Neevita.net

*** I started writing this as an email to my cast and crew, and realized it belonged here instead. ***

As the show approaches, and the meetings we have scheduled creep nearer, I’ve been thinking about what I have to offer. What, as a director and space holder, I have to contribute to the telling of stories and sharing of experiences on that subtle, transformative level I strive for in my directorial work.

The people involved in this show are so talented, brave, competent and focused. I’ve so rarely concerned over the acts and workshops themselves I can’t think of a single time I was stressing over just them. The show lineup is brilliant. It’s diverse, touching, inspiring, moving, hopeful, painful, intense, real, amusing – even if i simply put them on stage one at a time in an order, we will touch peoples lives.

Yet, I’ve been wondering how to offer what I’m best at while sensing a lack of cohesion. I’ve struggled with how to put all of these first class ingredients together with the rehearsal time we have and the flexibility we need to pull off both adaptations of the show. And, realistically, I have to be prepared for the first time I have all my cast in the same room being our tech rehearsal the day before the show.

I’ve had creeping doubts, thoughts of this beautiful project ending up feeling like pulling my own teeth. Without that meaty, psychological, deep running sound through the foundation, a show is not my show. It’s a string of acts I produce.

Though I trust myself and knew it would come to me, and if it wasn’t this time it would still be a good show, I’ve been fearing falling short of what I want to bring to this production as the first of Vita’s offerings I’ve committed to making my own. I’ve wanted to feel I was creating something, and mostly, I’ve felt like the producer and logistic herder than a creative director.

Something clicked today. The difference between a creatively fueling project for me, and something that is successful yet still feels simply like work, is a setting I can relate to as a facilitator that serves as context to work within.

For me, at least right now, the setting that taps what I have to say is the mind. The shows I truly create are ethereal, cerebral, dream like, symbolic, and rarely use dialog or MC’s. They create worlds, go beyond a theme, beyond.. something. Obsidian was a lovers obsessive fantasy. Another untitled show characterizes a tormented mans fractured inner world. A fantasy concept I came to involved multiple personalities in a single being. Simply picking a theme isn’t enough, even a theme as profound as how art saved these people’s lives.

Until today this show was taking place on a stage, with an audience, and now that I say that out loud, it’s no wonder I wasn’t feeling sparked and creative about it. Even the name of the show hasn’t been conducive to my creative process – had it been, I would have simply called it “Saved” or something.

“How Art Saved My Life” now takes place in a collective mind space. The show is an amplified illustration of the moment in time where you stare into a black hole and choose life. The setting is the mind, in dreamspace, plugged into the matrix, whatever you want to think of it. The stories told are amplifications, illustrations, depictions, of that moment, when art saved “you”, and the moments before and after it.

Now, I have an ensemble opening that will take 20 minutes to rehearse. I have a lifeline running through the entirety of the show, an anchor to attach to, and a point of reference to return to as it matures. The show order, while almost unforeseen this morning, is falling into place like an expert tetris level.

It seems so simple, but I truly didn’t know this about myself. I knew something was missing the last two shows I produced and I suspected it was a lack of telling my own story – but I’d performed in Summer Spectacular and I still felt.. thirsty. After Cheese, as much of a success as it was, I felt creative dehydration. I think I just didn’t have a formula for how to get the results I wanted, with the flexibility to include the diversity I wanted to include. And now I do.

This show is going to be fucking amazing. And all the god damn rest of them, too.

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/138852