Direction

Years ago, in another life, I was an actress.  A high school theatre geek, a college actor, a woman of the stage, and I wasn't bad.  I played some great roles and felt strong on stage, certain that I could deliver a performance that would move someone, and isn't that all any of us want to do?  Put something in the world that will be well received, lauded, celebrated, praised?

Of all the parts I played, Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors was probably the most fun.  So many of my then friends were in that little crackerbox of a show in the teeny tiny blackbox theatre of Hashinger Hall.  I had a beehive, four inch heels, and one night I skidded across the stage and pulled a set wall down at the end of an act as I tried to keep from falling down.

But the role that challenged me most, bar none, was Meg in Crimes of the Heart.  Not only was I terrified to do it--it was a big part and I felt like I knew that character so well, I wasn't scared of failing so much as I was afraid I wouldn't be good enough to do her justice--but the director was also a man for whom I had (still have) so much respect, I can only imagine it must be what working with DeNiro is like.

Greg wasn't just smart, talented, soulful, kind, funny--he was also my savior while I was in college.  I was barely a non-traditional student, just two or three years older than my classmates, but damn if I didn't feel like I was living in another world.  I'd attend classes and then sneak into his office and sit with him, laughing and talking and exchanging ideas, this man who was my mother's age though I never saw him like that made me feel like a full grown adult woman capable of making astute observations about the world.  And he took me seriously.  Not in that buttoned down, let's all have a cup of tea sort of a way but in that way that let's you know someone sees exactly who you are and completely digs you for it.

I've been thinking about Greg a lot lately, about the gift he gave me by casting me as Meg, and about all the other ways he helped me see myself in a whole new way.  I'd returned to the small town where I went to high school and felt a little ashamed of that, I was in the same graduating class as my brother--this year marks our ten year college reunion (something only a school as small as ours would have)--and it felt a little degrading to be back where I'd started.  But Greg gave me something better than direction on stage, he gave me direction in my life.  He appreciated my early writing, encouraged me, and saw a spark in me that I wasn't really sure was anything more than a little psychological aurora borealis, my light just a phantom of the other lights that had come before me.

Today, I finished staging the show I'm directing this fall, and I got so excited about the way that final moment is going to look, about the way those kids are going to make an audience feel, and about the way I--hopefully--am going to be able to make those kids feel about themselves: strong, seen, capable.

Much as I loved being actress, nothing has ever felt as good as giving--and taking--direction.