148. IS THIS NORMAL?

also, director-playwright speed dating is back!

i could not figure out who drew this seal!

i was complaining about being in limbo yet again this week when my sweet boyfriend asked me whether there were other directors, maybe people one or two career steps ahead of me, who had gone through similar stages and might be able to tell me what to do next.

in other words: is this normal?

and the answer, as far as i can tell, is: yes.

the answer to the question he originally asked is a little more complicated. there are directors one or two steps ahead of me who i could text for some advice, who might even answer — but the theatrical landscape is shifting so rapidly that even directors a mere microgeneration above me relied on a landscape of opportunities that have largely vanished. the lark, lincoln center directors lab, space on ryder farm… the list goes on. and presumably, some of the opportunities that i’ve relied on will be gone by the time the next microgeneration reaches my position.

meanwhile, my mentors in middle age or above are a treasure trove of wisdom when it comes to the big picture, but they demur when it comes to offering advice on how to jump from producing on an equity showcase code to a mini contract. they’ve had producers and agents doing that part of the job for decades, and when they didn’t, you could still rent a studio in the east village for $300 a month. they had to draw their own maps, just like i’m drawing mine.

all this to say, there is no normal. there is no path. even if directors these days have more of a blueprint than the duke of saxe-meiningen did, we’re still making it up as we go along. some prestigious m.f.a. programs are going tuition-free while others go on hiatus or shutter entirely. new indie theater companies spring up and dry up. the new york times theater section is moving away from theater reviews (you read that right!) because “they don’t bring in clicks.” unpaid internships have blessedly been eradicated (for the most part), but not every theater that once hailed this unpaid labor as “the lifeblood of our institution” has invested in comparable paid fellowship opportunities.

but in the sense that there has never been a normal for someone trying to make a life in the theater, then maybe where i am is, paradoxically, totally normal after all. anyway, that’s what i’m going to tell myself for now.

reading.

act one by moss hart. i wish he were alive now so i could work with him and learn from him. (if i ever make a big blockbuster holiday movie, it will be about the making of my fair lady and moss hart will be the hero.) also: moss hart certainly took his share of hard knocks, and i wouldn’t pretend to envy the crushing penury his family endured through his early life. i will, though, confess to envying the fact that he lived during a time in which someone (albeit only white, able-bodied man) could get a job as a broadway office door simply by figuring out what floor to press in the elevator and announcing yourself as interested to a man behind a desk. it was, unsurprisingly, quite comforting this week to read of some of the miseries he endured — the brutal summers as a camp “social director,” the devastating failure of his first play out-of-town — and remember that a feeling of failure may be all but a prerequisite to graduate into a career as a successful theater director.

still working through directing new plays by evan cabnet. so good.

nick hornedo’s dual parody of death of a salesman and the music man.

11 whimsical habits to keep you from spiraling into the darkness.

this profile of abby stein, the trans rabbi at the center of new york theater workshop’s new play becoming eve.

this interview with tavi gevinson about fan fiction, the bonkers zine she wrote that is part taylor swift fan fic and part devastating cultural criticism. (i devoured the zine when it came out.)

seeing.

adolescence on netflix, on the recommendation of my uncle bart. it’s just as devastating as everyone is saying. it’s also incredibly well made. i actually could not believe that first episode was shot in real time in one take. so many locations, so many emotional breakdowns. and it just gets more intense. i read this interview with owen cooper and stephen graham, who play the accused teenage boy and his father, respectively, and loved the below peek into how tiny mistakes and quirks end up working their way into the show when you’re doing a one-shot.

amerikin by chisa hutchinson, directed by jade king carroll. saw this with my sister and had a really good discussion after. also, a really interesting pairing with adolescence re: white men getting radicalized.

on a totally different note, started watching community. good silly fun.

this tiktok impression of a high school theater director is extremely accurate.

my film photography obsession continues.

hearing.

making.

good apples collective is hosting our second round of director-playwright speed dating! if you’re a playwright looking to meet directors, or a director looking to meet playwrights, this is for YOU. honestly, this is one of my absolute favorite things we do as a company — the event itself is fun and chill, and i’ve been utterly blown away by how many partnerships have formed thanks to this little shindig. we’ve already got sixty signups (!) just two days after posting about it. please rsvp if you’re interested. we’d love to see you there!

finished editing the photos for mindplay and submitted them for posting. here’s one sneak peek.

took photos for theatre producers of color, a truly awesome organization i’ve done a couple shoots for over the past few years. this year, i’m shooting the producers’ final presentations, which are held in the gorgeous disney theatricals offices. i’ll have a second shoot with them in a few weeks.

had a knock-down, drag-out fight with photoshop over the poster for the next good apples show and eventually threw up my hands and asked the rest of the team if we could walk it back and find an artist willing to do some work with a very quick turnaround. feeling relieved to get some fresh eyes.

in the midst of our final auditions for that same show. we finally have a stage manager onboard, which is such a relief and joy. excited to be able to announce it all soon.