I have a confession to make – my initial reaction at blogging over Christmas was “What?  But I’ve got candy to eat and hug family and watch Holiday movies on repeat!! ”  But then I realized that it might be the perfect time to sit down and tap out some sentiment… I mean, last time I was blogging for the LAFPI, I was pretty much crying in my beer – feeling very overwhelmed and under-creative.

Then I co-produced a short play festival with my The@trics partner, and my groove came back with a vengeance!

There really is a lot to be said for donning the producer cap once in a while – it helps alleviate that dark and bitter sense of atrophy that a playwright can develop under the right circumstance (I’m broke, I don’t have the job I want, I don’t have time to write, I am tired of eating cereal for diner… you know what I’m talking about here).  Producing gets you our of the house, our of your pajamas, and away from the mini-bar.  You are busy!  You are working on a completed project!  You are part of something that is actually-by-God coming to fruition!

And it is empowering!

But it wasn’t just the “productivity” that pulled me out of my funk – it was the impact of the production itself that was inspiring!   Here were plays that were written to raise money for a local non-profit. Here were plays that by there very writing, mattered!  They weren’t just something written to suit a playwright’s fancies… they were written to get butts in seats so that the Coalition for Compassion and Justice in Prescott, AZ, could fund their poverty relief programs… these plays were written to help people… a purpose which, combined with all the creativity and passion behind/within/around it, reminded me of the power of theatre.

And that, dear reader, is what I needed to remember- what I needed to feel again, in my bones… I needed to feel the hum and throb and pull of the “why” of it all.

For why else do we write, but to make a difference?  Be it through laughter or revelation, catharsis comes to a hungry audience through the collaboration of many impassioned creationists… And I finally feel the passion coming back… driving me to sit back down and create!