Because It's Not Easy

Saying what you mean and meaning what you say all the time. I worked on this for long hours that turned into days that turned into weeks that turned into, "have I spent so long on it now that it's disingenuous?" But it's not.

I shared some scraps of it with you guys, but here's the final incarnation. Well- one of the final incarnations. It was tweaked quite a bit for each individual school, and I'm willing to bet not a single program actually read it. Not even especially not the program I was accepted into, but I did enjoy writing it. And I think it's just a good exercise for artists to do. "Statement of Purpose" is probably the most intimidating name for it, but having to justify why you're doing what you're doing is hard. And like most hard things good for you (insert penis joke here. And another one for the word "insert". Why are prestigious programs not calling me back again?)

Please kindly respect that this is not an invitation for your editorial, or an exclamation of how pretentious or not pretentious enough I am. It's just me sharing some work.

Read at your own risk.

            I am an asset-filled, resourceful harbinger of my generational and personal heritage and history. I am the proud owner of a beautiful collection of many mistakes. Today I am a knitting teacher, performing, table-waiting, dishwashing, directing, paper pushing, traveling theater artist. I explore funny walks, interesting sounds, stitch patterns, puppetry, meal serving, Mexico and play constructing. I’ve made sweaters, pigtails, mittens and skins from yarn. I tinker with other devisors in an attempt to find universal truths, turning to classic texts for examples. My diverse background in making provides me with a rich tool set for theatrical creating.
            I strive to be equal parts detective and explorer. I am well versed in how to speak clearly onstage and how to love deeply, quickly and easily in life. I utilize a lexicon as effectively as I do my empathy. I have an equally deep desire to research and analyze as I do to be guided by immediate kinesthetic response. My work ethic is paralleled only by my demand for adventure and play. I continually mine and forage my fields for a perfect blend of unusual and classic, something as guttural as it is soothing. I think of a theater as a laboratory, my brain as a mad scientist and my body as a Bunsen burner. I have a voice that is strong, full and hungry for a venue, feedback and hoards of co-conspirators.
            I have torrid love affairs with stories. In listening to, learning from, telling and re-telling I attempt to consume stories while sharing them, to make them a part of me and my soon-to-be history. When telling stories, I indulge in collaboration with fellow artists, finding new meanings in old stereotypes and iconography, and blending the necessary technical with the unexpected and honest instinctual.  I explore cultural and personal heritage through story telling, recalling symbolic imagery and morphing it to serve specificity in story.
            I crave more tools as an artist. More modes and methods of communication with an audience and my co-creators, more instruments with which to devise and play. My current theatrical vocabulary allows me to tell interesting stories and is wrought with potential. I am a rule-following, limit-questioning wise-cracker who longs to break off chunks of the technical rules and gnaw at them until they’re mine again. I look forward to picking apart each rule, each “should” and “shouldn’t” to discover why it has earned its respect in the theatrical hierarchy and how they can best serve story, questioning each one as I follow it.

            I look forward to a future of meeting new artists, co-creators and audience members with contrasting and diverse backgrounds, to a future of learning new rules that are ripe for following, bending and breaking. I’m looking to a future of collaborating with like and different-minded people who are up to the task of planning the world take-over of story.