A while back, in the middle of hell-week for two plays, someone asked me, "What would you do, if you didn't do all these plays?" I thought about it for a second and then said, I'd probably start a theatre. Then they asked me why, and how long can I do this? That stopped me.. really puzzled me. It was hard to answer that. I remember saying: I can't imagine not doing it. That is so entire who I am. I don't know how to give this up or why I would want to.
I think people have the wrong idea of theatre. Some people that I talk to only think of Broadway productions as what theater is. Some people venture Off-Broadway. Some people think of it an an event to be witnessed occasionally, and some think of it as some stuffy evening of "culture". I think they have it all wrong. For me, theater is a riot of ideas and personalities, and senses of humor, both living and dead. It's a lively discussion at a dinner party, where you can't take your eyes and ears off the conversation. Once I understood this, I couldn't get enough of it.
We've done over 60 plays since 2007. I don't think I'll ever be able to stop making theater. Each year we do at least three and sometimes four new, original plays written by our members and students.
Recently, one young theater student proudly told me that theater began with the Ancient Greeks. It began long before that, long before the religious festivals and spectacles of Messipotamia. It began around the earliest camp fires of man, when they sat an told stories either of the gods or their culture, or their day. And those fires attracted animals to gather in the darkness and watch and listen. We are animals drawn out of the woods to the fire by the fire and the sound of voices. We are sophisticated beings attracted to light and gossip.