Exactly one week and we open. While I'm excited to perform and show the audience what we've created, I'm not sure I'm ready to let go and let this process be over. This process of creation. The building of lives and worlds and emotions. It's truly an amazing thing and one I'm clearly not able to eloquently express here in words. But come and see the show and you'll get a better idea. Come see the show and share in this creation first hand. Feel the fears, the hopes, the longings and yearnings and desires of these characters. I hope we will be able to show you the raw emotions that lurk in this play and affect its characters. I hope you'll be able to feel it and be touched by it as I am every time I step onstage.
You know, acting, theatre, it is such a strange and beautiful thing. When I unsuspectingly stumbled into a drama class at a summer camp in middle school, I was struck. Struck by the magic, and I vowed to learn as much as I possibly could about this art throughout my life. I'm pleased to say that my work with Tuttle and 11:11 thus far has taught me so much. I've learned about connection mostly. About that bond, that indescribable bond that we share as people--that unspoken, intuitive pulse that lives within and allows us to understand each other. We all, as human beings, share this bond and as long as our hearts are open to it, then we are able to connect. It is this connection that I'm learning to embrace as an actor so that I am able to create truly meaningful connections onstage.
What I didn't know when I made that vow to myself back in seventh grade, was that learning as much as I could about acting was not going to come from a textbook or a fancy degree. What it meant was studying and building those special connections with other people and actors. 11:11 has nurtured these kinds of relationships and compelled me to realize something very important. And that something is an affinity for humanity. I know that sounds really weird, but it's true. I've fallen in love with people--mankind in general. I've met so many interesting and different people, and I've learned something from each one of them. Studying, watching, and observing people is a fascinating thing and has helped me to become a better actor. Afterall, wasn't it Billy Shakespeare that said acting was to "hold as twere, the mirror up to nature"?!
I guess what I am trying to say here is that I am grateful for my experiences with everyone involved in this production in helping me to grow and to continue to foster my passion for performing. To the cast, the crew, everyone has touched that inner spirit, and yes connected so that life could be created onstage.
My hope for you the audience is that come to the theatre with that same openness in you heart so that you too can be moved by this world we've created. You won't regret it!