Edinburgh
Answering the call to be creative
Next month I’m taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It’s a storytelling show about something that happened to me two years ago and continues on.
When I originally conceived of the project, I thought it needed to be a memoir, and I still think that’s true. There’s just too much detail and nuance in the story for it to NOT be a memoir. And yet, last year, when I went to the festival, I met up with an old friend who I used to do improv with in Chicago. When I was telling him about the project, he grabbed me, shook me, and said, “YOU HAVE TO DO A SHOW.”
I spent the remainder of the week attending thirty-two shows of all kinds of performing arts, and it was clear to me that there’s no reason I couldn’t bring a show. The thing is that it's been a decade since I took performing seriously. In August 2014 I left Chicago to take a job teaching in Seoul, South Korea, and apart from a little stint here or there, I haven’t been performing. There just isn’t much of a scene for English-speaking theater in East and Southeast Asia, and it’s very difficult to pull off while you’re a digital nomad.
I always felt like my desire to travel was at odds with performing. I find performing all-consuming. Like, when I did improv, everyone went to their day jobs during the day, and spent all their free time- evenings and weekends- at the theater. It truly was a second job that often didn’t pay- and many times you had to pay to play. Even though I liked it, I didn’t like how it took over. There were other sides of myself that wanted to be expressed. So I stepped aside, until it felt like a story was taking over me, demanding to be told, forcing everything else onto the back-burner so it could come out.
So that’s what’s happening next month, in August. This story, that’s been demanding attention, will come out. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about that that I’m sure will get shared in future posts on this platform.
For now, though, I wonder, what’s been inside of you, begging to come out?
