Which Conversation?

Which conversation do you want to be part of?

I'm starting to think that's a pretty powerful question to ask yourself as a theater artist, because it shapes how you do everything else. The "why am I here" question...

In the beginning, the majority of my conversations were "how can we get noticed by these companies, and how can we get them to like us/want to work with us? how can we get agents?" Then: Which of these companies are ones I want to work with? Or: What companies within the city are doing work that interests me?

Local conversations. But then there are NATIONAL conversations about the state of the arts, politically, socially, in terms of how new work is cultivated, in terms of what the arts are or should be. There are the INTERNATIONAL conversations, where American or Western assumptions about arts are affirmed or upended. There are conversations that bridge the artistic and the political (Erik Ehn/Rwanda work), conversations that are about the arts and the kind of people they create (Clowning)...

There are the conversations about the cutting edge of the arts, there are the conversations that happen at new play festivals, in the pages of the New Yorker and the New York Times, on blogs like this one, there are the nuts-and-bolts conversations over cups of coffee about how to make one single play or scene its absolute strongest. There are post-show bitch sessions about why a show didn't work.

All this to say: I don't have to choose ONE conversation...I can be a part of many at once...but the kind of artist I am will be shaped by the conversations I have, and they, too, should be thoughtful, wide-reaching, attentive to detail... and I should be mindful that those other conversations are happening around me, whether or not I choose to participate in them.