First big snowstorm!

Nice!

Today:
Wrapping up some Christmas shopping
Some regular grocery shopping
Cleaning the basement and arranging it for the 14 people who will be here for Christmas Eve dinner
Going over our top-secret recipes for Christmas Eve dinner!
Keeping the kids out of the house for a few hours so Jeanne can accomplish a few things
(This last one will be accomplished with help from ASTROBOY, now showing at the dollar movies!)

So, lots of family time AND errand-accomplishing.
A good day!

(Of course, most of this post was just an excuse to use my new Kermit icon!)
🙂

Wil Wheaton talks about getting excited and making things

Warren Ellis encourages people to get excited and make things!

Great talk this morning with another guy who runs a theatre in the area. It can be really refreshing and inspiring to trade thoughts and stories with peers that you don’t get to talk with often enough.

Very full houses all this weekend for the final performances of This Wonderful Life! A few tickets left, and it’s looking like we’ll sell those – yay!

The workshop we just had for the next play I’m directing, It Came From Mars, was a ton of fun. I’m directing the show at the Performance Network Theatre in Ann Arbor, and after a run there it’ll move to the Williamston Theatre where we’ll run it for a short 3 weeks of performances. The show is very funny, and I can’t wait to get started on it with the cast, production team and playwright!

Tonight when I got home I went in and kissed the kids, who were already fast asleep. As I re-tucked her blankets and kissed her forehead, Maggie opened her eyes sleepily and said “Thanks, Daddy.” I asked “What for?” and she closed her eyes, said “For loving me”, and went back to sleep. I love being a dad. 🙂

I found it very interesting that this week the subject of “How and Why we do theatre, and why we do the types of theatre we do” came up in completely different circles three or four times. Not just in passing references, either, but in lengthy conversations and exchanges (some more than others, but still…) I’m not sure what the universe is trying to tell me, but it’s gotten me thinking now, anyway! 🙂

Now, time for bed…where I will do some reading and probably be up for another hour!

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law live in Taiwan, and when I saw this neat link I couldn’t help but think of them:
Family Portraits of all 56 Ethnic groups in China

Hey Designers: Check out the coolest staircases ever!

This scene from Conan O’Brien is absolutely fabulous. If you don’t go to any other links this week, go to this one!:
William Shatner reads from Sarah Palin’s new book “Going Rogue”, and Sarah Palin reads from HIS autobiography!

I blogged about the novel “The Road” when I’d finished reading it, way back here.

Last night I went to see the film, which is hard to find in Michigan – right now it’s only in a couple of theatres. Fortunately, one was only an hour away.

I loved it. It was just so, so good. Beautiful, heartbreaking, devastating and yet hopeful. This is a film about hope, and fear, and love and perseverance, and the performances are just incredible.

Is the book better? Probably, because in my head books usually are. But as a huge fan of the book, I’m now also a huge fan of the film. It’s so well done, the story so well told, it left everyone in the theatre sitting, recovering, unable to leave when the credits rolled.

It’s a hard movie to watch: the subject is so dark, the struggles are so intense. The execution of the filmmakers and cast is so strong, however, that you can’t look away – and you can’t help but put yourself in the character’s shoes. And you can’t help but leave the theatre heartbroken, but inspired, and wondering why we sometimes forget that, when it comes down to it, all we really have is our love for one another.

After a long drive home, hampered by snow and wind, I was really thankful to be able to go in and hug my sleeping family.

Once in awhile, there’s stuff that makes me say, That’s what theatre’s about. It has to be a human event on the stage, and that doesn’t happen very often.
Uta Hagen

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
Oscar Wilde

I hate that people think going to the theatre is a special occasion. I wish people would treat it as normally as going to the cinema.
Brenda Blethyn

Ahhh yes. The protest. It’s a wonderful thing.

Left wing, right wing, or…middle-wing… there’s some hilarious stuff to be found here!! Hilarious, and horrifying… but hilarious.

The Best Protest Signs of 2009!

Tonight I House Managed at the Williamston Theatre.

I got hugged by 3 people.

All were after the show. One was from a man I know loosely, who was clearly moved by the show, so the hug was unexpected but not at all unwelcome. The second was from a woman I’d never met, and she very cheerfully said “Thanks so much! This was wonderful, we’ll be back!”

But the third hug…

Officially I’m the Artistic Director, but the staff takes turns house managing. Partly it’s because we’re a small company, and we don’t have the money to have a full-time House Manager. Partly it’s because we like being connected to the audience in that way – there are 4 of us who founded the place, and we like being there with the audience, to meet them and get to know who the folks are that are actually paying money and taking time out of their lives to spend with us in our space.

Tonight we had a nice audience at the theatre, for our production of This Wonderful Life. They were very into the story, and afterwards they gave John a standing ovation and clapped for a very long time before letting him make his “curtain call speech” asking them to donate money for Equity Fights Aids.

As they filed out of the theatre, many of them were fishing money out of their pockets to put in the donation bowl. Many were smiling and hugging, and many were clearly emotional from the show, and were dabbing their eyes as they walked.

One man, an older gentleman by himself, was wiping tears from his eyes as he approached. He opened his wallet to drop some bills into the collection bowl, and then walked past me, headed for the exit. He stopped after a few steps, turned back around, hugged me tightly with one arm and said to me with a whispered, shaky voice: “Please tell him thank you for me. That was… that inspired me to finish a Christmas letter that I should’ve finished a long time ago.”

He pulled back, and we looked at each other for a second.

“I’ll tell him. Thank you. I’m really glad you came.”

He nodded, and turned, and shuffled away.

Tonight I was reminded why we do what we do.

No one can tell me it doesn’t make a difference in the world.

No one.

Tonight, I got hugged by 3 people.

‘

“The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.”
-Albert Einstein

“By doubting we come at truth.”
-Marcus Tullius Cicero

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
-Galileo Galilei