I’ve been struggling with how and where to start this story. The big problem is that it’s unfinished. At this point, it could be a tale of an epic struggle of overcoming adversity to succeed in a glorious fashion. It could also be the story of how inspiration and hard work are sometimes no match for an army of minute problems, all glomming together to gum up the works and ultimately drown a dream. It could even be the story of a learning process that results in a serviceable, but mediocre product. In fact, if I had to put money on one of those as the most realistic outcome, the latter is most likely, which is kind of a bummer when it’s spelled out like that.
The other issue has been that so much has already happened. Every time I sit down to write the details of our journey so far and I don’t finish? Twelve more things happen and I’m in a totally different mindset from the last attempt to summarize. The point is: I just need to begin here. Finished is better than perfect, is a thing I tell my husband regularly. He is a perfectionist, and has trouble committing to the end of a project, because nothing is ever “perfect”. The end inherently means failure. I, too, need that reminder. Finished is better than perfect. And committing to a start, knowing it may result in a failure is better than just wishing and dreaming about a mythical, perfect, end result.
You: Ok, ok, So what’s the story about?
Right, let’s get to it. The story is about A Show.
(I wrote that sentence without the initial cap on A Show, and it just felt… kind of anticlimactic. A little sad horn, almost. Definitely not important enough. But then I tried it in all caps: A SHOW. But no… that’s too shouty. A little much. A Show is where we’re at.)
The specific subject matter of this blog is how we produced a family friendly, cirque-style show, in real time. OR how we tried and failed to make A Show. It could definitely go either way at this point. It’s also, though, more generally, about how art is made. How, and even why, a project goes from a little seed of inspiration, and drive to create, in a person or group of people, to a fully formed work delivered to an audience.
So that’s what you’re here to witness, friends. This is the good and the bad, the pretty and the dirty, the money and the creative, the art and the commerce, of how art goes from concept to audience. And if you know me, you trust you’ll get the honest, possibly overshare version. Sorry in advance. Ish.
We’ll get to more nuts and bolts in the next post, but until then, a nugget of inspiration:
