Eleventh-hour Creativity

It's a good feeling to make art, and have that art be received well. It is a feeling I've not experienced often in my three and a half years living in Chicago. Which is not to say I've been making bad art. Far from it. I've been committing the more grievous sin of making very little art at all.

There were many reasons why I decided to come to Chicago. A city I was passingly familiar with, a support network, a girl. And the sheer volume of theater that happens on a daily basis. I wanted a place to explore, to figure out what theater actually means to me. I was fairly certain after graduation that I didn't want to be 'an actor'. I had no interest in headshots, memorizing monologues, or pretending to be the King of Bohemia. But did that rule out performance all together? I wasn't sure.

For most of my time here, I've been pursuing work in technical theater. Stage management and lighting design are my mainstays. These are jobs I know well. I get a certain particular satisfaction from doing them. I enjoy the charts, the lists, the mathematical precision. The power and responsibility. But the technical disciplines do lack that immediate feedback. The laughter, the silence, the gasp which escapes from the mouth of someone taken by surprise.

By coincidence I had seen the Neo-Futurists perform at Actor's Theater in Louisville the winter before I moved. This was different. This was a kind of performance I had not thought possible. I have forgotten many details about many plays I've seen, but I remember that show. I remember Jay's literal music videos, I remember Kristie's interview play about being edgy, I remember Noelle's costume/makeup change and her monologue about how difficult it is to just be yourself in front of over a hundred people. So when I moved here, I started volunteering with the Neos. This lead into a stage management gig, and then another, and now I've been on staff as a technician for two years. To paraphrase Mary, "I like it here, I love it here, I finally found a home. A home. A home away from home."

I'm currently taking the "Intro to Neo-Futurism" class. This is my second time through. And it's strange how quickly it all comes back to me; the songs which send images running through my mind, the way the words come in just the right order, the Saturday morning rewrite which puts all things in their places.

It's a good feeling to hear that your play accomplished what you wanted it to, and more. It's a good feeling to be drinking at the theater past three and have someone say, "Hey, I really liked your piece in class today." It's a good feeling to create. I need it. It calms me. I think it's here to stay.