Right before the new year, I walked into the office to get some end of the year work done. The first person I saw as our Director of Touring, Annie Lareau. She greeted me with "Did you get my email?" That phrase usually stops me in my tracks because it makes me think I forgot to do something that I should have done. I fumbled out an answer that was something like "I haven't checked my email yet." Turns out, she was asking me to be a reader for Book-It's Third Annual Novel Workshop Series.
Okay, let me explain what the Novel Workshop Series is:
Book-It produces only world premiere theatre. Their trademark style takes novels and adapt them from the page to the stage. To act in the Book-It style can be tricky for some actors but when done seamlessly, watching a play at Book-It is like reading a book: all of your sense are stimulated. (Okay okay, I've drank the Book-It kool-aide. But c'mon, literacy and theatre? How can that not be amazing?!) In order for them to produce all these world premieres there has to be a lot of workshopping. That is exactly what the Novel Workshop Series is. It is two weeks of workshopping roughly four new scripts with staged readings at the end. If they go well, the scripts presented as part of the Novel Workshop Series have the potential to be added to an upcoming season. Border Songs and the upcoming Prairie Nocturne are two examples of that.
To say I was excited is a bit of an understatement. It's the first acting I get to do for a Book-It and it worked out just right (mostly just right) with my work schedule. Well, it made my last two weeks hectic but I like this sort of hectic. I'm busy and being artistic and happy.
This year the Novel Workshop Series launched into a partnership with the University of Washington PATP. So I spent the week at UW with acting grad students. It was definitely a good experience but even after one hour on the first day reminded me that when I go to grad school, I want it to be for dramatic writing, not acting. I was discouraged when I couldn't feel the joy in the room, the excitement at getting to do this work...any work really. To me, it seemed that some of the grad students felt like this was a chore. I don't ever want to lose the joy I have when I am lucky enough to be on stage as an actor. As a writer, I always feel lucky to have my work workshopped or performed, but it is such a different feeling the adrenaline I experience as an actor. They are two different and equally delightful feelings. I can't imagine wanting to continue a career in theatre when it feels like a chore. When I lose this feeling, it may be time to throw in the towel.
So in the end I learned two things from this experience:
1. The place I happily spend my work week still has so much to teach me.
2. My fake British accent isn't too bad.
Yes, the second thing was going to be horribly mushy but I figured I had enough of that in the previous paragraph so...yeah.
