Zen and the Cardboard Dollhouse

Every--and I mean EVERY--time I talk to people about this theater group, I get excited all over again. Messy 'day' stuff falls away and I go into this Zen-like state where all is good and right with the world.

It reminds me of when I was in middle school and my sister and I built our own dollhouse out of a cardboard box. It took weeks and we had no budget, so we spent a lot of time problem-solving about what we wanted to make for the house. Buttons became dishes. Tiny, stamp-sized pictures from National Geo. became pictures on the wall. We crocheted yarn bits into rugs. I even made an itty-bitty toothpaste out of tin foil. Why did we do this? It was challenging--it cost nothing--we were collaborating, each using our strengths--and we had this beautiful (albeit simple) thing when we were done. But we were never truly done. We raced home from school to work on it--building, rearranging, adding a bead here, a piece of string there--and we loved it.

That Christmas I received a pre-fab dollhouse kit because someone mistakenly thought that I would be happier with a 'real' dollhouse--stairs, shutters, little wooden roof tiles--but I wasn't. It was the cardboard I loved, and the collaboration with my little sister. And the problems that were fun to solve--every day.

And that's how I feel about S.A.L.T.--like these are the problems I crave solving. I feel prepared to do it--I want to work on it--live theater has always been some of the best work I have ever done. I want to keep doing it--just like the cardboard dollhouse.

-clg

Heading Towards Collaboration...

Today I sat down with Monti (Geoff) and talked about theater...what we have done, what we believe in, and what we need to do. We talked a little about next steps; thus, this blog.
Stay with us...
clg

Stage. Actors. Live Theater...