Bit by the theater bug - #20
Dear Friends and Family,
If there are still a few of you out there wondering what happened to that crazy friend who moved to Texas, continue reading. Let me give you a quick re-cap. We sold our condo in Port A and moved to a new home in CC....and dealt with the evacuation of Port A due to Hurricane Rita. Good friends visited, and old and new friends helped me celebrate my 55th birthday. But my time was really consumed by one thing.
I had been captured by the theater and its powerful creative attraction. In the past year, my life has literally been consumed by theater. Doug and I became involved in establishing a new theater in Aransas Pass, Texas, called the Rialto Actors Theater, just last spring.
This whirlwind year began when we were visited by a director/thespian friend Trish Sugarek, who explained with great excitement how she had an opportunity to start a new theater. After a martini-filled planning session we agreed to throw out our sanity and pledged alliance to our new theater and a manic artistic director. Without air conditioning, Doug and our rag-tag crew dubbed the RATPAK built the stage at the low end of a water and trash filled old movie theater. It was the original movie theater of the town, and had been standing abandoned for about twenty years. The recent owner purchased it and turned the front into art galleries and wanted a theater troupe for the back. (The walls still leak like a sieve when it rains.)
We opened with "Artichoke" on October 7th. I was the set designer and painted the 20X12 foot barn, my first real painting. (I attached a picture of the set.) View image
For Halloween weekend I directed and produced "Tales In the Dark", a set of four different ghost stories told in different areas of the "dark" theater. Then we went right into rehearsal for "Cooking With Gus", where I designed the set, painted the zany city-scape (painting over the barn) and also played Carmen. (see photos)View image
. I really enjoyed playing Carmen, a drunk gypsy who gets hypnotized into acting like a chicken and Zsa Zsa Gabor. She was like a little part of me that got to have the volume turned up a thousand times. After my first night jitters I was hooked. It was so much fun. Every performance it was my personal challenge to give them the wildest ride. The energy you get from the laughter and applause is addictive. I was told by so many people that I stole the show. Boy, that stuff can go to your head!
Last week I attended the gala opening of "Scent of Magnolia", which I merely contributed my sewing talents to by helping to create five evening gowns. Should I say I am consumed with theater or has theater consumed me? All I know is I love the theater. The whole experience of creating an ethereal art is both energizing and draining. And crazy. I think now that I would like to take acting lessons and perhaps set design classes, because I think I have found something I really am good at. What to do? We have a community college here in Corpus Christi that has a reputation for a good theater department. It is probably a dumb idea to pursue a career in acting at my age (55) and with my physicality, but what the hay....its fun to dream.
So finally I get a break, and I am taking a trip to Cleveland, March 1st to 22nd, to visit old friends and places, and to get some needed rest. I hope this "down time" will help me seek God's will for my life and decide what I want to do next. Ironically, I once thought that as I got older, that life would slow down and get easier, but it is just the opposite. Every day brings new opportunities and challenges. I have much yet to try and realize and experience, and I keep unearthing talents I didn't know I had. But the days seem to have less hours, and the calender pages fly off in a blur.
Love, Janis