Creativity Comes in Many Forms
The Write Pair is on a roll
After a brief hiatus, Joh and I braved a rainy Tuesday afternoon and are finally back at our regular table at Main Street Coffee, picking up where we left off before chaos took over our lives. Not the bad kind -- more like we got caught up in a whirlwind of creative ventures that swirled and swooped us along from one overlapping art form to another with barely time to breathe in between. And, personally, I wouldn't want it any other way.
Joh and I just finished our run of performances for Ardmore Little Theatre's production of M*A*S*H, the last show in our local community theater's 70th season with the largest audience attendance of any non-musical in more than a decade. Joh was our illustrious director, tasked with wrangling a herd of chaotic thespians of all ages and levels of acting experience. I had the pleasure of performing as one of The Bonwit Sisters, and if you don't know who they are, you're missing out. Dubbed "The Nitwits" by a disgruntled group of Army nurses, Mitzi, Fritzi, and Agnes (me), are the ditziest special forces performers who bring a bright spot into the dreary Army camp. My absence of dancing skills won rave reviews!
During M*A*S*H, Joh and I also led a workshop on all aspects of theater for a group of young professionals in Leadership Ardmore, giving them a tour of the shop and stage areas and conducting acting exercises, while our tech expert Rob Newell gave a lesson on how stage lighting can enhance a production and elicit emotional responses in audience members who watch the productions.
I joined my friend, L.T., and several other ALT cohorts at The Goddard Center to participate in a "Chalk the Walk" event, decorating the sidewalks in front of the performing arts center that houses our theater. And somewhere in between all of that, I also acted in a murder mystery dinner theater production of "I Love You to Death" for Spotlight Playhouse.
As always, Joh and I have been busy leading our Second Saturday Scribes writers group, where we all tackled different aspects of the subjects of "Time" for short stories/poems/essays, and we watched the latest version of "Impa Shulup," a short film written and directed by one of our members, in which several of us acted and others did the filming and editing. This week, we will all create stories based on the theme of "The Unexpected Turn of Events." Starting tomorrow, I will rejoin our cast of Shakespeare in the Park actors in rehearsals for the upcoming production of "Twelfth Night." And, as I'm writing here, Joh has already started revisions of our novel "Grace and Grit" before we send it off to the agents we pitched to last month in Oklahoma City.
I am reveling in the whirlwind and welcome every new project that comes our way. The Write Pair certainly has The Write Stuff when it comes to creative endeavors. Stay tuned for more.