Hi.

I’m Andie Arthur.

Well. I’m not actually Andie Arthur. I’m actually (Actor Name). But tonight I’m reading a letter penned by Andie. As a playwright, Andie is very used to actors presenting thinly veiled versions of herself, normally with other names — such as Louisa, Abigail, Eleanor, Mary, and Death. Yes, most of her plays live in the weird space between Charlotte Bronte and Terry Pratchett.

I’m Andie Arthur and exactly 11 days from now, I’ll be turning 33.

And tonight — I present a love letter from my 32 year old self to the 33 year old self that I’ll be meeting in eleven days.

Dear 33 Year Old Self,

You have made it to the Jesus year. Congratulations.

For those of you who don’t know, the Jesus year means you’re the same age as Jesus when he was crucified. I didn’t know this until I was 22, as I’m a Unitarian Universalist and we only mention Jesus in Church on Christmas and Easter, and even then, only under great duress.

By the time he was 33, Jesus had done most of his major work and was ready to be crucified. At the same age, Alexander Hamilton had written most of the Federalist Papers, and Lin-Manuel Miranda had written most of Hamilton. I hope this doesn’t make you feel too inadequate.

As Dad would say, you just need to write more.

As Lin-Manuel Miranda would say, “Why don’t you write like you’re running out of time?”

It’s a good question.

I know that you feel woefully inadequate most of the time. As a person, you’ve settled into a uncomfortable spinsterhood without ever having had the experience of being in requited love. As a writer — you aren’t nearly as accomplished as many of your classmates from school. As a theatre administrator — you’ve been working with the same organization for almost a decade and it still hasn’t substantially grown its budget. And your theatre company took three years to get to it’s first production — and even that hasn’t happened yet. For someone who expected to be well-established by now, it’s a little disheartening. Specifically as you’re aging out of young adulthood into the weird space known as not-quite middle-aged.

I know that you’ve spent a lot of time holding yourself back due to fear. Fear of being wrong. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of not being loveable. I’d like to remind you of something you might have forgotten.

Sixth grade was miserable. As it is for everyone. You felt like you needed to fit in, but you were taller than EVERYONE else, including all of the boys. You had your first experiences of periods and pimples — both of which haunt you to this day. (By the way, Dermatologists — you were really, really wrong. I’m 32 and I still deal with period related breakouts.) Your friends from elementary school seemed to completely turn on you. No matter what you did, you never, ever felt like you would fit in. It was the typical horror show of middle school, but you didn’t know how to deal with it.

The summer between sixth and seventh grade, you made a choice. You decided that you would be the weirdest kid in the school. Actively. Unabashed. Without compromise.

And you were.

In your musical theatre sweatshirts that you wore with leggings — you leaped at the chance to play Christopher Columbus in your school’s mock trial that put him on trial for crimes against humanity. You specifically went out of your way to alienate your Republican classmates by being an active supporter of Bill Clinton. You sang show tunes in the hallways and overacted in readings of plays in class. You created an entire fake radio show about Greek mythology. You read Les Miserables. All of it. Even the Waterloo Chapters. For one year, you were intentionally and completely fearless.

And instead of being bullied or diminished, everyone played along. Yes, Andie was a weirdo. But she was the cool weirdo. Like Gonzo the Great, your favorite Muppet, you were you — passionate about very specific niche things, but also optimistic and hard working and awesome.

Sometime between then and now, the world has worn you down. The pressures of a career in the arts and the various dreams created and broken take their toil. You aren’t the musical theatre Broadway star you had hoped to be. You still haven’t managed to have a crush on someone who isn’t desperately intimidated by you. And a large part of you feels the pressure to be cynical and taper your natural enthusiasm, because it isn’t professional.

No more.

Because I know you can be Alexander Hamilton and Lin-Manuel Miranda, if not Jesus.

Because seventh grade you was a boundless enthusiast. Seventh grade you was unafraid of tackling massive tomes of French literature. Seventh grade you was excited to play the villain of the story. Seventh grade you was unafraid to go on and on and on about things. Seventh grade you was the version of you that you love best about yourself — optimistic, cheerful, excited about very obscure things and willing to take on impossible tasks.

I know that you’re both completely in awe of Lin-Manuel Miranda and kinda want to be him when you grow up. Because while you couldn’t have written a hip hop musical about Alexander Hamilton, it’s pretty much exactly in your wheelhouse of things you get excited about — American history, social justice, and musical theatre. But in the eyes of seventh grade you — you’re already a grown up — so don’t throw away your shot.

Be an awesome, kick-ass playwright now. Create the theatre you want to see. Create the world you want to see. Because the world needs that kind of boundless enthusiastic energy. Embrace your inner seventh grade self and go out and be the weirdest person you can be. Because really, was seventh grade you all that weird? No. She was, however, that great.

Sincerely,

32 Year You.

It’s an exciting event and I’m happy to be a part of it. Serious props to Jannelys Santos for putting it all together.

It has been a tremendous exercise in rewriting on a small scale.

My first draft was a half-finished snarky rant on how I managed to love myself despite all the various patriarchal messages telling me otherwise. It specifically focused a lot on how I really fail at dating and a hyper-femininity.

I got about half-way through and thought, well, this is funny. But it’s far too… mundane. And kinda overdone. Why should everything be related to the traditional coupling story?

The second version was a lot less funny and a lot more heartfelt. I stopped the the first draft of that version when I reached a point where I was crying because I tapped into memories of the last time I was suicidal and spending time in my therapist’s office openly admitting that my greatest fear in life is that I’m completely unlovable.

That was a pretty emotionally raw, truthful piece, but it wasn’t funny and it was much harder to get back around to the place where the letter was a love-letter to myself.

I decided to start over.

The third version had a little bit of the first and second versions in it, but it came from a place where I acknowledged my deep seated fears about being alone and unlovable from a stand-up comedian type perspective. It was pretty raw, but I liked what I had.

Then I found out that I wasn’t reading my own piece and I changed my mind about that version. It isn’t that it wasn’t good, but if I am going to do the stand-up comedy send up of my deepest fears, I feel like I should be the comedian. As a playwright, I’m really used to others saying my words, but since there’s no cover here — no pretense of this being about some fictional person of my imagination — I wanted to start over.

I started over. Again.

I started over a few more times. Until I got the version that is going to be read tonight. It’s less funny than some of the earlier versions, but it has a sweet message — and of all of them, I think it does what it’s supposed to be doing the most. It’s flat out a loveletter to myself. It’s not perfect, but I was able to get it to Jannelys yesterday so that she could get it to the actor who will read it.

After tonight’s event is over, I’ll post it here.

I mention all of this because I have been spending a lot of time with newer playwrights. Both my students and friends who are embarking on writing plays for the first time. In almost every single case, there’s a great desire to have it be perfect the first time out. But the truth is — it’s never perfect the first time out. There were a lot of good ideas in my earlier drafts of this love letter to myself, but they weren’t the best ideas for the event that was going to happen.  I wouldn’t have been able to get to that place without those other half-finished drafts that went off in different directions.

It’s pretty consistent that some of the best work my students do happens when they let go of the expectation of what the play should be and just write a thing. Sometimes that happens because I give them impossible challenges. Sometimes that happens because the flow hits. Sometimes that happens for inexplicable reasons. I know it’s true for me as well, and I also know that letting go is one of the things I struggle most with.  They don’t want to have to turn in three drafts of their short plays because they don’t see the point. However, the ones who commit to the rewrites are always so pleasantly surprised by what happens.

As far as my loveletter to myself, it’s been a fun rewriting process. I look forward to hearing it tonight.

April 5, 2011

I’ve been debating writing this post. The blog, which I haven’t updated in six months, could have languished longer. Forever, possibly, while I continued on as an arts advocate/admin blogger at 2amtheatre.

Except my inner child isn’t allowing it.

My inner child, or more accurately, my inner 20 year old is bursting from the seams with glee right now.

Because The House Theatre of Chicago will be opening The Sparrow this weekend at the Adrienne Arsht Center.

Now, respectable 28 year old me is an executive director, prominent in the national conversation on 2amt, has sat on a board of directors, known for throwing some great parties (or as Chris Jahn put it, in loving sarcasm parties that don’t suck), and is currently plotting how she can best help her organization and her theatre community grow.

This me, 28 year old respectable me, is a little scared about outing herself as a fangirl. But 20 year old me, full of nostalgia and glee, is winning out.

I was in my second freshman year at DePaul University (as a transfer student I always felt I had two freshman years) when my friend Jenny took me to see The Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan. At this point, near the end of my first quarter, I was in middle of a crisis of calling. Was this occupation that I had chosen for myself really where my gifts and joy lie? Did I really want to be doing this for the rest of my life? Should I chuck everything and write children’s novels?

In that time of crisis, Jenny took me out in the Chicago sleet to go see The Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan.

She was bursting with love for the show and had seen it a few times before, dragging new friends each time. She told me that I should wear something comfortable because we were going to be sitting on cushions on the floor. It was a cold night as we trekked out to the Viaduct and I wondered if I really wanted to sit on a cushion on the floor that would invariably end up wet by my soggy, sleet soaked self.

I entered a grump; I came out elated and full of purpose.

I said on my livejournal (remember livejournal?) that it was the best thing that had happened to me that month. In retrospect, it was one of my favorite theatre going experiences. Right up there with the production of My Fair Lady which got me into this profession. Was it a perfect show? No. But it was inventive, funny, delightful, and allowed me to think about theatre in a way that I had never thought about theatre before. Why not have an entire cast become a giant crocodile through the inventive use of fabric and puppet jaws? Why not use magic, dance, music? Why not delight your audience?

It was the first time I had ever conceived a theatre of joy. Not a theatre of light entertainment, but of joy. Deep, resonant joy.

My admiration deepened the following year, when Chris Jones brought Nathan Allen to our theatre criticism class. Nate invited the class to attend a reading of San Valentino and the Melancholy Kid. I’m fairly certain I was the only one who showed up. The company read the script and then there was an hour or so long discussion after on how to improve the script. (I remember I commented on the two-dimensional nature of the female lead.) While I felt the script was flawed; I loved their approach to the reading. Improving the script was a communal process. It was a room without ego, with everyone working together towards the common goal of making the best script they could have. I documented that experience again in livejournal, saying that I wanted to be the House Theatre when I grew up.

I continued on as fangirl throughout my time at DePaul, often seeing shows twice, if I could manage it. Even when they were less than great, I was always excited to get my trading card and absorb the experience. (Instead of programs and tickets, they have trading cards. The idea is for people in the audience to discuss who they have and share their cards before the show starts. It’s a brilliant little bit of institutional marketing that I reference when I discuss marketing in a professional setting.)

And when they were at their best, they soared. I still remember the hair rising on the back of my neck from the final image of The Boy Detective Fails.

I moved to South Florida a year after I graduated in 2006. I have found the South Florida Theatre community to be loving, giving, contrary, and full of really great things. But while I love the new work and family atmosphere of Florida Stage and the edgy fun of a MadCat Show or the immersion of a Naked Stage show, I haven’t found an experience to equal what I loved about the House Theatre. Where there is a embrace of all the assets of theatricality. That dance, music, film, magic can all be a part of a greater, mythic narrative.

I really agree with what Bill Hirschman said last night at the Carbonells that the South Florida Theatre Community takes a backseat to no one — but I think we can expand even more by engaging with the vision of others. I want a more artistically diverse South Florida Theatre Community. We have our own takes on Steppenwolf and Victory Gardens — I want a local House. A local Neo-Futurists. A local Lookingglass. Or something that is completely different and doesn’t have a Chicago equivalent. I think the best way to do that is to broaden our horizons, and that’s why I’m encouraging everyone I know to see The Sparrow.

I want everyone I love here to have the opportunity to be 20 year old me. Full of rapture and delight. I want more theatre of joy, more theatre that embraces the idea that more is more. We have plenty of understated, traditional realistic theatre — let us see what happens when we play freely with the primary colors of childhood. What beauty and depth lurks there. As Chris Mathews says in the Miami Herald article, “Without sounding like an arrogant punk, we created The House because we were bored with the state of most theater we were seeing. We were raised on [Back to the Future director] Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. We thought there’s no reason theater can’t be exciting and imaginative.”

In the same article, Scott Shiller of the Adrienne Arsht Center, says that he hopes this is the start of a two way collaboration between the House and the South Florida Theatre community. And since I’ve now outed myself as a fangirl, I’m going to publicly state that I’m going to do what I can do as the executive director of the South Florida Theatre League to make this happen. I know I’ve spent past few years saying that I want to create a theatre of joy, and I’m hoping that seeing The Sparrow will be the jolt I need to revive my commitment to make that happen. Because even though I have learned so much in the past eight years, I still want to be the House Theatre when I grow up.

In the meantime, I’m going to be like Jenny Pinson, dragging friends multiple times, awaiting to see what trading card I get next.

(PS — There better be trading cards.)