I remember when I first discovered the world of theatre.  It was fresh and mysterious.  There were so many unknowns and what I saw happen onstage was pure magic.  There is one specific moment I can pinpoint that took me past the point of infatuation to the point of knowing that theatre had to be a part of my life.  I went to see Les Mis and the moment when Javert jumps off the bridge took my breath away.  While it took me a minute to understand the visual trick they had played, even after understanding the technical process that had taken place, I was still amazed.

Since going to school for this, I’ve learned a lot of the tricks.  I’ve been trained to watch with a critical eye, because when it’s my design on the line I need to catch all the little things to make them better.  In the process of learning to be critical, however, I found myself losing my ability to enjoy watching theatre.  How could something I love so much turn to something so hard to handle? 

I went through a phase where I thought about quitting theatre.  If I don’t enjoy watching theatre anymore, what’s the point of dedicating myself to the artform?  What I discovered I needed was an attitude adjustment. 

I started by forcing myself to go see theatre, and giving myself a pep talk before going.  I was determined to find something to like about every production I saw, no matter how miserable it was.  I would not notice if the cyc was unstretched.  I would ignore poorly designed masking and items not appropriately backpainted.  I would simply turn off the critical part of my brain and find at least three things that I found special about every production.  This process was not easy to begin, however over time it has become much easier.  I have even grown to love certain elements of community and low-budget theatre more than some elements of perfect and well funded productions.  Why?  The ingenuity. 

I recently saw a production of Into the Woods that was very low budget.  They did have use of a fly system, and while the scenery wasn’t always the best, it was effective.  My favorite scenic element was the birds that Cinderella talks to. In other low budget productions I have seen Cinderella talk to the air.  In this production they used the fly system to bring in a flock of birds, which were all folded origami birds.  By flying them in and out a little, the lightness of the paper birds on the mobile kind of structure provided movement in the flock that was surprisingly effective.  If it weren’t for theatre on a budget, I might never have seen this truly special moment. 

In the future, I will keep that moment with me, and a time may come when I could design an entire production of Into the Woods with that moment as the keystone.  Imagine the possibilities for design if the stylization with the origami birds were extended to the rest of the show!  That’s exciting.  My brain is now working a million different directions, and it all started with a moment in a show that I easily could have dismissed as not being worthy of my attention.  Who knows what other designs this moment will impact over the course of my career!  I could have missed the whole thing because of a bad attitude. 

That’s one example, but I’ve found that I can take something like that from just about every production I see.  Is it always easy to enjoy theatre, even now?  No, but since making a decided effort to do so I have improved as an artist.  I have also rediscovered much of the love I had for theatre in the beginning.  When I do see a truly special production now, instead of nodding my head at and thinking, “Now that was adequate,” I have regained the ability to be blown away by the magic of it all. 

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