From a Dreamer to Dream Theatre: Mishelle (the little one)

This next year, DTC will open it's season with a brand new show, Downward Facing, written this fall by...well...me. This particular play actually started as the ten minute piece I wrote in 5 hours for this year's Theatre Of Women 5. After it's two performances on September 11th, I received such an overwhelming amount of adoration and interest for the piece and it's characters that I decided I should push myself and try to continue the story. 

Downward Facing opened a new chapter for me as a playwright. After writing plays since 2004 in college and beyond. I figured I had my style, my language, my story interests down pat.  And if you saw my play Shiny Boxes last February, you'd be able to surmise the types of stories and language I was used to writing and thought I was only capable of writing. Turns out I was wrong. I have come to realize that this piece was actually a labor of love not for myself but for the many beautiful and talented artists I am lucky enough to have as a part of my life and so of course it is not at all like the slightly absurd extremely abstract relationship pieces I have such a penchant for creating. Every single person in this play is written from my own interest and adoration of the people close to me and the world around me. Throw in a dash of sociopolitical commentary, some very personal personality traits and my most current demons and you have Downward Facing.

Although I am not a company member, I have been working with Dream Theatre since 2008 writing for their Theatre of Women 24 hour festivals, having a short play of mine produced (Shiny Boxes) in 2010 and acting in Devilish Children which just recently ended to an amazing and eventful run. What I have learned throughout these years of involvement is that no matter your role, no matter how long or how often you play, you become a part of a collective consciousness. How is this possible? My only thought is, we all want it to be so. It's not necissarily about being like minded, it's about bringing our minds all to the same place. 

As the year comes to an end, I am inclined to give thanks. But there are so many things I can be thankful for I'd ruin the flow of this already jerky blog post. Instead I will say one thing. Jeremy, Anna, & Giau,  you have changed my life by taking my adolescent dreams and turning them into Dream Theatre.

Excuse me now while I retreat to another room to cry. (Good tears! Good tears!)

-Mishelle