Like I Was Saying...
Please don’t ask me why, but my ideas have always been too big for my britches. And most of my big ideas have been abysmal failures.
Like the time I produced a play.
I majored in theater in college because I would be the next Brad Pitt. Incidentally, these are dreams being paid for by John Q taxpayer; thank you very much. But I digress.
I had to take a Directing class as part of my degree. So I took it my sophomore year.
Now, traditionally, you would have to direct a scene for your final. I don’t remember the time constraints, but since the scenes were performed in front of the school, no more than twenty minutes.
What did I do?
I decided to produce an entire play. Now, not just any play, but Lonely Planet by Steven Dietz, a play I was overly familiar with since it was my bread and butter play back in high school.
Only one huge problem: Lonely Planet has some major homosexual themes. And we’re talking Wayland Baptist deep in the heart of the Panhandle of Texas, in the late 1990s.
I once ran into a guy that complained Wayland didn’t make enough plays about farming.
Not only that, but I wanted to produce the whole play. One scene wasn’t enough for me. If I was going to be a producer and a director, I had to learn how to do it whole hog.
So, I decided to produce the whole play.
Of course, my theatre director said, okay, but you can’t use Wayland facilities. I understood. Will & Grace was happening, but it would take a while for it to affect in the panhandle.
In high school, I was introduced to the SRO Theater, a community theater near downtown El Paso.
I called them up and rented the space.
So I built the play, rehearsed it at Wayland, and traveled to El Paso. It was a two-man show, so I cast to college buddies of mine.
I pitched the idea to my parents. They would loan me the money to produce the play, and I would pay them back with the proceeds from the box office.
They lent me the twelve hundred dollars to get the thing produced.
Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Not only that, but I didn’t market the play well.
All in all, seven people, including family and the companions that traveled with us showed up.
The play revolved around using chairs as a metaphor for people who had died of AIDS. So we had hundreds of chairs.
My parents kept one chair. They still have it to this day. They called it their “twelve hundred dollar” chair.
There were many kickers with Lonely Planet, but the biggest one was that I had to record the play to get credit for it.
Well, we did. And during our cast party, we played the tape back. The thing is, my mom records Mass in the morning for the homilies.
So, you got this play about homosexuality and a Catholic Mass right in the middle of it. But, I still got the credit and got an “A” in the class.
This wasn’t the only time I’ve done something like this; oh, there’s more.
And sure, I’m not the next Brad Pitt, but I’ve had a great life with very little I’d change.
I bring this up because I’m going to try to take a swing at this sports photography business.
The lesson I’m carrying now is baby steps, Andrew.
Slow, methodical, baby steps. Don’t swing for the fences right out of the gate. Sometimes a single can win the game.
