Out of the starting gate at last

Saturday morning, February 20

TODAY’S THE DAY.

Today’s the day that echoed through my prayers almost three years ago, prayers for guidance about what to do with my life now that I had it back. Now that energy would start replacing the chronic exhaustion caused by daily radiation treatments and chemicals dripping through my veins 24 hours a day. Now that I could get off the couch and make plans, execute plans, turn plans into actual activities.

But what plans? During the Summer and Fall before the cancer was discovered, with my class work for my 44-yeear bachelor’s degree almost completed, I had dived back into the theatre world with a vengeance – acting in two plays, producing an experimental workshop performance about racism, and directing an original one-act for a university group. So as I looked forward to the end of treatments, at first I assumed that now I would head back to that diving board and jump into those same waters headfirst.

Maybe not jump exactly, since the cancer center doctor had cautioned against impeding my body’s healing by doing too much too soon. But at least put a toe in and wade a little away from shore. So the question wasn’t what I would do -- I knew what I wanted to do -- it was how soon and how much.

Until a little voice, or sense, or feeling, or whatever it is that niggles its way into our thoughts, surprised me with a most unexpected message. It went something like this:

No.

That was it, just No.

No, I should not start auditioning again. No, I should not channel my now cherished time and energy into traditional theatrical endeavors, into the immense time commitments necessary to put myself on stages. Stages that gave me tremendous ego satisfaction but were not likely to help society progress in ways that seemed significant to me. That’s what I was hearing, though it wasn’t anything l had expected to hear.

I think that having spent many more hours in prayer and meditation during the last few months than ever before, my spiritual antennae had become a tad more sensitive. And those antennae were waving around and picking up new signals that reminded me service was my purpose, the reason I was still on the planet. Service. Not ego gratification, not applause, not theatre simply for the sake of theatre.

Nothing was wrong with any of that, it just – and I recognized this with certain if bewildered clarity – it just was not for me, now, at this moment. And that was when the mysterious little voice-sense-feeling whispered children’s theatre and spiritual education, and I caught the first faint scent of Today,

Theatre connected to spiritual education? I liked the idea. In fact, it was a good description of a project that I had long considered my absolute favorite theatre experience. This goes back 30+ years ago to a time when I was performing with New Day Chatauqua, a repertoire troupe that combined art with mission. A small group of friends with diverse talents produced shows that artistically presented spiritual themes. That was the one time in my life when the demands of theatre work did not detract from other priorities, but instead combined with and supported them. And I had always wanted to have that experience again.

But a children’s theatre dedicated to children’s spiritual education. Come on, little voice, get real. I don’t know anything about dealing with children. One on one, sure, that’s OK, after all I had raised a child. But one kid is not the same as a group of kids, a noisy, energetic, irrepressible, sometimes even intimidating bunch of young’uns. Never been any good with that. Too bad, said the voice. Do it anyway.

My only model for the kind of children’s theatre concept that was tiptoeing around my brain was a New York City project that I had read about, a group that teaches kids from a variety of racial backgrounds and economic levels to produce award-winning theatre while expressing spiritual values and making important social observations. That was all I knew about it, but it was enough to define a vague goal to start a similar group here in little old Champaign-Urbana.

Initially, though, some preliminary steps would be required. Step one, get to know some kids. Step two, start a neighborhood virtues class, something a lot of Bahá'ís and their friends were doing but that hadn’t yet happened in this community. Such a class would give me some real experience teaching and dealing with children, plural. Step three, morph the children’s class into a theatre group.

And that is what happened. Not exactly in the easy three-step path I had envisioned, but “close enough for government work,” as the old adage goes. A couple years and a couple virtues classes later, when the time seemed right to re-visit my original goal, my daughter (and former performance partner) agreed to join me. We started by contacting the founder of the aforementioned New York City Children’s Theatre Company. She was generous with her knowledge and willing to help. Through many long phone conversations (hooray for cell phones) we learned that the NYC project was much different, much better, and much more profound and complex than we had ever imagined.

If we followed their model, we would offer Saturday afternoon sessions that coordinated a virtues class with acting, music and dance classes which also served as rehearsals for a couple of relevant end-of-term productions. Sounded good. We could do that, right? Sure. No problem.

We decided to call our group Soul Miners, inspired by a quotation from Bahá'u'lláh -- "Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom" – which succinctly describes the educational philosophy, spiritual focus and social purpose that is the basis for the project. We had a name, we were off and running. Well, maybe not exactly running.

More like lurching forward in tentative baby steps and almost stalling out completely two months ago because we both felt overwhelmed by the tasks at hand. We eventually figured out that we had to reduce the plans for our first effort to manageable proportions before we could move on. One small group of students, one production. That hurdle scaled, we set a date and raced out of the starting gate.

The next few weeks became a dizzying dance of find-virtues-class-teachers-recruit-students- plan-curriculum-make-decisions-hire-theatre-arts-teachers-select-show-material-make-more-decisions-set-up-an-administrative-system-get materials-make-still-more-decisions-etc.-etc.-etc. And now, today, the planning phase is about to give way to the execution phase. Because this is it, the day of our first “building character through the arts” session. In just about 4 hours.

Yikes!

We have students and parents (some we know already, some we will meet today for the first time) who have committed to be actively involved in the endeavor. It’s a small group and we will be producing a small production. But it’s a beginning. Another beginning in a string of beginnings that came from that little whatever-it-was whispering a very definite NO, thus steering me toward a new and unexpected YES!

Time to get dressed, get crackin’, lots to do yet today before we open the doors. More later.

Sunday, February 21

DONE!

It happened. It really did! Students came, teachers taught, parents met, papers proliferated, snacks were eaten, songs were sung, prayers were prayed. A dream came true. A goal was met. End of planning, beginning of doing.

I’m sorry I can’t provide more specific description, especially to all of you who have supported this effort month after month with your prayers and your encouragement and kept hearing “soon, we’ll be starting soon” every time you asked until you probably thought “soon” was a synonym for “do what???” I’d like to vividly describe yesterday’s inaugural session but the details are too close for objective narrative, and the eventual result is too far away for subjective speculation. So all I can safely and honestly do today is express how grateful I feel that Day One actually happened. And that now we really are off and running.

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