Learning from Loki

I have finally completed, through sporadic spouts of dedication, backlogging my performances and appearances over at Loki's Apiary. As I look back on this not-quite-yet-a-year, I feel I can say with some certainty that this will go down in my career history as the Year of the Reading. I mean: dag. Look at all of these! I'm even missing one I had to back out of. Odds are that I'll participate in one or two more, before the year is out. As someone might put it: WHAT is the DEAL with the READINGS?

Another thing that has made a distinct impression upon me is how few actual full productions I've acted in this year. In truth, I count the number as zed. I mean, I'm currently, technically, understudying La Vigilia, and I did The Women's Project's Corporate Carnival in the spring, but LV hasn't needed me, as it turns out, and CC was something I entered about midway through their process, and never quite felt like a full partner in, not to mention the fact that it wasn't a play, per se. (On the bright side, I think I gave Faulkner a run for his money with ten commas in that sentence [Not really. {At all...}].) And so, I count myself as not yet having been in a full-length production in 2008. Further, I probably won't be. I mean, I don't want to be overly pessimistic -- not overly -- but I'm spending the next couple of months gearing up for The Big Show (which, sorry, doesn't count on this scoreboard). And thereafter, well, the holidays are an awful time to get a show, much less rehearse one. So . . .

That's not good! I mean, on the other hand (four fingers and a thumb):

1. It has otherwise been an awfully busy year, professionally and personally.


2. A lot of the work I have done on stage has been with and for young, promising playwrights, which is sort of the best sort of work one can invest in one's future with.


3. I have written quite a lot this year, and even completed some of it.


4. I signed to freelance with a management agency, and have gotten work through them.


5. I did collaborate to create an original show this year, and began collaboration on an all-new one.

So, really, nothing to be ashamed of in terms of this year's work. Year 2007 was all about the large projects, with Prohibitive Standards, As Far As We Know and A Lie of the Mind, not to mention trips to both California and Italy, so it's not like my resume feels wounded. Still, it is irksome. I am irked by it. I think it's because I rather rate my worth as an actor not on what I've done, but what I'm doing. Which, you know, has a certain integrity to it, but also a certain dose of unbridled masochism. Hence my love of being completely overwhelmed by a barrage of projects at all times. It's funny (ha ha). When I attended All the Rage the other week, I ran into a friend with whom I performed in A Lie of the Mind, and we got to chatting about what we'd been up to of late. I volunteered that I really hadn't been doing much of anything, and she remarked, in sum of substance, "What? That's not true. I feel like I just got two emails in a row from you advertising performances." I realized she was right. I had been busy this summer. I forgot, because the shows were readings, benefits, short plays, etc.

Friend Patrick commented on my first entry about the new site (see 9/4/08) that perhaps making Loki the namesake of my fledgling 'blog was inviting trouble. He is, after all, most famous for spreading chaos, benevolently or no. It could lend new meaning to the term "easy come, easy go." It gave me pause. [Hold for pause...] I'm sticking with the name for now, however. Maybe it's my impatience for another full-length show, soon, but I feel that maybe a little stirring of the pot might just do me good.

A little, mind you, Loki.