words....words...words...

Well hello there.

I know. I know. I've been away for a million years. When I started this blog I had essentially no job. And then suddenly I had 2 jobs and a new theatre company. So despite my best intentions I just couldn't find the time to write.

Well, I'm coming back. Don't be scared.

I'll be writing again on a regular basis.

I've been thinking a lot about this blog and what I want to do with it.

A lot has happened. I've directed 2 new shows, and I'm teaching full time now--so just the one job. I took 52 Man Pickup to the Edinburg Festival with Desiree Burch. Or rather I should say, we took 52 to Scotland with a lot of fantastic help from friends and supporters. Especially Jack Sharkey--who is an incredible supporter of new theatre.

So thanks for that help. The festival was incredible and we got a 4 star review in THE SCOTSMAN which is like the NY Times of Scotland. Great houses. And we learned so much. Really incredible.

And Dan Kitrosser and I have been plotting a good many things for T4TP.

There are some things underway that I can't talk about just yet, but I do want to share something that has been on my mind a lot since I started teaching.

Something that I started to address in my classes. It hearkens back to something that Freddy Kareman used say in his (absolutely amazing) acting class over and over again:

"Lines have nothing to with acting. "

always closely followed by,

"But they are VERY important!!"

Which is to say the following, I think:

Words by themselves are inadequate to the cause of communication.

They are wonderful things. Powerful. Just saying certain words can do a great many things to you. "I love you" is great example of words that tend to affect both the speaker and the listener. Try telling someone that something about them is beautiful and watch what it does to both you and to them. Or that something about them is ugly or wrong.

Words hold great power over us.

But they don't mean anything.

How many different times and ways have you said "I love you" with completely different meanings?

To how many different people?

Love means so many different things to different people about so many different topics (lovers, friends, family members, food, jobs, sports, and so on) that it really doesn't mean anything.

As I tell my students, words are icebergs. The tip isn't what matters. It's the unseen mass underneath the water that is important.

Why does this matter?

Because words alone are not our only form or even our best communication.

Why do we need art? Why is music, film, theater, painting, and so on--so important to us?

Because we are filled with things that we need to communicate that words alone cannot do.

Why do we have complicated, stressful, and often expensive weddings? Because all of that

ritual, pomp, and circumstance helps fill in the rest of what "I take you" cannot communicate by itself to each other and to our family and friends.

As I've said before, I am not surprised that Arts funding was dramatically slashed, that artists have been priced out of their neighborhoods, and many artistic venues have been shuttered in the decade leading up to the 2008 crash. Dead places create dead people. And dead people have no morals or values.

And NY isn't dead, but it is fighting for it's life.

Communication is really a combination of understanding and connection.

And without understanding and connection, we become capable of terrible things.

Sadly a lot of the theatre, tv, and film that I've seen recently is really focused on so many other things and not on that deeper communication. The type of communication that requires so much more than just words or pretty pictures. The type of communications that requires real courage. It requires real work as well.

One of the projects I am working on will deal with communication beyond words. This coming World Theatre Day I have another shakespeare project that will explore this in more depth.

And while we're on the subject of words,

I've seen a lot of theatre companies doing some great things. Promenade theatre and site specific theatre are on the rise, and I've seen some companies doing some interesting things trying to integrate the internet into their theatrical productions.

And I want to talk to them.

So I plan on doing some interviews with some of these innovators and maybe doing some checking in with some varied critical opinions about theatre that is out and about the city.

I'm not looking to turn this into a review or critical blog, but I want to really give a shout out to the theatre that I've seen that deserves some real praise.

Speaking of deserved praise, The Terry Schreiber Studios won a NYIT award about a week ago for OUTSTANDING PRODUCTION OF A PLAY for their revival of BALM IN GILEAD by Lanford Wilson.

Lanford Wilson is one of my favorite playwrights and that play is one of his early masterpieces.

And you'd have to be crazy to try and produce it. The cast was 29 people.

I managed to catch a performance--with expectations as high as they could be for one of my favorite plays.

And it was brilliant. Beautiful. Shattering.

Three of my favorite moments:

1) My favorite monologue in the play by a nodding heroin junkie--the lines that spring to mind when I think of the play--being mumbled almost but not quite inaudibly from the back of the stage during a quiet but powerful moment of silent behavior between other characters. Instead of the whole monologue being the center piece it came sprinkling in like poetic music from another room. Somehow even more powerful that way.

2) and 3) two of the longest monologues in the play where the words don't really say that much. Just kind of a seemingly mundane avalanche of words, but onstage there was so much underneath those words that they became incredibly powerful. One devastating. The other hilarious and still heartbreaking. What the two brave actresses did with those speeches was dig waaaay past the words and found what was buried deep underneath. Inexpressible by any other means, I would wager. Chills just thinking about it.

Well done to all involved. That production communicated things to me that I never knew were in that beautiful play and all of its words words words. It was a courageous production, well crafted, and I was proud to vote for it. So kudos to the T.S. Studio and to the good judgement of the NYIT Judges and the other audience members who voted.

It's good to be back.

Here's your quote:

It's one thing to say it. It's a whole 'nother thing to really mean it. I'm not just talking about actions. To just really know what you're saying to someone else, to understand what those words mean in that moment, what you mean, and what that means to them, well, that's the hard part. And the most important.

-Amy Lynn Higgs