Songs For The Struggling Artist

The other night, I found myself watching an interview with a theatre practitioner I admire a great deal. He’s an amazing performer, director, teacher and thoughtful analyst of his craft. I found myself taking notes – adding them to previous documents I’d created, filled with his tips and tricks. But as I was taking notes, full of enthusiasm and excitement, I felt an undercurrent of “Why?” Why was I furiously writing down his clown exercises or his recipe for comic developments? I haven’t put on a clown show since 2009. I haven’t had need to exercise my physical comedy chops in ages. I know a fair amount about these things. I care about them. I still have curiosity about them. If any of my beloved teachers gave a workshop here, I’d sign up for it. But not because I have any use for it. I don’t have a life for which any of this knowledge is necessary, which somehow makes me very sad. There’s something about having spent decades growing my knowledge about things that I now never get a chance to exercise that fee