I finished a big project today – a draft of various lists of projects I am and am not interested in taking on, for another grant, this one multi-year. I called it “Planet Admin” and “Planet Art,” and there was a sub-list called “Forbidden Planet” of things I no longer want to keep doing in the theater world.

It was actually a lot of fun to write, as testimony to the weirdness of the last two years – from the Open Fist to the Matrix to NOTE to the Met to the many lives and theatres of Bill. It included things like:

“- Cleaning the premises of the theater in any way, or killing rodents or insects which have infested the theater, or dealing with fire or health inspectors.
-Organizing other people’s files, throwing out other people’s trash.
– Reminding people about phone calls, appointments, etc.
– Laundry or dry-cleaning.
-Cooking, bartending, food or alcohol preparation, serving, transportation or storage.
-Building management, facilities operation (lightbulbs, carpets, toilets)”

What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever done for your “art”? Have you distributed buckets around the floor of an ancient shell of a vaudeville stage, to catch the water during the show?

Have you used a ShopVac to suction water, standing a foot deep, from the floor of the women’s restroom, and pumped it back outside – even as rain was coming in through giant holes in the wall?

If not, why not? 🙂 And would you do it again?

But the Planet Art list was a lot of fun to write. It’s good to be clear that I want to be moving forward on directing one show a year, writing one play a year, going abroad, and doing chorus workshops.

I think I should remind myself that I have already achieved all those goals for this year, and if I do nothing more for the rest of 2007, I will have already done more than enough. How about directing one show, assisting on five, (MWB, RnJ, T, GB, L) and traveling throughout the US? And teaching more darn chorus workshops than I ever have, before, in one year? The style in which I live my life is a style of overwork.

Tasks for the rest of the day include adapting the right page from Flatland and getting back to Ellen with a poem. If I can do those things, I think I can spend tomorrow watching movies.

It’ll be nice to have a few days in Portland. I leave on Tuesday, after another understudy rehearsal with Joan.