MilkMilkLemonade AND COMMUNITY THEATER.

MilkMilkLemonade closes tomorrow and my heart hurts. My heart started hurting last week, in fact. What can I say? I'm always a little ahead of the curve. I just don't want it to end. I really wish we could extend somehow, but it doesn't look like it was meant to be, due to schedules and mundance things like "space".

This has been the single most positive theater experience of my adult life. This is how it was doing community theater when I was a kid in Washington. I'd begin the summer with a collection of strangers and through the coming months we'd all become close friends while learning choreography and the lyrics to "Tradition" or "The Telephone Hour" or whatever. I love my cast and my designers a lot. And I want to gay marry my director, except he's not gay and is already spoken for and could probably do better than a hot mess like me anyway. Who wants to marry into my credit rating?

The press has been AMAZING. People seem to really love the show. Don't take my word for it. Just ask these guys here. Or here. Or here. Or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here. Only one critic wasn't that into it. The Village Voice gave it the equivalent to a C plus, but that's only because that particular critic's heart is made of tar and looks like a Craisin. Just kidding! A C plus is fine, especially from the Village Voice. I'll take that C plus straight to the bank, thank you very much.

Mostly I feel good because I feel as if I made theater for my immediate community, which is something I've been thinking about a lot. Until recently I had very different goals. Without going into it too much, I got caught up in my backwards thinking of what a successful playwright is. Lately though I've been thinking that it's important for theater to be local. It's not television or a Hollywood movie, which have to reach widespread audiences. We should be making theater for our communities. The people who are actually around us. Maybe then they'd actually come to the theater. I knew this when I was 12 and performing in musicals in Kitsap County, Washington (which always sold out, by the way). I wonder when I forgot it.

P.S. MilkMilkLemonade is getting published. Details to come.

P.P.S. You could vote for us in the New York Innovative Theater Awards if you want to.

Hooray. Ding.

Comments

[tommy]

Ooh! I'm excited for MilkMilkLemonade to be published. Living in Texas, I couldn't very easily see it performed... but at least I'll have a chance to read it. :) And congratulations on your good reviews!

[kelsi]

That's one of my favorites pictures of Ms. Harder ever.

[Lynn Morton]

Congrats on getting published! Can't wait to get a chance to read it.