#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Ahhhhh, sinking into this comfy page, comfy bed after a fine day. I woke with the awareness: tonight, producing the monologue showcase to open the Power of Words Conference. What an honor. I walked in the wet woods, Charlie could hardly contain his excitement to get out the door after missing our walk yesterday. The brooks running fast and full. The branches knocked down, the leaves scattered, wetly bright, a lovely mess. I focused on my comments to introduce the monologue showcase. All day, I prepped and felt calm and prepared and the house was supportively quiet. I was super prepared! And then, because this is the way of creative projects, there was a tech glitch with the link at the very last moment! So, a swift problem solving and tiny fluster and then it got sorted out and we started a little late and the evening was beautiful and powerful and humbling and poignant and funny, and tender and enlightening. Whew! What a night! We had a great showing of people - in spite of the glitch - and this was an evening about powerful women’s voices, and they were heard and witnessed. As I said in my intro to the evening,

Stella Adler called theater the “seeing place”––the place we come to see the truth about our lives and social situation. Oscar Wilde called theater “the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.” And August Wilson was, “fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness.”