No one ever said that a Resolution was easy. In fact, I guess a resolution should be kind of a challenge. It’s only Week 3 of 2012, though, and things are getting tough. I’m still motivated, but it seems that the world around me is going to throw some obstacles my way as the year progresses. But I can’t let that stop me!
Despite the nasty weather last night, I forged ahead to my friend’s new Play Reading Club that she just started. I know—dorky right? But I was actually pretty excited about it considering I’m trying to focus on Professional Development. You know that my goal is to read one play a week, so being a part of this club actually makes it easier for me to choose which show I want to read next. Plus, I get to talk about it with someone else.
The play that we discussed was Tina Howe’s Tony-Nominated show Coastal Disturbances. I didn’t have a copy of the script myself, so this obviously meant that I had to get my hands on one pretty quickly in order to participate in the conversation. I went online and looked it up in the Chicago Public Library database. That was the easy part. When I logged into my account, though, I saw that I had a $12.00 LIBRARY FINE!! All of you devoted library-goers, I hope that you are not judging me for this massive fee. I swear…I’m usually much better at returning my books. The fine was actually for two overdue movies which have higher late fees attached to them then the books do. So that’s obviously my excuse!!
This would not have bothered me so much to pay had my branch of the library actually still existed. Toward the end of last year, the city razed my branch which was literally a couple of blocks away from my house. Well, my apartment I should say (we all know that I’m a part-time employee with no hopes of owning a house at this point). Sure, there’s a bookmobile in the parking lot until the new building is erected, but it’s got limited hours and no book drop and no money onsite. This proved difficult when trying to pay my fine. And you can’t reserve a book online with a fee, so I had to go downtown to the main branch just to pay a fine and get the script.
After I finally checked out Coastal Disturbances, I was able to read it on the train. Mind you, they say the best way to read a play is in one sitting, the same way you’d see it onstage. But my time only allows me to read on the train, which means it takes a couple of days to get through. And then I got half way through the script and found that 5 whole pages were missing that contained some of the larger monologues in the whole show. Thankfully my friend had a version that was fully intact.
I finally read the whole thing and made it to my friend’s house for conversation and wine! Wine makes any challenge worth it!!
Though somewhat dated, I really enjoyed this piece by Howe. It was humorous and natural. It’s funny because the show is basically a bunch of people doing mundane activities on the beach everyday. But there’s something about a script where the characters are just going about their everyday lives that’s so fascinating to me! When I was an intern at the Goodman Theatre, I particularly enjoyed the Horton Foote fest that we hosted because his work is about the simple lives of real people (not to mention Horton and his family were so nice). It’s so easy to connect to these kinds of stories.
Hopefully, Hay Fever by Noel Coward will be a little less challenging to get through before our next meeting. I wish you the same luck in your resolution endeavors!
chitchatjonny 