I recently had a conversation with an old friend that I went to school with before I transferred to Fredonia. I contacted him because I wanted to share some of my thoughts with someone that I really know, who really knows me, A peer who I look up to as a fellow director. Nothing against Fredonia or my friends/teachers/colleagues here, I’ve been sharing thoughts with so many of them and it has been incredibly helpful, but I’m still somewhat new here, and I’m really still just getting to know some people, and them me. I talked about my excitement, my worries, fears, just about everything.
One beautiful thing that he said to me was in response to a concern I had. I mentioned in an earlier post how some of the comments from my peers made me a bit nervous, how it’s nice that they’re looking forward to something that I’m doing, but it worries me because I don’t want that to get in my way. I don’t want to become self indulgent, or worry about living up to others expectations. What he told me is something I already knew, but hearing him say it made all the difference. He said, maybe not quite like this and I apologize if this offends anyone, but he said ‘screw it, don’t worry about what others think about you, because you know what you want to do and that’s tell a story.’ I mean, isn’t that why we do theatre? We’re story tellers. I proposed a play I wanted to direct because I saw a story that the playwright was trying to tell, and I wanted to help them tell it. I knew from the start that what I wanted to do could easily be a failure, but I recognized that not trying for something bigger than myself would be an even bigger failure for me at this point. And he told me that perhaps that’s why people are interested in what I’m going to do. The fact that it’s not about showing what I’m capable of, but telling a story that I believe should be told, for whatever reason it may be.
Remember, we are all storytellers. It’s not about flashy tricks and trying to impress people or one up the next person. It’s about different people with different skills coming together with one primary goal: Tell a story. If you don’t risk failure, you’ll never learn how to succeed.
Keep telling your stories.
