Preface: My Dear Diary section is written in a stream, so what’s fished out below is still kinda stinky and slimy. I over-edit everything I write: scripts, procedure manuals, tweets… But that’s not the intent of what follows. I’m just trying to get some shit straight in my head. (And if I was editing, I’d so take out the word “just” from the previous sentence.)
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I admitted to a friend that one of the reasons I wanted to be a playwright was to see my name under the title of a play on a poster, postcard, or Facebook cover. I mean, isn’t one reason to be a creator of art is to leave something of you behind after you leave this world? Aren’t artists in the game to be able to say, “At least there’s something that says I did something with my life. See there’s my name right there that says so!” A physical object to validate my existence.
Now, the above can be looked at in a couple of different ways: 1) Me me me me me. I’m good and I’m confident in my craft to be able to own up to the work you are about to see. 2) Someone who is proud of the time and energy put into creating the produced work. 3) A need for recognition by and for a person with some REAL esteem issues. 4) A mask to hide behind the insecurities one feels of trying to be the perfect writer of a perfect play which seems so obviously unattainable.
There are probably more obvious reasons that escape me in the moment, but I fit into all four. But what role does being humble (it’s so wrong to make “humble” bold) fit into my personal need to see my name on a playbill? Where is that balance and should there be? Why am I even thinking about this when I haven’t even created enough work to be seen on printed material?!?
I know myself enough to know that I am a walking contradiction: I hate show-offs while always having an innate urge to show-off. It’s a sucky flaw I have possibly stemming from a loved one never showing love when it came to something I created… and all that psycho-babble BS. Even writing this post feels like it’s ego driven. And this is where I’m having MY ISSUES of not knowing when I’m trying to be honest and when I feel like I’m being self-indulgent. But in this medium, though in the public arena, right now, I’m just trying to figure myself out.
Okay… I went deep for a bubble. Pop! So yeah, I think it is cool that playwrights get the LOVE straight up on marketing material. But after airing this out, I think I’m able to get past thinking about where I place my personal importance of having the byline from being near the top to somewhere around the middle of my list of reasons of “why I wanted to be a playwright”, though it does produce a healthy amount of squee.