I had the occasion recently to sit down and calculate how many shows I have directed. I'm not bragging, they're 98% high school productions. I was asked to write Director's Notes for a show that I am currently rehearsing, and realized in 150 years and 40 ish shows (I got bored and stopped counting when I got halfway through and went "Oh crap, right, there's that one too" and couldn't decide if I've directed the same show twice, does it count twice?), I've never really written Director's Notes.
I know back in the day, when I was playing at running a theatre company, I took a stab at DN for a show or two, but they all boiled down to justifying why I chose the play. That is Not Good. It is Not Good because Who Cares why you chose the show, stop defending yourself. And I've never written a bio, ever, for a high school show. The summer and college shows all ask for a bio, and I usually write "I teach." I read bios full of real accomplishments, and my infantile response to those with more professional experience than myself is to be short and funny. Recently, at Mines, both the choreographer and the music director had real bios and I did the "I teach" thing. It did not go as planned; it appeared to be received as though I think I'm too good for bios and made me feel worse.
Don't psychoanalyze me, it's fine, I know who I am and I know what I'm good at, I just don't like bios and director's notes.
Many years ago, there was a young theatre teacher at our sister school, whose bio was the center fold out of her fall play program, and then she had another page of director's notes, all name dropping and self accolades. It was like her Bio Part Two. I shook my head. She's not wrong, I'm not mad at her, it just isn't me. And clearly she knows something I do not, as she left after three years, finished her PhD and is now teaching theatre at a very prestigious university. So...joke's on me I guess.
I had a parent on our performing arts PTO ask if I wanted to run my headshot (oh ya, Sister School Director included her headshot) with a bio in the musical program and I threw up. The poor woman had no idea how to handle such a response, so I just stopped attending meetings and pretended I didn't like the PA PTO any more. In hindsight this was not the best choice for my survival in that building.
So when Invictus asked if I'd like to include a bio and director's notes in the program for God of Carnage, I replied as honestly as possible. I said "I have no idea how to do that." They replied that it was traditional to do so. So I wrote two and sent them with the email subject line "Bio and possible DN, they may be garbage".
I'm not reposting them here. That's worse than having them printed in the first place. It's not about ME, pay attention to the show, and if I have to use my DN to explain the show to you, then I've failed as a director...there's some of that vomit I'm so good at. You're welcome.
No, the point is, in writing the DN, I deliberately steered away from anything about WHY I chose the show---because I didn't choose the show---or the IMPORTANCE of the show because UGH audiences aren't pleading with us to use the program to remind them that theatre is IMPORTANT. I just sat at the computer and channeled words I heard from Mr. Albee. He recounted an exchange with Arthur Miller regarding the relevance of each of their plays, and I've never forgotten it. The word choice in their exchange has always tickled me, and fed my own love of word play, which Yasmina Reza has recently reawakened. It's easy to lose your love for vocabulary teaching high school after a pandemic to traumatized people addicted to their cell phones and social media short hand. UGH.
So the DN and bio got written, and were short, but I realized it triggered a need to write more. Directing this play has necessitated the return of Specific Word Choice in my life. That the characters' son goes from being referred to as a "thug" to a "savage" ( determined by his father) and finally a "menace" (the other parents) made my flesh all goose pimply, as I dove back into the text for more verbiage. Using words as weapons is what great writers do. Arguably, Mr. Albee was superior at this game. Having spent time with him in person, this gift was not relegated to just his writing. He cared not what your education was, or if you understood what he was saying. I loved that about him. Just as he never spoke above a growl because if you wanted to hear him, you'd shut up, he did not dumb down his argot. If you didn't know the meaning, you could look it up. Did I mention I loved him?
Writing a bio and director's notes led me down the silly rabbit hole of navel gazing, questioning why I'm not writing any more....because bullying + job change + Covid + school shootings +teaching during a pandemic = No More Words. Which sounds better when Terri Nunn sings it. I have been stripped of my usual joy for vocab by the day to day reality that none of my students will know what I'm saying, and I'll have to back up and define it, anyway, so why bother.
I am not Mr. Albee, and my students are not me.
So. All in all, to sum up, in conclusion. I would like to come back to writing, and I would like to use words that are specific and descriptive. So I will.
Scene.
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