Been spending a bit of time lately thinking about where to go next. I’m an obsessive mover. I have to constantly be looking for the next opportunity – not that that means reneging on responsibilities and/or commitments. For me it just means not becoming stagnant. So, after thinking and looking and stewing – as I do – I came across this article in the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/oct/27/improvised-theatre-writing-plays

I found it had hints of where I believe the next steps in theatre are going to take place; and I hope to be taking some of those steps myself. Collective creation and devised theatre are becoming the primary forms of contemporary theatre making. The formats for creation produce wide variety of pieces. Non-text based works however – I believe – encounter similar problems, and that is that they have a general lack of consistency, story and perhaps most importantly for theatre, they cannot be recreated by other groups.

I do understand that there are points of contention and a great deal of opinion in what I have just said, but I am confident that I am not the only one that holds these views.

Backtracking for a moment:

Improvisation – as I understand it – started as a means to teach technique in acting, then morphed into it’s own form of theatre while simultaneously spawning collective creation and devised theatre. I think the role of the playwright within improvisation, collective creation and devised theatre is the logical progression of these forms of theatre. Having an artist take on the role of scribe/assistant-director/interpreter for the work, I argue, would create dynamic and cohesive pieces of theatre that would allow for the ingenuity and originality that collective creation, devised theatre and improvisation are renowned for, but would also allow for cohesiveness and an element of repeatability in the work.

It’s a bit of a reactionary outlook on this whole theatrical movement, but I believe it may be a positive one.

Take a read of the article and tell me what you think.

Best,

J.

It’s about five past six. I’m at work and not working. I’m waiting to go see a play. What I would like to do is to take this free hour and a bit before the curtain and go downstairs and get a drink… but I can’t.

I’m poor.

After two months of what in retrospect was a foolish spending spree masked with a thin veil of ‘needing shit’ I am officially broke. And what’s worse is that it’s not like I have to save some money; I can’t save any money. All the money I make every month needs to go to bills.

Shit.

Yup. Looks like I fucked the dog on this one and there’s no getting around it.

And I’m trying to look for the positive side of it all, but in all honesty I can’t. I somehow need to increase my income… looks like it’s back to cleaning up beer bottles and hauling flat upon flat of beer up and down stairs. *ugh.

I thought I was past this – but there ya are. Just when you think you’ve grown out of something you’re thrown right back into the muck.

I wish I would learn… oh well, at least it’s not credit card debt right?

Sundays are fast becoming my favorite day of the week. Since finishing post secondary it’s as though time has been handed back to me. University had me working seven days a week and no time to engage in simple pleasures like reading the paper -  my new Sunday treat to myself.

Today I spent two hours writing in the park. Marvelous.

What’s the point of all this boasting? I’m not sure to be honest. It’s important to me to express gratitude whenever I happen to feel lucky; and lately I’ve been feeling really lucky.

I’m surrounded by luxury, well, not the type of luxury enjoyed by the maharajahs, but luxury enough that I recognize that I don’t really need many of objects around me. It’s an incredible feeling.

And at the same time though it’s worrying.

It worries me that I’m twenty four and achieving what I had set out to do – not exactly what I wanted but close enough to feel fairly fulfilled. Am I too young to be experiencing this? Will it all become drab and unexciting? What’s after this then? Do I settle into a happy career and vacation once a year at a destination where I take pictures that I show my parents to coo’s of, “oh that’s so nice?” Then I worry that I’m being a pretentious prat and that I should be happy for what I have and stop the complaining because there are so many that have so little.

These are the things that worry me though. What’s after this? What’s after happiness? What’s the next step, the next goal? Have I set my sights too low or should I just wait for this phase of my life to nose dive, after which I’ll dig myself out of the mess that I’ve made?

What’s this teenage angst that I’m embarrassed to be victim to? The only reason that I can think of is a lack of creative production and more specifically a lack of performance. I don’t have an opening night coming up soon and I think it’s making me go a little bit batty. Here I am rejoicing about the glorious free time that I have and at the same time it’s making me go nuts. So what do I do? I post something.

Something. Make something. Contribute something; otherwise what good are you right?