On the Stage

Am I absurd for loving theatre so much, or is it just that theatre is full of absurd people?

Today a co-worker was talking about a person they know that has a doctorate in virtual reality and is one of the foremost people working with virtual reality and it’s all happening right at Iowa State. While she was talking about that I started contemplating my hobbies, my loves, what is just in my head and what information keeps growing. And that is theatre. My co-worker was wondering how this person could keep so much in his head and know so much and that they just read all the time and absorb so much. I was wondering, why couldn’t I have chosen something different to absorb and read about and become a pseudo expert in?

The reason I wonder why I couldn’t have chosen something different is because then I maybe could have made a career out of it, a high paying, respected career out of it. Instead, here I am with all this love and devotion to theatre, all this knowledge that is, essentially, going to waste. It’s not going to waste because I know it, and it makes me happy, so what else does it need to do? Well…it needs to get me a job.

People choose to love computers, which I do, but it just doesn’t seem that I can grasp onto it like everyone else. They choose to love computers and then make lots of money out of what they love to do and love to know. They make lifetime careers out of it. Well, yes, it is possible to make a career out of everything I know and love, I suppose, but 1.) It’s not near as easy, 2.) I live in Iowa and am kind of attached to here at the moment and 3.) I think it has to do with what has gone on in my life thus far.

So, what does it come down to…is the way my life turned out to blame? If I wouldn’t have gotten married and had a kid would I have been doing something different? I tend to think so…but I don’t want to NOT have Veronica and Kaia, most certainly not, most certainly not at all. Things would have been different though.

If I could have done what I think I might have done, I would have dropped my Communications program and made my theatre minor into a major and pulled up vocal performance and made it a major as well. BUT…do I have the cajones to make it as a vocal performance major? Hell yeah I do…don’t have much doubt that I don’t at all…much…but come on, can’t I think that? Don’t I HAVE to think that if I ever planned on making it? People have always, and still do, tell me that I have a beautiful voice, and there is just something to it that makes it so spectacular and makes them want to listen. The only thing I need, and I still think this is true, is someone to guide me, someone to train me. I have the voice, and some of it is naturally there, but hell, everyone on Broadway is trained time and again and for years and years…train with me, I can be something great!!!! But, this is a bit off topic, and believe me, it will be covered some day in this here blog.

When it comes to straight knowledge of theatre, why can’t I make a living out of it? Why can’t I make hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars off of it? Because it’s the WRONG industry for that sort of thing, but it’s what I love to do and it’s not going to change…ever! All I simply want, ladies and gentlemen, is a job in the theatre industry. I can do financial planning for a theatre, I can do public relations, I can do planning and implementing of tours that come through, I can do anything for a theatre, as long as it doesn’t require bitch work, I want a real job thank you very much. But there’s people better qualified.

Where can I use my knowledge of theatre? Working for broadway.com or working for playbill the magazine, or playbill.com working for American Theatre (do you underline titles of magazines?) working for The Civic Center to promote the tours that come through, to figure out what the people want to see? To see what tours we can get in here that are hip and new…etc, etc.

Or how about I produce shows? YEAH RIGHT…I need to already have millions of dollars and be a big wig and what not…that’s out of it.

Does any of this make sense or am I really just scatterbrained? Well, I know I’m not scatterbrained, I just have so much to think about and so much to say, and so many points to refute before anyone can come back on me and say “well, this and this.”

Also, I write this throughout the day, so sometimes there's 2 hour breaks before I come back to it.

There is so much to say on this topic and the other’s I kind of half went off onto, but I’ll save that for another day :-)