We always will be sinners, and we wear the signs of our shame and feeble repentence on our foreheads. (As one of my teachers pointed out today, there's also a huge amount of symbolism into putting an image on that part of your body, placing the Godhead there.)

HOWEVER. (and here's where we start to get into my point of view, perhaps reading far too much into what the tradition means today)

However, wearing our repentance on our sleeves is actually expressly forbidden in the scriptures. There are so many passages about doing our almsgiving in secret, not letting out right hand know what the left hand is doing, being not like the Pharisees who pray in the streets so that anyone can see them. So what are we doing walking around with smudged crosses on our foreheads? Isn't that doing what God told us NOT to do?!

Yes.

It is.

And that's the point.

And that's why it's the most humiliating day of the church year. Because there is never a moment where we are not steeped in sin. Even in trying to repent of our sin, we sin. It's forcing us into realizing the condition we are in as sinful humans. (It is important to note that this season ends with the ultimate freedom from this condition, freedom from sin and death in Christ's resurrection... thus we are saved by grace, NOT totally depraved.)

A lot of people "give something up for Lent". That idea has become so popularized in the church that it has started to rub me the wrong way. It often becomes a slightly inconvenient dietary restriction than actual self-mortification for God, so I haven't "given anything up for Lent" for years. I have instated other Lenten disciplines that have held more weight to me (prayer, scripture reading, fasting from Good Friday to Easter Sunday). But this year, I was batting around ideas of things I could give up... and I actually found something. It's silly, it's ridiculous, it's laughable, it's incredibly appropriate and when I thought of it I said, "I can't give that up!" ...which means, it's the thing I MUST give up. (And no, it's not my hair, though that's going, too.) It's actually a huge act of self-denial.

Where I am in my spiritual life right now has made me quite ready for Lent. I think it's hugely appropriate that Transfiguration Sunday comes right before Lent. It is in the moment that the cosmic connects with the human that the human is willing to give up everything for that which is beyond him/her.

To sign off on these thoughts, I offer you a poem by Rumi, a Sufi poet. It's part of the next group of readings for Re-Inventions of Love. It stabbed me and I haven't stopped thinking of it all day.

Tonight, the image of

That Beautiful One came swiftly,

Looked for my heart's place.

When He found it, He drew His knife

And plunged it into my heart.

Bless that Most Beautiful One.

I'll hear you call me, just like before...

My Montreat Summer 2010 contract came in the mail today.

:)

AV Crew, once again. With a slight pay raise! (and a tiny little bonus for being a returning staff member)

Most people got their contracts yesterday--I decided not to read heavily into that because I live in New York, not North Carolina. While I was rather sure I'd be rehired, it's a relief to actually get the contract.

At the end of last summer, I wasn't committing to returning. It was definitely an option, and I was definitely going to reapply, but I feel it's silly to say, "Oh yes, I'll be back!" when so much can change. (I think my answer was, "Probably, unless I go to India." India will happen at some point in my life, but I think it will be better for me to wait on that a bit longer.) But now I'm at the point where I have to say yes or no... and I'm responding with a resounding, "YES!"

Spending more time in a religious community and environment after this year when a lot has shifted... yes. Getting to spend another summer in Black Mountain, this time knowing the significant artistic history of the place and trying to unearth all that I can about the events there... yes. Getting a lot better at the pottery wheel... yes. Reconnecting with fellow returning staff members, returning planning team members, and one of my bosses who's one of the co-directors for Omega... yes. I do believe that my connections within the church system are just as important as my connections in theater.

I know at least six of the nine of us on AV Crew from last year are returning, including my fellow theater majors, Rachel and Russ. (When we three were reunited at Reunion, there were screams and everyone knew to get out of our way.) Most of Conference Support from last year is returning as well, and I am so excited for late-night Waffle House visits with Holt. One of my cast members for Maker of Dreams is from North Carolina, and we were talking and he mentioned Swananoa, and I yelped, "SWANANOA!!!" And we gushed on about Bojangles.

I love that place. I really do. And I'm more than thrilled to be returning.

Also:

This is a picture of my friend Richie and I playing at Chair and the Maiden Gallery in the West Village last week. (aka: I'm in a band?) The art that's on the walls is by the great-grandson of Wassily Kandinsky. This is actually hugely appropriate because I'm obsessed with Kandinsky, and I found out today that my name came up in two separate theater studies classes (aka: NOT studio classes) when they were talking about Kandinsky, and thus people have been pouncing on me lately asking questions about my synaesthesia.

Snowflakes fall like velvet...

I am sitting down and writing this during an extremely rare occurance: a snow day at NYU.

NYU, for the record, never closes. Yesterday we got an e-mail from the Vice President for Public Safety, saying, "I have been at NYU for 13 years and we rarely close." From what I've heard, the last time NYU closed was 9/11.

But, after going to my first class today, we found out we'd be closed for the rest of the day, so now I'm back in the safety of my dorm room, very glad I still got to have Design, but also grateful for the unexpected interruption. I think the primary joy in snow days isn't the "I don't have to go to class!" bit, but is instead the phenomenon of having our lives halted by a force we cannot control. And yes, I think there's a joy in that. I actually quite love this kind of weather... I hate being out in it, but for me it's a continual reminder of God's presence and sovreignty. It reminds me of the summer, the mountain weather--how it would be sunny and then, BOOM, pouring down rain. And you could grumble about it, but it's a fact of life, so you might as well embrace it. I remember walking to the first staff craft night, wearing a t-shirt and a cheap tux shirt over it, and when I was halfway there, it started raining buckets. There was nothing I could do, so I just said, "BRING IT."

So now I am home with some leftover chicken 'n' dumplin's. Nothing like warm chicken 'n' dumplin's on a cold day.

I'm going through a mini-crisis. Perhaps it isn't really a crisis, but it's that a lot is changing and shifting and I've been trying desperately to explain it, but I've seriously started about four blog entries about it and it hasn't been working so far. Here's what I have:

• I am as calm this semester as I was in the mountains this summer. I am also as afraid as I was last semester. This is an incredibly strange combination of emotions, creating a weird tremor.
• I realized that I've always associated calmness with passivity and lack of passion, whereas I feel just as passionate as ever but with a kind of energy that is rather foreign to me.
• I am resisting entering "the real world", not because it scares me (it actually doesn't... yet), but because while I understand it, it doesn't make sense to me.
• I bristle at the idea that I am defined by what I do (like, my profession, not my actions). This is in direct opposition to my mantra of "I am what I do" (from Sunday in the Park with George) that I lived by in high school. While externally I do want to work as a director, designer, voice person, etc., internally I want to be a nun.
• The idea of being in a relationship with another person seems incredibly alien to me, as my relationship with God grows and strengthened. I am excited for this Sunday, February 14th, because it's Transfiguration Sunday.
• I just wrote a paper outlining a theater piece that now I want to create/do, which says that Song of Songs and Job are actually different sides of the same thing (the all-consuming fire of divine love). I'm not going to post it here, but if you want to read it, let me know.
• There's a Hindu belief that there are four stages of life. The first three (student, marriage, retirement) must happen in chronological order. The fourth stage can be entered at any time. The fourth stage is the stage where you renounce the world and shave your head and become a wandering monk, and that's the only stage I'm interested in.
• One of my teachers observed that a lot of things that the world considers strange but come naturally to me are things that are historically associated with religious/spiritual practices. Often, I'm rather unaware that there IS historical spiritual significance to them and I still link them to a kind of religious devotion. (the obvious example is shaving my head). He also visited the monastery at the base of Mount Sinai over break and said, "The presence of God was so strong I thought, 'Man, if Colleen was here, she'd never leave.'"
• I am frustrated at modern psychology explaining everything away until it has no more significance than a strange neurosis of the brain. It's like when people dismiss Artaud because "he's crazy", when I think that's all the more reason to listen to him. Joan of Arc would not be allowed to exist in today's world.
• God did not turn his back on man, man turned his back on God.
• Mystical experiences exist, and would exist more if we allowed them to. (I will not say much more about this or detail the specifics of this belief in a public forum, but feel free to ask me personally.)
• I do take some comfort in the fact that Peter had trouble walking on water even in times when those kinds of experiences would have been much more accepted than they are now. (I just now remembered that I wrote a monologue one year when I was a conferee at Montreat from Peter's perspective about that moment. Appropriate.)

I realize that all the shifts that I am undergoing right now are actually precisely what I have been aiming for as I have worked to live a God-centered life. They're just so outside what I am used to that they are more jarring than I expected.

And guess what? I can cook, too!

The real reason people want to be in my cast:

Pictured:

Shells in vegetarian sauce

Zucchini sauteed with thyme

GIANT POT OF CHICKEN 'N' DUMPLIN'S

Tomatoes with mozzarella (appetizer--yup, I did an APPETIZER)*

Not pictured:

Baguette sliced and buttered and then put in the oven to heat**

Snickerdoodles

Various hot teas

First rehearsal/readthrough of Maker of Dreams tonight, where I invited my lovely cast over for dinner. It's a good group.

Posting this blog is dangerous because my parents will now INSIST that I cook for them when I'm back on breaks. But it deserves to be noted--it was good. Lindsay noted that the snickerdoodles have become my specialty... which is true. There were none left by the end of the night.

I am hugely grateful for the effectiveness of soaking pots and pans in warm, soapy water. It's the little things.

*shamelessly stolen from Gillian

**shamelessly stolen from Stephanie

And it made me want to fly out of myself and into the hidden sky...

I only do this when I really mean it:

The musical The Hidden Sky is getting its first New York production.

GO SEE IT.

I haven't seen this production yet, so perhaps I'm speaking too soon, but I doubt it. This piece is phenomenal. It's an utterly magnificent work which I have followed since 2006, hoping and praying for a New York production.

I was introduced to it by Manoel Felciano, who played Toby in the Sweeney Todd revival and has done all in his power to make this piece known. Starting by singing the title song (which simply soars) at his solo gigs, he eventually produced two concert versions of the piece. They weren't even the full concerts, some songs were cut for them, as was the ending, but even in those small versions, the power of the piece was clear. I had the pleasure of attending both, even though I was living in Virginia at the time. The second concert, which took place at Joe's Pub in May 2007, is my most ridiculous New York trip to date. I knew they wanted a particularly supportive house because producers were going to be there, so I went up with my friends Emily and Carolyn. We took an 8am train up on Monday (yup, we managed to finagle missing school for this), bummed around in New York for a few hours before going down to Joe's Pub. (At that point, I had been accepted to PHTS, which is right across the street, and I insisted that we stop and just stare at 440 Lafayette for a few minutes.) We saw the show, cried, shook, Emily couldn't speak for ten minutes, and then we went to Penn Station and took the 3am train back to VA. We arrived in Richmond at 9:40am, were picked up and driven directly to school. Ridiculous? Yes. Worth it? ABSOLUTELY. The last stretch of my senior year of high school was spent analyzing what I knew of THS with my friend Marga.

The Artistic Director of Prospect Theater Company here in New York was at that concert and fell in love with the piece. They presented a workshop of it last year around this time, which I was invited to. Then, in October, I ran into the composer at BAM, who told me it was finally getting a full production.

GO SEE IT GO SEE IT GO SEE IT.

It's based off of an Ursula K Le Guin short story, which makes it a fantasy musical? Awesome already. The world has gone through a nuclear holocaust which has caused a thick layer of soot to cover the sky. Science and reason is blamed for this, and therefore society has regressed and "outlawed" knowledge. Roman numerals have replaced our numeric system, because roman numerals are more difficult to work with. The most advanced technology is a primitive steam engine. The knowledge that IS allowed is kept under lock and key by an order called The Masters. The sun is now worshiped as God, and the ruling Priests bring anyone caught seeking knowledge to justice.

The story largely follows the tension between science and religion. Those seeking knowledge tend to dismiss religion as fairy-tales, and the Priests have labeled knowledge, science, as evil. But both groups are searching for that which is beyond them. They are both seeking answers to the same questions. It is through the story of Ganil that the two are united. During the piece she discovers the Fibonacci sequence, the numerical pattern that underlies all of creation, and that scientific discovery leads her to sing, "I have seen the face of God!" These two pursuits that we see today as completely separate are not at all. They are actually different ways to the SAME THING. As Mano said in his introduction to the piece in the first concert, "The pursuit of science and the pursuit of spirituality are not necessarily opposed--they are often complimentary and can lead to the same place."

The music is gorgeous. So rich. There are some samples here. I used this word before, but it soars. The only musical, the ONLY musical that in my head tops The Hidden Sky is Sweeney Todd, largely because of the personal history I have with Sweeney. It's one of the best scores I've ever encountered. I have not seen this version. I don't know if it's "perfect" or anything like that... I know it's been going through workshops and that kind of thing so I wouldn't be surprised if there were some changes to the script since last I saw it. But I strongly feel that this musical is a vital new work and I'm beyond thrilled that it's finally getting a production in New York.

It is playing at Prospect Theater Company through February 28th. There's a symposium on the 20th that I cannot go to because of the workshop for Maker of Dreams, but I think I'll probably have spies there telling me what's discussed. Tickets can be purchased here, they have student tickets, and there's a discount code for performances through the 17th ($20). I'm perfectly happy to go with you. JUST GO. IT'S SO GOOD. Really, if you like anything I talk about regarding religion on this blog, you'll probably like this piece.

GO GO GO GO GO.