I am currently reading Why Is That So Funny by John Wright.  This book is wonderful, I've worked with it many times, but never fully read it.  On page 49 all of a sudden I become agog as I read a beautiful description of a soup recipe Mr. Wright discovered in Bali:

"I was sitting on a wall, feeling bored.  I'd been in the temple for about an hour, and nothing much was happening.  I was just about to leave, when an elderly gentleman sitting next to me said:
'In Bali, we have rubber time.'
'I believe you,' I said, 'When will it start?'
'When everyone is here.'
'When will that be?' I asked.
'Oh, early,' he said, and burst out laughing at my expression of incredulity.  It turned out that he was a retired teacher of English.
'Have you looked round the temple?'
'No,' I said, and continuing our conversation, he led me through a narrow gateway, and into a small courtyard dominated by several large stone plinths.  I was expecting to see the customary statues of Shiva and Ganesh, as in Hundu temples in India, but there were none.
'Where are the statues of the gods?' I asked.  'I suppose it's too humid for you to keep them out here in the open all the time.'
'We don't need statues in Bali because gods always come when they smell food.'
I searched his face for irony, but there wasn't any.
'So they're a bit like house pets,' I said, chancing my arm - I didn't want to cause any offense, but he smiled patiently as if he were talking to an inquisitive child.
'They only eat special food.'
'What's that?' I said, guardedly.
'They only eat rasa.'
'What's that?' I asked, and he beamed with delight.
'At the beginning of time, the gods broke the top off the tallest mountain they could find - just as if it was the top of an egg - then they hollowed it out to make a huge bowl, then they put every living thing that they could find into the bowl: every bird, animal, reptile, leaf, flower and insect.  Then they ripped up giant tree trunks, and used them to pound all these living things together to make soup.  They called this soup 'rasa.'  Today, when the gamelan plays, and the dancing is beautiful, the gods smell rasa, and they sit there, and when the dancing is very, very good, they eat.  The gods are always hungry.'
'And they'll come tonight?'
'Of course - as soon as they smell it and you will smell it too.  The memory of that smell will bring you back to the temple again.'  And his smile was the same. (Personal Journal, Ubud, 1985)"

Wright explains that in Bali "artistic activity of any kind is seen as making food for the gods."  When the art is inspired it creates RASA a "celestial soup."  I am constantly trying to verbalize the comparison between stone soup and the art Stone Soup Shakespeare is creating.  The magic of the stone feeding a community physically is mirrored by the magic of theater feeding a community artistically, emotionally and intellectually.

Amy Ludwigsen, recent Royal Conservatoire of Scotland graduate, Chicago actress and artist has a great blog.  She's starting an artist collective/arts institution in Door County, Wisconsin.  Lest we misrepresent her work, check it out for yourself on her Boss Woman blog.  We're excited about the projects she's doing, the art she's fostering and her amazing energy.  We were lucky enough to have her as part of the Chicago Comedy of Errorsreading last month and are hopeful to collaborate with her more.  Check out her artistic thoughts on her blog:

                                      http://amyjaneludwigsen.tumblr.com/ 

This is a short post as there is much work to be done.  I just skyped with Jeffrey and I was mostly distracted by my to do list (making the funding video - be aware it's on it's way) but he did share a current bit of inspiration for MSND (which yes, that's how I will refer to A Midsummer Night's Dream from now on).  What does it all mean?  I can't decipher Jeff's brain...at least not yet, but it is beautiful.  More than that, as I'm listening I realize I know the opera - this is the first public performance I ever did (not this specific production mind you):  Marjorie Lawrence Opera on Wheels 1986 production of Hansel and Gretel featuring a chorus of gingerbread children including my brother and me.  Am still rather tickled that it is coming back...however Jeff intends to have this add to the 2012 tour! 

My head is filled with ideas.  I am all aflutter with ideas for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Comedy Project.  I am agog with the talent that keeps jumping in my lap agreeing to help take on roles and duties and titles and joining in Stone Soup.  I am ready to make 5 and 10 and 20 year plans.  All the while the reality of finding funding, applying for our own non-profit status, finding ways of recouping expenses with workshops, streamlining the website, and simply doing laundry keep nagging at my brain.

Muddled is the best word for my current "to do" list.  How do we remain artistic and pull ideas from everywhere but still maintain focus to keep a clear vision of the projects we do, and actually pull them off also?!

So, as I sit sipping throat coat tea (when the world overwhelms it really does – not only is my laundry basket full but I have a cold – it is the universe’s way of telling me to stay at home Friday night)(I actually just called an actor and I think I sounded like a serial killer...bull frog voice!) I am going to return to this blog – and take things on the blog one step at a time – just as I should take some of the projects we are adventuring on.

So today, a look at The Comedy Project.

I’ve been posting on facebook a bit about it: “it’s coming,” “stay posted,” “save the date,” but what is it – only a few artists that I’ve shared really know – enough of that – let the world know.

The Comedy Project is a Five Year adventure into creating Stone Soup’s quintessential production of The Comedy of Errors.  It started as an idea to do a reading of the play in Carbondale as a fundraiser for the 2012 Tour.  A reading however can be simple.  Sure it requires a fair bit of production and one hopes all the actors are looking at scripts more than just during the reading itself, but compared to a tour or even a stand along production – much easier.  So I thought why not do it in Chicago as well.  Chicago is my home base and I want to make sure that Chicago starts to know about Stone Soup too…but then my mind ran away with me and it escalated into this PROJECT.

It escalated because I was thinking of how to enhance a reading to make the Carbondale fundraiser more than just actors in black turtlenecks on stools looking sophisticated.  Sure it seems fun, but it bores 5 year olds…some of them anyway.  So I began to think about the fact that Shakespeare writes in 5 Acts.  We never really capitalize on that.  I could write a paper on why it’s in 5 Acts, but – and I haven’t done all the research on this – pretty sure Shakespeare didn’t offer intermissions for the masses in between each act back in the day and we don’t do it now…not on purpose anyway.  BUT: WHY NOT?  If we have 5 Acts that means there are 4 intermission possibilities, 4 potential pauses in action to do something.  I started thinking that in a reading that means we could break up the reading with a bit of vaudevillian excitement, possibly other people telling jokes, possibly a musical interlude, perhaps a snowball dance – who knows – but it was something to play with.

The second escalation came as I was researching how to go about casting the play.  Sometimes the double twins are played by the same person (or same two people at least) but sometimes they are not.  Sometimes Comedy is masked, very Commedia dell’Arte style, but sometimes it is played straight.  Somewhere in my researching and thoughts my mind veered to a production of Chekhov.  WHAT?  I know – it veered to a production I did not see, but a favorite person of mine saw (Ally Hunter – that’s you if you’re reading this).  The production required all the actors to know all the parts and the actors did not know which part they would play until the performance began.  I don’t know all the details, and I know that other shows have done this too, but this is where my mind went.  I started thinking that could be fun for Comedy.  Then I realized that if I were to do that for the reading in Carbondale I would need far more rehearsal than I could afford.

But, I whined, I want to do it!

And THE COMEDY PROJECT was born.  The idea is that for 5 years we as a company will explore The Comedy of Errors.  The first year we are getting to know the text.  Our first date, if you will, is finding out where the natural laughs fall.  What is inherently funny about the words and the story.  There will be staged readings all over the world that will be filmed and studied.  The second year we explode the story, using improvisations to bring the work to life.  The third year movement.  The fourth a full blown exploration using every tool in our theater practitioner toolbox.  The fifth year we take the air out of our research, prepare our actors to know each character inside and out, finalize our cutting and take it on the road.  Not only will the actors not know who they are playing before the audience decides, but in between each act the audience gets to re-arrange the casting so that the actors who started with a certain role may end the night playing something totally different.

How will this work?  To be quite honest: I don’t know.  But that’s the fun of it all.  We get to figure it out.  And it all starts on December 5 with the first reading. 

What is it about lemonade stands in the summer and my inability to resist them?  I know the lemonade will be way too sweet and will most likely come from powder.  I know that $1.00 (the most recent rate I was charged) for a Dixie cup full is a bigger rip-off than movie theater popcorn.  I know the money is going to kids' pockets and not to a charity (which I have a list a mile long that I want to support).  Yet I am more inclined to purchase that stupid cup of practically undrinkable liquid sugar than I am to purchase a cookie from a charity bake sale.
I'm 99% sure it's the kid factor.  Kids are adorable.  But 1% of me is definitely in it for the nostalgia factor.  There's a yearning for the childhood my father pretends he had, the childhood my brother (and subsequent siblings) mimicked: non knowing we were copying any cliche - not knowing what the word cliche meant - we were just doing what we thought little kids were supposed to do.
There is something theatrical about it all too: the way kids act as kids are "supposed" to act.  I am now - dare I say it - an adult fulfilling my role in the pageantry of summertime.  Combined children across the nation and the adult lemonade buyers create a Norman Rockwell of American Summertime.  It is our tradition, along with fireworks, "Casey at the Bat" and sprinklers.  We catch fireflies to make nightlights.  We spit watermelon seeds.  And the older we become the more we choose to do these things because we had fun doing them last year, then doing them because we are inspired to do so.  We choose to have fun indulging in Americana.  In the process we ultimately smile from the "doing" but we also smile from the memory, and it all begins as this ritual, a part we are playing in the great American Summer Epic that is reproduced annually in neighborhoods across the nation!
So I ask: what are all the summer pageants out there?  What am I missing in my scrapbook of summer?  And what summer nostalgia exists internationally?  What are the rituals around the globe that I have been blind to during my travels as I dream of heat waves and air conditioning simultaneously?  What are all the things children do in the summer; things that they think they've come up with themselves when really it is this pageant that we are all putting on?
As I bake in my 3rd floor walk-up (no air conditioning folks), procrastinating from doing anything that might exert energy and thus make me hotter, mad at my computer for generating heat, I am compiling a list of all my bits of nostalgia and I would love your help.  Send pictures, send ideas, but help me create this scrapbook so that as we move forward in preparing for A Midsummer Night's Dream (which, spoiler alert, is a wee bit about summer) we remember that Shakespeare's story only exists when we take into account the entire summer and the break that this one evening is from all aspects of summer and all the stories summer has to offer.
Also be warned I am planning on starting a virtual lemonade stand to start preparing financially for next year.  So, if you are looking for a cute kid on the sidewalk and don't see one, hide your dollar for a rainy day, cause this cute kid will soon be hawking lemonade that won't give you cavities.