Valiant

"The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative."

-- Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in Details magazine, July 13, 2010

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Yes.

And whether that someone else is a kid in an acting class, a chuckling grandma in the first row, or a free-thinking, educated adult capable of making deliberate positive changes in his/her life, it is still valiant. I'm proud to be among the ranks of inspirers.

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Also: I made the Enquirer. The article is flattering, full of etymology. If you're in the Cincinnati area, come see The Nerd, my last show here...

...my last show, that is, until next spring. When the world premiere of Disney's Peter Pan Jr. hits the Taft Theatre stage in April, yours truly will originate the title role.

That's right. I'm playing Peter Pan.

When they first offered me the role, I respectfully declined. But months later, the offer has been renewed, and I simply cannot turn it down. It's work--good work at that, well-paying work--and it's a world premiere; Disney has never before allowed any theatre to stage a version of their 1953 movie. They workshopped it for months. They revised the script multiple times. It's unclear how involved they will be in the rehearsal process, but there's a good chance they will see the show. And if they like what they see...hey.

Plus, I'll actually be able to put "flight" on my resume.

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I was sitting at my desk, about to make a phone call to a parent who wants to schedule a last-minute audition tomorrow for her son. I looked down at the Post-It where I'd scribbled her number, and the last digit, a 4, looked odd. I touched it and a bent fleck of eraser stuck to my finger. It was a 1.

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The time has come for me to start wrapping things up at work. With my boss going on maternity leave, I have absorbed a healthy load of paperwork, mostly preparation for the upcoming school tour. Van oil changes, study guide designs, stuff like that.

Possibly my most valiant task is to leave a record of my WorkShops here. Each teaching artist for TCTC can do any of the WorkShops and adapt it to their own style, and I have done just that with about half of the offerings in our repertoire. My approach hasn't always worked--sometimes it fails outright--but anyway, there is some knowledge to be passed on.

For instance, this week I started a "From the Page to the Stage" residency at a daycare half an hour away. (This is the place where a kid called me Jackie Chan.) Apparently, this WorkShop has never been booked before, so it's crucial that I chronicle how it goes. So far, we've only introduced ourselves and chosen a book (page) which we will adapt into a play (stage). There's a final performance in two weeks, in the late afternoon just as parents are about to pick up their kids. Next week we'll cast and block, and in the third week we'll rehearse.

The book? Wait! I Want to Tell You a Story, by Tom Williams. I just finished the adaptation today.

The choosing of the book was interesting. I went to the library's children section to browse, and a librarian asked to help. I told her what I wanted: a short picture book with a large cast of characters that would appeal to a wide age range. The librarian told her fellows, and soon there was a squad of six or more librarians scanning through the aisles of skinny spines. They plopped thin, jacketed hardcovers in a pile and kept searching. At the daycare, I showed covers and held a vote, and then read the most popular ones, which were voted on again. There was Lincoln-Douglas-style debate which allowed the kids to make arguments for or against certain picks. Then we had the final vote. They picked the story in which a muskrat, about to be eaten by a tiger, belays his demise by telling a story...in which a frog is about to be eaten by a shark but belays it by telling a story...and so on.

I had hoped they would pick Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, but for a purely selfish reason: I want to adapt it into a play anyway.

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Here's to valiance.