how being a mama is making me a better theatre artist (and vice versa)

installment four || caring about it less and enjoying it more


i love my creative work.  i want to say that unequivocally.  not once in my adult life, including now, have i been completely without a creative project of some size or shape.  i love being obsessed with my project of the moment.

but something has shifted with the birth of my daughter.  i'm still obsessed with the creative projects in front of me, but they're not keeping me up at night.  she is.  and that seems appropriate.  i'm not worrying them into the ground or pushing them into being quite so hard, because i'm spending that time watching her discover what her laugh sounds like.

funny thing is, i think it's making my creative time stronger.  i enjoy it more.  i let it breathe a little bit.  if it doesn't work, i don't try to beat it into submission, i just take a break and come back to it later.  i still love it just as much, but i'm caring about it less and enjoying it more.  does that make sense?

how being a mama is making me a better theatre artist (and vice versa)

installment three :: the value of repetition

anyone who has seen anything by both hands theatre company can probably tell you that we love working with repetition.  i've long loved the pattern that repeated sounds make.  i've been a fan of repetitive gesture for revealing and creating a character for years.  and i've been experimenting with repetition in images at least as far back as jeff storer's (excellent) college directing class.

and now: mama-dom has raised my level of respect for repetition to new heights.  right from the start, in fact.  in labor.  yes, i must have repeated the same vocal-warm-up-y, low-pitched "ma" sound one billion times in the transition from mama-of-inside-baby to mama-of-outside-baby.  (and my husband repeated it right along with me.)  that episode of repetition helped me get through one of the hardest things i've ever done.  and i've been relying on repetition as a mama ever since:  one million and one bounces, seven thousand shhhh sounds, reading the same hippopotamus book four times back to back, singing the one song that seems to mesmerize her twenty-seven times in one day (i counted).

i think repetition is valuable for theatre and for mama-ing for the same reason, really:  it both comforts us and reveals new things to us simultaneously.  we are safe while we push against our own edges.  our expectations are met, and our understanding is deepened.

how being a mama is making me a better theatre artist (and vice versa)

installment two  ||  resilience

i fail a lot with this baby.  i do something that i hope will make her laugh, and she turns her head to stare at a blank, beige wall beside me.  i make a noise that i think will elicit a smile, and her bottom lip quivers.  i put on my very best song and dance show complete with rump-shaking and wacky face-making, and she bursts into tears.  with a baby, you can fail every day, 100 times a day like this, but you get back in there.  you try again.  maybe because the reward is so great.  maybe because you have no other choice.

in the theatre, i've failed a lot, too.  but my resilience hasn't been as great.  each time, it takes me a while to get back in there.  this baby's got me in resilience training.  in theatre, just like with a baby, you try again.  because the reward is so great.  and because you have no other choice.

how being a mama is making me a better theatre artist (and vice versa)

installment one :: trying anything

i will do anything to make this child laugh.  or at least stop crying.  go ahead.  ask me for my rendition of my new song moo*baa*lalala.  it has gestures.  and vocal oddities.  and special facial expressions.

i used to think i would try anything when making theatre.  and it's true that i often experimented with movement and voices that would be embarrassing to non-theatre-making friends of mine, so i did have a head start.  but my theatre-trained mama-self puts my theatre-trained non-mama-self to shame in the trying-anything area.  to shame, i tell you.