From Lisa – Summer Cleaning

Here at Touchstone, “spring cleaning” usually happens over the summer, when the season is over and the new one has yet to start up in full force. This year has been quite a whirlwind for us all! Right from the get go, with creating two original works in the fall, as well as presenting a guest artist, pressure cooking the The Civil War Project, teaching, touring… the list goes on and on and gets more and more lengthy as the season plunges forward. As I look around my (embarrassingly!) messy and cluttered office I find remnants of the past season.

 Behind my desk, on top of a cabinet, is the fake gun from Into the Dark that Bill was going to use, purchased from eBay but never actually used because our apprentice Rob brought in an identical fake gun from home. It never got put away at strike (the time right after the last run of a show when all the props, costumes, etc. get put away) in the hopes of returning it, but then I thought, Hmm… we may need a prop gun again, and this one wasn’t too expensive, so let’s keep it! And there it sits, waiting to find a home in the prop shop, along with café and lobby decorations from Into the Dark and Follies that somehow found their way into my office and not back with the rest of the decorations… oh, and a random fake mustache from I’m not sure what. (Possibly Don Quixote? – Ed.)

On the floor next to me, leftover program inserts from The Civil War Project panel discussion and lecture. After the event, I carefully put them all in a box to use for scrap paper over the next few months. It’s worked, too! The long pink slips are for urgent daily to-do lists or phone messages, and the longer green and blue sheets are for more substantial lists. How long will they last– into next season perhaps?

As I look around for other remnants, I notice a lone inner tube box hidden under the bookkeeper’s desk next to mine (An area I often take over for quick costume fixes; luckily, our bookkeeper is patient and has a daughter who’s a theatre artist, too). The box, which I will promptly remove and recycle, is leftover from the play I directed for this year’s Young Playwrights’ Festival, involving the creation two life-size “donut people” out of inner tubes.

 Looking over at my office-mate Emma’s area– she’s a bit more organized and tidy than I (Vicious lies. – Ed.)  –there’s the owl from Into the Dark watching over her desk, a sign from her Young Playwrights’ play two years ago which exclaims “GO AWAY” and is strategically placed atop her desk when she’s gone for the day. Ah ha! She also has a couple of fake mustaches, and a pair of goggles, on her desk.  I won’t spend the time now, but I bet if I looked around each office here, I would find a random piece of a show or two or three.  A sign that we are full with the work of creating theatre and that we have pretty darn unique (or lazy?) decorating styles.

The final picture I’ll leave you with is an area I will NOT clean up this summer. It’s my menagerie of gifts from current and past company members and apprentices, guest artists and donors, ranging from a Jesus pencil topper to eraser sushi straight from Japan. It’s a regular reminder of all the people with whom I’ve worked over the years and the memories associated with each one of them.

On that note I should take some time to tidy up my office before summer slips away into the fall and the season’s odds and ends fill my office again.