we make plans

Yesterday I purchased the rights for our Spring production. It reminded me of a year ago, when I thought I was going to direct Grease in the Spring. Hah. That didn't happen. Despite applications and charts and long emails and phone calls, we did not get permission to produce the show. I don't know why and I still wonder if I'm going to hear- out of the blue- that, oh now you can do Grease. Maybe I'll have a chance to turn them down and say, "no! I don't want to produce it now! I wanted to produce it in 2011!"

[deep breath]

We make plans. Last Spring I made marketing materials and prepped the website. I let it leak to our participants that we were *definitely* doing Grease. They were thrilled. Kids knew what characters they were auditioning for. Our costume team was gearing up to make poodle skirts and T-bird jackets. But it didn't happen. Samuel French and the estate that owns Grease never got back to us. We waited two months to hear, and finally couldn't wait anymore. We did Seussical instead. It was a roaring success.

I've got these big ideas and plans for my life. I have grand schemes for 2012, 2013 and beyond. But, there are outside factors; things outside my control. Planning is often so futile. Just a year later, I laugh thinking about how hard I pushed for Grease to happen, even though it wasn't meant to be. I wonder how hard we'll laugh further down the road...

This isn't to say "dreaming is naive and no matter how you push, life will happen as it happens." I persist in dreaming. I reread Antigone this week and fell in love with the title character all over again. I love how pigheaded and blindly determined she is. I love that an insult used against her is: "You're in love with what's impossible!" Of course I am! What's more worth seeking and believing in than the impossible?