Gah

Okay it's official. I'm the worst updater ever.

This past month has been beyond inspiring. I feel like we have created a gift to bring to the Anglican church and communities of faith across the country. What we have created is very special and I am proud of my work and even my personal discoveries along the way.

I have been reading The Confessions of St. Augustine and he has somehow ended up in our play. I like that. I like that our group embraces conflict and community and we are very VERY different but so supportive of each other's journey. We laugh A LOT. We cook together, I think there is something healing about that. Somehow all of the shit of our lives ends up being shared in the kitchen. Or around the table. Or in our favourite tree we climb.

We start travelling tomorrow and I expect I will be updating you a lot more in order for you to know when to come see me! We leave tomorrow morning for a preview in Guelph tomorrow night. On Thursday we leave for Toronto and have a preview and talkback that night. We have Friday off in Toronto and then on Saturday we leave for Halifax and our first performance is next Tuesday.

I emailed two of my professors from Trinity and thanked them profusely for making me work hard at my craft and training us the way they do. Everything I have learnt is enabling me to create to the best of my ability. And I mean that. I feel like I am doing everything to the best I possibly can as Karyn and I am working hard at it. I feel grounded and confident as an artist and person.

If you pray, I would appreciate prayers. If you email, I always love a good letter although I can't guarantee a response.

Here's our collective blog

Karyn

Almost a Week

I can't believe it hasn't even been a week yet. It feels like ages have gone by.

There were a lot of bonding moments with the company this week. One of our cast members decided to go home because of personal issues so we are down to 5 actors. We have laughed A LOT these past couple of days. These are some funny people and they are always making me pee my pants. We are all very different but I am glad I am learning so much from them.

I'm currently sick with a cough and cold which doesn't make rehearsals very energizing so if you pray, maybe you could pray for health. I'm also struggling with homesickness and that is challenging as well because I would like to put my heart and soul into this project without thinking about home all the time. These last couple of days have been better. I think it will take time.

We have drum circles almost every night. In fact, there is one happening right below me as I type (I live on the second floor of our house). Our producer has a collection of african drums, or that style at least, and a bunch of wooden instruments so we are usually singing together and making music. I like living with hella creative people. Last night we sang 'Single ladies' to just drums. I thought it went really well.

My days are spent in rehearsals and making meals with the rest of the company. We have 3 hours of rehearsal in the morning, and 3 hours in the afternoon and then we have the evening to prepare for the next day so things are always quite busy around here.

I think I might have to go join the drum circle...

Arrived

I'm here! I got here Tuesday night but it has been hard to get ahold of internet so here I am. I don't even know what day it is actually but I know it's been a couple days. Just checked my phone, it's Thursday.

There's so much to tell, I don't even know where to begin. This summer is exactly what I want to do with my life.

Here's part of a journal entry I wrote on May 5:

"I go through phases of loving the simplicity of this place and then feeling like I want to reject it. Sometimes I really want to be here and sometimes I just want to hop on the next plane home. My reactions are violent but within. Wild, but contained. The streets are so quiet at night, so calm. The room is simple, so simple, but old and antique. I feel like a queen living here. A queen without a watch or a cellphone or internet. My mind is beginning to clear, duh Karyn, of course you are reacting strongly to this. A lot of your ways of fake communicating and connecting with people have been taken away, of course you feel this way. This new way is fearful, strange, and a little bit unknown. Okay a lot unknown. You will have to acquire new ways of communicating and expressing that don’t involve updating your status."


This is a very peaceful place and I constantly find myself inspired, although exhausted as well. The company is mostly talking and doing different warmups and skill games right now but soon we will get into writing and exploration.


Oh we also have a lovely producer who, for the first week, is cooking us AMAZING meals. Homemade everything. It is tasty.

Their attitudes differ

i

To understand
each other: anything
but that, & to avoid it

I will suspend my search for
germs if you will keep
your fingers off the microfilm
hidden inside my skin

ii

I approach this love
like a biologist
pulling on my rubber
gloves & white labcoat

You flee from it
like an escaped political
prisoner, and no wonder

iii

You held out your hand
I took your fingerprints

You asked for love
I gave you only descriptions

Please die I said
so I can write about it

After all you are quite
ordinary: 2 arms 2 legs
a head, a reasonable
body, toes & fingers, a few
eccentricities, a few honesties
but not too many, too many
postponements & regrets but

you'll adjust to it, meeting
deadlines and other
people, pretending to love
the wrong woman some of the
time, listening to your brain
shrink, your diaries
expanding as you grow older,

growing older, of course you'll
die but not yet, you'll outlive
even my distortions of you

and there isn't anything
I want to do about the fact
that you are unhappy & sick

you aren't sick & unhappy
only alive & stuck with it.

yes at first you
go down smooth as
pills, all of me
breathes you in and then it's

a kick in the head, orange
and brutal, sharp jewels
hit and my
hair splinters

the adjectives
fall away from me, no
threads left holding
me, I flake apart
layer by
layer down
quietly to the bone, my skull
unfolds to an astounded flower

regrowing the body, learning
speech again takes
days and longer
each time / too much of
this is fatal

-Margaret Atwood

We are supposed to bring along things that inspire us on this trip. I am bringing my book of poems by Emily Dickinson and Margaret Atwood. I'm also bringing The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers. It's going to be a 'Wonderful Women of the World' summer. Any women of the past or present inspire you? Leave me a comment and let me know.

PS. 4 days til I leave.

A Job That Pays?

I leave in less than two weeks on a brand new adventure. Away from these people, this home, this life.

I'm travelling across Canada with a theatre company from Toronto. I get to write a play with other actors and directors from across the country and then tour our masterpiece to all the major cities and a few others aaaall summer. Sigh. I also get to see my family in Saskatchewan. Did I mention I was excited?

So here's where you come in internet. I'm supposed to be interviewing people before I leave about their faith experiences. I want to challenge myself by interviewing people very different from myself. This could mean physically different, religiously different, or socially different. Anything that makes us not in all the same descriptive categories in some way. If you are interested, please leave a comment on this post.

TED Talk

It is funny to me how many people have sent me this link. It's almost like theatre is important to me or something. Enjoy.

Patsy Rodenburg: Why I do Theatre

I love my job. yes. no. kill me now.

What a semester.

I feel grounded now, at peace with my life, more hopeful than I've ever been, and I can do anything. I can do anything I want to. I've ran into many people from my past in these last couple of months and the general consensus is one of hopelessness. These people had all sorts of dreams when I knew them in high school and beyond. And now they are working at Starbucks wondering how they can become the manager or new shift supervisor. It's like they peaked in high school and believing that they could do what they wanted with their lives stopped there. How sad.

Please do a job you love, whoever you are. I am basking in the goodness that is my life right now, not without its troubles mind you, but on the whole I am very very happy and content. A rarity among my friends I am finding. I am reading the Anti-Theatrical Prejudice by Jonas Barish right now and although it's slow reading I am finding myself appalled at how counter-cultural theatre and acting really is. I finally had to ask myself, am I willing to constantly be fighting to be taken seriously, to tell the truth in the face of a stubborn society, and to always know that I am both adored and loathed?
Yes. Yes yes yes a million times yes.

Do something that instills passion in you. Do not choose a profession or a lifestyle out of obligation, money, anger, or vengeance even. Do it because it gives you life. Makes you laugh, makes you cry, forces you into relationship, causes you to be wise, wills you to be good and to do good.