Perpetually Curious

I asked in a Facebook post in 2011: "Theater is about connections. How do administrators facilitate this connecting? How do theaters (as an entity) ensure this connection continues happening, time and time again?" Strengthening these connections is what makes a theater resilient, what makes the theater ecosystem resilient.  Even before Covid forced theater closures, our local ecosystem lost several long-standing organizations due to life happening (people moved, people aged and retired, etc.). Add the normal ebb and flow of creatives coming together for some number of shows and then going on to reassemble in different configurations. New groups crop up, some grow, some provide fodder for a completely different way of making art.  Nonprofit theater cannot build itself in the same way as for-profit theater. The very heart of the nonprofit mission is community-mindedness. For-profit theater by its very nature will follow a path of least resistance to earning as much profit as ...

How utterly ironic. Also, I wrote a book about DPAC. The Triangle theater ecosystem has a long and vibrant history. But as with all ecosystems there are good times and bad, birth and death, growth and loss. Theodore Reik pronounced "There are recurring cycles, ups and downs, but the course of events is essentially the same, with small variations. It has been said that history repeats itself. This is perhaps not quite correct; it merely rhymes." It feels that way now: these questions are ones that have been asked before, which is what led these artists to do the damn thing in the first place. Much of the downswing for our ecosystem started before 2020, but was, of course, exacerbated by loss of physically being able to gather. We've long said that was crucial to live theater and the pandemic only served as proof of concept. Can theater happen online? Kind of. Is it the same? Not even remotely (pun fully intended).   So here we are, asking these questions again. Where are t...

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Clothes make the human. How do you dress a body {that has birthed two humans}{that carried you through an ongoing global pandemic and more stress}{that doesn’t look/measure/feel the way you think it should feel} when you don’t have a clear picture of who you want to be? Before Instagram influencers, before Stacy and Clinton on “What Not To Wear” (and the many different iterations), and sometime after a Vogue subscription, there was the J Peterman catalog and its numerous historical and fictitious women carrying on around the world. I’ve been toying around with the idea of writing a long-form series about “Who is a J Peterman Woman.” If clothes or fashion is an expression of who you aspire to be, then “an unconventional woman of very good taste”--to quote but one of their many copy lines--has long been my guiding star.   The one thing she’s not, though, is a mother to children-at-home. They may be grown-and-gone, but they are mention...

Amazingly, I managed to hit half of my reading goal for the year! Between a new baby and a global pandemic, I am firmly in camp "making it through each day is a success." I somehow wound up with MORE books on my TBR shelf than I started with, thanks in no small part to discovering BookOutlet, plus the library's super-convenient website ordering and curbside pickup. I still adore browsing through the stacks, but between email list and Bookstagram recs, and having the entire NC Cardinal system at my fingertips, it's too easy to get the exact book I'm looking for. I can't wait to be able to be pleasantly surprised again, though. My Four Favorite Books:  1. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson . "Beyond race, class, or other factors, a powerful caste system influences people's lives and behavior and the nation's fate. Linking the caste systems of America, India, and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie cast...

2019 Reading was not quite as prolific as 2018 (which I didn't write a recap on because #moving), but contained quite a few stand-out books. I did manage to complete 42 books, plus a handful of magazines and tons of online articles/essays. I didn't read as many off of my To Be Read shelves as I'd hoped: dammit, Instagram, I'm looking at you! Too many authors I follow, too many readers I'm friends with who keep recommending interesting books. Couple that with the browser tab I keep open to my local library account, which also links up with over 50 other library systems across the state, so I can simply place holds at any time... Look, I'm not saying I have a problem, I'm just saying it's reallllly easy to give into ordering a new-to-me book at any time. For 2020, I'm trying to keep lists of "books to read", either as a saved collection in Instagram or on paper in my planner, that I can reference after I've finished the current stack. ...

Any time I read, well, practically anything, I always wonder how the lesson can be applied to live independent theater. A recent article from Nielsen Ratings proved no different. "Award Shows are Big Winners on Social Media"   got me thinking "How can live theater use social the way the awards shows do?" After all, the two events are very similar. For starters, they're both live events. Attendees are all in the same room together. There's often alcohol involved. There are distinct phases to the event: the pre-show, the live event itself, and post-show discussion. Secondly, like awards shows, theater productions should be culturally relevant, at least to the community in which the theater resides. These productions may even feature local celebrities or have other local cultural cache. I am a firm advocate that social engagement is but one leg of the three-legged online marketing stool. A regular email newsletter, a regularly updated website, and good...

Minimalism is everywhere these days. It's very in style, if getting rid of all your belongings and living with the bare necessities is your style. Don't get me wrong: I've toyed with the minimalism idea for several years now. Even as an extrovert who loves owning lots of "things that spark joy", there is still a threshold of "too much". I'd started paring down before we made the big move from the Triangle to the Coast and made sure to not RE-accumulate random things while we were in Morehead City. So when it came time to pack all our belongings again for moving, I embraced the opportunity to live with even less. I knew we'd be "in between" homes for a while and that what ever I kept had to be packed into two vehicles, along with my kid, dog, and cat. I looked up long-term travel on Pinterest, followed minimalist accounts on Instagram, and made sure I knew what self-care was non-negotiable for me during this time. And we'd a...