Two Shows - One Weekend

The impossible is now happening - I'm IN two shows in one weekend. This is a first. In addition to which, I am also simultaneously learning Bach and my part in Oklahoma in addition to playing in the pit (bell girl here) for Good News. Oh, and in the meantime I have to be an even dealer with the people around me.

Still, all in all, think about the excitement that brings into my life. Today, for example, I went to church at 9, sang in the choir for 1 1/2 services, went to Severn - worked from 12:30 - 2:30, took a dinner break, back at 4 and worked until 7:30, then home for a phone meeting with the stage director for Oklahoma. Tomorrow I have to copy 178 pages of score, get it bound, and back to Severn by a 2:00 o'clock downbeat, make a run chart for backstage at Maryland Hall, go to a rehearsal for Bach at 7 and then get home by 11.

I do what I do because it is FUN....as I define it. I love being involved with performing in whatever capacity I am in the performance. You see, it really isn't about me. I cannot deny that I get a kick out of it - no one does anything too long if it is painful - and to that end it does gratify me. However, it really is about creating something to give.

I don't have a lot of worldly possessions. What I have to give is my time, talent, and energy - and my brain I suppose. People keep telling me I've got one :) Sometimes I wish I hadn't listened to people who told me that performing would never make money. I let people tell me how talented I was when I was young - and I believed them. I was rejected for my college concert choir. I wasn't good enough. I would lay even odds that I'm performing more now than most of them. You cannot deny yourself your dream. I preach that to my kids.

I give what I have. I honestly don't know why people ask me to do what I do. I'm not just saying that. I don't know why they trust me. It even scares me when they think I can do a job that they ask me to do in the theater. Everything I've learned I've learned on the job - never took a course - never really became a professional performer/musician.

Here's what I do know. God, in His infinite mercy, gave me some talents to which I owe full effort. I owe effort and I owe fidelity. Fidelity to the highest level of professionalism that I can bring to that effort.

It isn't always easy. .okay, it's never easy. My nature is disinclined to be patient (for a teacher that is huge) and my nature is disinclined to suffer fools lightly. My nature is to have all my ducks in a row, make lists, have everything happen in MY time. What I've learned from performing is really, "to everything their is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven".

Let us rejoice in the complications that come our way. Oh, and take it from one who knows, when you are praying, never, I repeat, never ask God for Patience or Wisdom. Duck and cover when you do