The 12 Days of BirthMas! Day 2: Embrace the Chaos

I wanted to spend some time leading up to the 2009 iteration of The Birth reflecting. Reflecting on staging a production, reflecting on staging this production, reflecting on the season, reflecting on literature, reflecting on acting.

This is a crazy time of year for me and I thought this would be a helpful way to pull back the curtain a bit and let you see what goes into this sort of process.

Thus I present to you, the 12 Days of BirthMas! (Technically the first performance is the 13th, but you get the idea).

Day Two: Embrace the Chaos.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

It’s the most stressful time of the year.

I am not an organized person.  I didn’t learn the Time Management Skills my high school alma mater tried so desperately to instill in me.  So when Christmas rolls around the last few years my life ramps up into stress mode.  Especially this year.

Having produced The Birth for three years prior, you’d think I’d know by now what all goes into it and what sort of timetable I’m working with to make it all happen in the appropriate amount of time.  You’d think that.  Though I shouldn’t sell myself too short as, in general, I’m not too shabby at putting the ducks in their row when they need to be.  The problem comes when the ducks pulsate and mutate and grow from manageable, cute little yellow-fuzz chicks into monstrous, hulking, avian behemoths.  These fowl beasts surround me and work their darndest to drive up my blood pressure and anxiety.

This year is no different and, if anything, is proving rather daunting considering a few new elements we’re adding to the mix.  We’ve made a big change to our presentation this year by way of venue.  The last three years we have housed our little production at the small black box space at Carolina Actor’s Studio Theater.  It was a space I grew to enjoy very much; it’s intimacy suited our show well and in some ways I’m sad to part with it.  However this year I have developed a good relationship with local outfit Actor’s Theater of Charlotte, a very well run group of theater professionals doing their best to put on some provocative theater and wanted to try our hand at performing The Birth in their space.  It affords us more seating and a great venue in downtown Charlotte.

The catch is that they don’t have a static in-the-round performance space.  This doesn’t seem like that big of a deal but when you’re taking a performance space of one type and trying to turn it into a performance space of another type, there are headaches involved.

I have faith that ultimately this hurdle will prove surmountable, but in the meantime between a day job, a night job, a need to execute a relatively large production in The Birth; oh, and a wife and child to be attentive towards, things are starting to get a little crazy.

So over the next couple of days if, in cleaning your house or car out, you happen to stumble on a few extra hours in the day, please pass them my way.  I could really use them.

For now, I’ll just embrace the chaos.

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