Salome

I'm thinking about assistant directing Salome with Rafael. He's putting a cast and elements of an all male version of the show together. He wants to be in it and asked me to consider assistant directing it, especially to make sure his stuff is consistent with the rest of the show.

I have directed before. I've directed a couple of one acts and two full length productions. The shows turned out well. During the last show I directed, the guy playing the lead struggled with paranoia (I didn't know that when I cast him) and nearing the end of the rehearsal period he flew off the handle about a change to an entrance that I had made with another actor at the top of the show because he thought I was trying to screw him up. He walked off stage. I had to fight the urge to tell him to not come back. NOBODY is indispensable in a production. In the end he was not a good choice for me to have made. He did his best stuff in the audition room and after that became somewhat undirectable. And I'm not good at getting people to do what I want them to do if they don't want to do it. That is a skill I never learned.

That was the last time I directed. I found the experience exasperating. One of the other directors in the company told me that directing any artistic endeavor is 95% people management and only 5% art. I took those words to heart and never went there again. It feels like too much brain damage for me and my temperamental self.

Rafael seems to have some good ideas for Salome though. And the majority of the effort would be on him. So it might be a good way back into directing. It's something I've thought about trying again. It's been a long time and I'm a long way from that theater in Boulder. A lot has changed since then, Plus, in an all male version, I'd get to see some pretty, young boy doing the Dance of the Seven Veils. I'm KIDDING! I'm all about the ART. Really.

We'll see if it all even goes down. There's so much to getting a show together and if the stars don't align then they just don't happen. Ultimately I think it's been good to think along these lines again. So much of making this career happen is creating my own destiny and that's probably going to involve some direction at some point. So it's good for me, right? We'll see.