Performance Anxiety and Star Wars Quotations.

NO, not THAT kind of Performance Anxiety. (As Eddie Murphy replied in the bad-but-I-still-loved-it movie, "The Golden Child," upon smelling a strange dried piece of food in a Chinese grocery and hearing the owner say, "Yak loin, helps to keep the Yang up,"
"Nothin' wrong with my Yang...")

Well, given that I actually got a comment that assured me that someone out there actually IS reading this thing, (thanks cindy!) I better get my act together and start posting more often, huh.

So I'll try to ignore the newly-formed feeling of pressure that I have an "audience" to entertain, and just "post casual."

(That's a reference to the exchange in Return of the Jedi between Han Solo and Chewbacca when the Endor Strike Team is flying the stolen Imperial Shuttle right by the Imperial Fleet and is using the codes stolen by the Bothans: Han: "Keep your distance Chewie, but don't LOOK like you're keeping your distance." Chewie: "Rrrarrrgghh!" Han: "I don't know... fly casual!" Yes, I'm a complete geek. We now return to our regularly scheduled blog post.)

Speaking of audiences, I have a tough decision to make soon. Ever since I graduated high school, during my long strange trip of collegiate education, spanning 2 schools and too many years to even say "X-year-plan" with a straight face; I've had a summer tradition.

A group of my peers started a theater company for folks like us, high school and college aged kids looking to have fun and do some theater. We specialize in Improvisational Comedy (If you've ever seen "Who's Line is it Anyway?" you're pretty much dead on.) and also Sketch Comedy and some original short plays.

I'm pretty much the only "original" member still around, and I'm more of the older guy in charge, rather than one of the players. We've had a great run, but since I've taken the reins, no one has stepped up and wanted to take up the banner when I leave. So, so far, I haven't left.

But, as alluded to in my previous posts, I'm going through a "If I don't grow up soon, I'll need to be institutionalized" period, so I finally graduated from college, and I'm working full time. Needless to say, I'm really not going to have the time to run a summer theater company.

So I have to decide whether I want to try and tough it out, and have one last hurrah, and in the process try and impress upon a young padawan (there's that damn Star Wars crap again) the desire to take over the company; or just let it die.

I really don't WANT to let it die though, because what we have is something really special, especially where I come from. I've grown up in a pretty affluent area, and the "old money" people that run the town aren't really "into" self-sufficient outlets of entertainment for youth; meaning, they'd rather pay for a lot of the expenses and have control over what goes on.

Our company has no sponsors; we ask for donations, but we don't want a "partner." This has allowed us to do whatever we'd like to, creatively speaking. Given our audience, we've ended up trying to make our offerings somewhat family friendly; but we've had some talented writers go through our ranks, and we've done more adult shows.

To see a REAL outlet like that just shrivel up and die, is really sad; and I hope it doesn't come to that. Sure, the high school kids can do theater with the high school over the summer, but they sure as hell can't be part of a Video Sketch Show, where all the Sketches are original and we do all the filming, editing and effects.

I dunno, there's just something really great about it; about having NO "help" and still putting on a great show. For a lot of these kids that come from rich families, for them to do something on their own, without having to fall back on mommy and daddy when the going gets tough, well, that's a real life lesson.

Sigh.

Well I guess that was a "casual post;" I just hope the Emperor didn't set a trap for me by having the Imperial Fleet wait on the other side of the moon and stationing a legion of his best troops on Endor.