Plans

Keeping in mind that nothing is set in stone, and that adage about the best-laid plans, here's a possible road map of the coming months and years.

I'm in London, working and enjoying the summer and the city, until my visa and lease expire at the end of September. During September, I'll be composing music for Finger in the Pie's Christmas show, based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. I will be paid handsomely for doing so. Yay!

At the end of Sept, there's a very good chance I'll be flying to Portugal to live and work with Diogo and others (hopefully Cecile, Aram, and Martha, maybe more). We'd spend all of October living in Espino, outside of Porto on the coast, and then possibly touring whatever it is we create. Diogo has said we can stay with him for free, and he has free rehearsal space as well. Double yay!

(And who knows? If we're in Portugal anyway, maybe that road trip to Morocco could happen after all!)

In November, I'll come back to London for anywhere from 1-3 weeks to say hi to Dad, my friends here, this city. Then home for Thanksgiving!

And Gem and Mark's wedding!

And Christmas!

And New Year's!

Then, Jan 10th or thereabouts, back to London. Alex has asked me to be a deviser and performer for the production of Sweeney Todd that Finger in the Pie is working on. Not at all the Sondheim version, this is an originally devised piece that uses maskwork and puppetry and the original urban myth of Sweeney Todd and the corresponding historical backdrop as a political allegory. We'd rehearse and devise for January, and perform in February and March. Again, I would be well-paid. Again, yay!

As far as I can tell, I'll be back in the States by the end of March. Where in the States, I'm not sure. My dear friend and collaborator Erin is looking for funding to continue work on her final project, which was a beautiful (if I do say so myself) meditation on AIDS and dying with dignity inspired by a Studs Terkel book.... did I mention this already? Yes. Anyway, the hope is that funding will come through for that, in which case we'd get together to further devise and perform that piece, possibly at Fringe Festivals, possibly in LA. This plan could possibly take me all the way through fall 2009.

Also, Alex has made it clear that if for whatever reason Erin's show falls through, I'm encouraged to rejoin the Sweeney Todd cast for the Edinburgh Fringe in Aug 2009 and another festival in London that Oct.

Then, today, I had the opportunity to speak with my dear and talented friend Abhishek. Abhi is a wonderful man and playwright from Bangalore, India, who I had the great pleasure of working with when we were in class together for the first year of LISPA. He left after the first year, but is coming back this fall to do the second, and has also been offered a place at Stanford for the fall of 2009 to do a PhD and playwriting fellowship (!!!), the idea being that he'd spend the first two years on campus and then would bounce back and forth between the States and Kashmir making incredible work. Cue our conversation about how I should be a part of that work, and how pumped we both are to make relevant, international theatre. So there's that collaboration and opportunity to look forward to in the coming years as well.

I am so unbelievably fortunate. This is what I am meant to do with my life. This, this, this.