Collaboration is multiplication*

 

Art is hard.

Unless you have a lot of friends helping.

I didn't become a writer because I'm a social person. I'm not a social person... except... I am a social person. 

My pandemic has been all about collaboration. I know that sounds weird... collaboration during lockdown and social distancing and trying my best not to catch or spread a disease. Luckily there's Zoom.

I hate Zoom.

Except, it's allowed me to have lots of collaborators for new works.

And I love it!

Both the works I have been collaborating on started just before the kick off of the Grand Pandemic.

One was with a gentleman I'd just met the year before. A retired software engineer who wanted to be a playwright and joined a small group of writers I was leading. He is a strange and wonderful human being and we hit it off almost immediately and our creative gifts compliment each other so well. Writing our play together has been so much fun, we're starting another one.

And a disability organization, Art Spark TX (https://www.artsparktx.org/), asked me to work on a play for them. (I'm a disabled vet and a board member of TILT Performance Group (https://www.tiltperformance.org/), shattering disability stereotypes through inclusive theatre.) This has been amazing.  We are still working on a first draft, but I am having so much fun. A small group of us meet once every couple of weeks and talk about what I've written. They are all artists and have great ideas that really push me in the right direction. 

From sitting in my little hole, dreaming my dreams and smearing them across nice, clean, blank paper to talking and writing and talking and sharing and...  :)

Theatre is always a collaborative art. I am not an actor or a director or a sound engineer or a lighting expert or a costume designer or a fundraiser or any of the many, many other people it takes to create a work of art on stage. And whenever others have taken my words and turned them into theatre, I have always been amazed at their generosity, creativity, and hard work. They have taken my words are created something I never imagined and I am so thankful to be a small part.

I know I haven't written in this blog in a long time, but I hope that will change. The collaborations have shown me so much and I feel the need to share.

* “When you work together with teammates, you can do remarkable things. If you work alone, you leave a lot of victories on the table. Collaboration has a multiplying effect on everything you do because it releases and harnesses not only your skills but also those of everyone on the team.”
– John Maxwell