First of 31

A Blog a DAY for the month of October.
I am at a loss here. Don’t know where or how to begin…

I keep feeling the need to create a sunny start, and each time I set out to write, I worry that what I want to say will be misconstrued by a reader.

So, forgive me if I take just a moment to put up a fourth wall between us. I want to pretend for a moment that I am writing simply to get my thoughts out for none but myself, and I will speak my truth without editing for fear that a reader may take what I have to say as being dark or self-defeating.

I believe I have failed in what I have set out to do as a PhD student at LSU. That is not to say that I feel like I have failed AS a PhD student. I have learned a great deal and I have grown immensely. I feel that my decision to pack up my life as a professor and director for MUW’s theatre department in exchange for being re-cast as a student was ultimately a good move.

However…I came to this place with a desire to find ways to make bridges between scholarship and performance. I fancied that I would strengthen my work as a practitioner by marrying it with work as an academic. THIS is where I appear to have failed. I have spent the last three years becoming increasingly removed from the stage and I feel like an MFA who will have a PhD.

There. That hair-ball has been coughed up.

Facing forward again.

I believe my mission here is to blog about my scholarship, my research, my thoughts on American theatre, my work as a PhD student…

As a PhD student, I am preparing to focus on my dissertation. I was once quite excited about looking at archive-building in a way that might lead me to use my research to affect change in the community where Tennessee Williams was born, a community where no scholar’s archive presently exists. I have since shifted my gaze towards the Pulitzer Prize for Drama as a canon reprehensive of American identity in the 20^th century. However, just last week I unearthed a book which appears to be doing exactly this. Now I need to refocus and find a new approach.

I admit that I am feeling uninspired at present. I have an intuitive feeling that leads me to believe that it would be quite beneficial to have passion for my dissertation subject but this idea doesn’t seem to aid me in my attaining of said passion. It is quite unlike me to be devoid of passion for theatre-related subjects. I am baffled.

It occurs to me as I write this, though, that I am one of those artist-types who gets increasingly uneasy as I get further removed from my art. When I felt like a vital part of the theatrical world, I was full of drive for my studies. Since my interaction with the craft has become less visceral, less tangible…I have begun to feel less enlivened. I wonder if I am being difficult. Is this a matter of just putting feelings aside and plodding though?

As I have no answers on this particular evening, I will close my daily blog.

Here’s to clarity in the near-future.

En Avant.