Turning any space into your space
And mark up your calendars...
You’ll recall last week I told you a short story about Doug the Baseball Pitcher.
He shared in writing class his ritual for turning ANY baseball stadium and pitching mound into HIS baseball stadium and pitching mound.
Recounting his story got me thinking about all the other various ways we can transform, create, or hold space. The space necessary to DO THE THING, whatever our thing is.
For example, where I’m writing right now. My office is a converted closet in the second bedroom of the sweet little house that I share with my beloved partner Rebecca. The rest of the room she has curated into her space for yoga practice. I’m able to close off the office with a lovely white curtain when she practices.
But the real point of all that set up? If her yoga mat is out on the floor, you better believe I walk AROUND it. I do not step on her mat. No way no how.
Now our two pups, Gaia and Odin, they have no such respect for her sacred space. But they are cute and hilarious enough to get away with it.
One of my first professional theatre gigs was touring with a children’s theatre. We’d perform in libraries, classrooms, gyms, cafeterias, auditoriums, and the dreaded multi-function “gym-a-cafetoriums.” Even had the lunch bell go off right in the middle of our show once. Entire audience rose to their feet without a second glance at us.
Nothing punctures your artistic ego quite like a bunch of seventh graders eagerly choosing squished pb-and-j’s over your theatrical genius.
But at every stop, we’d set up our props, do a 30-minute solo warmup, and another 30 minute group warmup. And the power of our attention and focus would transform that cafeteria—with its appalling acoustics and floor covered in layers and layers of sticky food and undiluted bleach—into a dang THEATER.
The Artistic Director of that same touring company told us how sumo wrestlers in Japan, without fail, BOW to the ring before they enter.
Your space is sacred. Wherever you do your thing, you can STAGE it.
Get our your calendars!
First, a reminder that the PAGE&STAGE Podcast launches on Thursday, March 21! I’ll have all the info here. You’ll be able to listen on Apple, Spotify, even download directly, listen however you like.
Second, Ibis Books—the publishing wing of PAGE&STAGE—is doing a double-drop in early April! Check it out…
This play packs a WALLOP, and I couldn’t be more honored to publish the manuscript.
The launch date coincides with the team doing a performance in Staten Island for 9/11 first responders, sponsored by Tunnel to Towers.
Learn more about LAST OUT, and the non-profit producing team THE HEROES JOURNEY.
And the second title of the April double-drop…
The life this Bob Danna fellow has lived is inspiring, to say the least. I won’t try to capture it all here, I’ll just guide you to the website: MyCuriousLife.net
I’ll give you this taste. We are launching the book on April 8 because that’s the date of the next total solar eclipse. Bob is OBSESSED with eclipses, and has personally witnessed… oh geez, I lost count of how many.
His insatiable curiosity is an absolute joy to witness, both in his book and in my various communications with him over the past months.
Wishing you all a lovely weekend!
Jason “Gym-a-Cafetorium” Cannon