I posted the following on my Instagram (@consplayspace):
I have a connection to places where art is made. I’ve always had it. I volunteer at a theater that has been in its current space since 2011. When I look at the walls and floors that hug the stage, I think of how much they’ve absorbed: the many different variations of how a written line is spoken, sung, or yelled, the feeling of each step that’s never set in the same place to the same beat, in repetition at every start and restart of 5, 6, 7, 8…
I can’t help but be reminded, inspired, touched, and motivated by each of the artist’s footprints left there and on every stage.
And that’s what I think about whenever I go to a new space to write. I know that not every coffee shop is for writers! But maybe that’s what makes it special. There’s humanity there: the banter between people meeting for the first time, gossip amongst confidants, or confessions spilled by sisters–some of the things I try to capture on a page with a cup of tea or a soy latte set to the right of a blinking cursor. lol… probably not the best person to sit next to.
Maybe it was apropos that I worked on a play at this place in Oakland last night. Once I got settled into my benchlike seat, after I finished looking at the above menu board and items in the bakery case for the umpteenth time… time stops. I can own this space between the seconds to create a new world away from the depression, guilt, shame, and anxiety I have in the one where I pretend that everything is okay until… “We’re closing in 5 minutes,” pulls me out of that world. But on a good day, I’m awake again, cuz I know that I did something good that will be put on a stage for an audience to hopefully remind them what they define humanity as… or at the very least be that escape hatch if they needed one.
To see the list of places I’ve written plays at, read my The Nomadic Playwright Post.