Hungry Opera Machine

Hiya. After writing all of these radio plays we've been doing on KBOO, plus the usual songs, Annie Laurie Rosen and I are thinking we'd like to work with an animator. We have our good friend Kelsey Leigh on board already but we are looking for someone else too, someone knowledgable in the art and technology of animation who wants to work with us. This is purely for artistic collaboration. If you are an animator or think that someone you know is and might want to work with us drop me a PM or comment here.

Annie spent the Summer making a new rehearsal space! Here's some pics. It's still a diamond in the rough, as are we.

There's always the dramatic arc of putting on a production itself, isn't there? The sometimes quiet laying of the foundation, the gathering of allies and leaders, then setting it all into motion, the wheels spinning faster, until a week before half of us are in a panic of props and dropped lines, 2/4 measures not quite synching up, scenery that still has to be built, programs to be made and picked up at the printers (did you remember to thank so-and-so in the program?), opening night and here we go and the magnificent (we hope) collision and collusion of drama and singing, scenery and movement and music, an audience to give the gift to, the feeling as we are doing it that this Now is it, this one (Rumi), and then the wave crests. Curtain call. Mingle with the crowd. The crowd dwindles. Have a drink. Tear down the set. Load it out into trucks. You and the stage manager are the last ones in the theater, there's nothing ON the stage now, and you think, was there a whole world built here, lived here, just hours ago? You think of mandalas made in sand. For days the music is going through your head, you're wondering what the cast is up to, and then you forget to think about them as much. Life crowds it all out. You go to hear other things. You start to watch birds and hang out with your family again. Life continues. And then months later you think, "Maybe it's time to start thinking about composing a new opera", as if the idea was as new as fresh paint on a bare stage. Gratitude, in the glue that keeps it all coherent in a life. Thank you Annie Laurie Rosen, Ian José Ramirez, Dru Rutledge, Noah Mickens, Paul Evans, Mirabai Peart, Drew Drew,Michael O'Neill, Jack Wells,Lindsay DiAnn, John Bennet, Andrew Jankowski,Laurel Jones, The Alberta Rose Theatre, Ben Zeller Mund, Sol Crawford, Joseph Cawley, Adam East, Deanna Hutchinson, Justus Wilson, CR Saxton, Velvet Louise (and your crew cohorts), Amand Gerace, Scot Crandal, Catherine Olson, and everyone else.

This is Annie Rosen:

Eric, Dru, Ian, Noah, Jack, Drew, Mirabia, Paul, Justus, Sarah, Velvet, Felicity, Christian, Deanna and the Alberta Rose folks Mike, Adam, and Alex...along with Laurel and Andrew and so many more...

I would like to add my thanks to Eric's. It is rare to find a partner of any kind, in any way, in any part of life that you would follow into the dark night on a mystery adventure the end of which is unknowable. It is rarer still, to find a whole herd of "Ok, let's do this!", people who set off at a sprint and hold pace until long after the smooth race track is behind them and the path ahead curves and bends or possibly just ends...

This crew was such.

How humbled I am to have been a part of this imagining. To have been allowed to guide and suggest, to accept and be enlightened by each of you through the stop and go process of finding the funny, the sweet, the subtle, and the absurd.

I have a great deal of Joy in my heart. I promise to share it freely and to think of these doings when I want shrink from the dark...You are a beautiful part of my night rainbow.

Blessings on the way!
Ian José Ramirez, Dru Rutledge, Noah Mickens, Mirabai Peart, Paul Evans, Justus WIlson, Sarah, Velvet Louise, Felicity, CR Saxton, Deanna Hutchinson, The Alberta Rose Theatre, Laurel Jones, Andrew Jankowski, Eric Stern