Community in a New World, Erm...

 In 2023, after 18 years of living in Arizona, I relocated to Pennsylvania. I grew up in New Jersey (with a brief stint in Florida), spent my undergraduate years in Virginia, and went to graduate school in the Netherlands, until resettling in New Jersey for a few years. Even after so long in Arizona, and as many things as I loved about it, I am an East Coast kid. Well, whatever I am now, anyway. I am only a kid if you were born before 1960.

I moved to be closer to the majority of my family and friends and to marry my best friend. I had endured a grueling few years following the illness and death of my mother, and the entire experience broke me in a number of ways. The move was intended to a reset and renewal.

I have been welcomed with open arms. My husband has been performing in local community theatre in the Harrisburg region for the last 5+ years, and his friends have made a point of engaging me wherever and whenever possible. They have gone out of their way to make me feel a part of the group, even if it takes me a number of interactions to remember everyone;s name. But in fairness, I am one person, and there are 80 billion of them, so yeah.

One of the things my husband and I take very seriously is being supportive of our theatre-related and -connected friends, from Shippensburg to Lancaster (which is a big area, if you didn't know). This includes the kids. We have been to strange shows at schools with strange names. There is a middle school here named after pants, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not even kidding, Yellow Breeches Middle School is located in Boiling Springs, PA. I don't know why they are yellow. I don't know why they don't wear something at least waterproof in the springs, let alone something to protect the skin from the boiling. I don't get it.

Anyway... I kid, really, but these kids are truly wonderful. We recently attended a production at a local high school, where the three leads were kids with whom my husband had performed and I had met. I would shout out their names, but they're minors, and my local readers will know who they are. Such amazingly talented, truly luminous young people. While I have a new respect for my parents attending my shows from the 1970s to the 1990s, these kids make it so easy because they are so dedicated to what they do, and do it so well. And, as elders in this community (ouch!), we both feel it is important to show our support not just with words but with our physical presence. My only regret is that I will likely not have an opportunity to work with them directly because they will be graduating and off to colleges somewhere.

This month, I am appearing in my first production in almost thirty years. It is a small cast of ten, which I love, because it has made us a tighter-knit group than a larger production might otherwise allow. My castmates include my aforementioned spouse, plus a handful of actors I had met after seeing them perform previously, and a divine woman who has been one of the people to engage me so many times from when I first arrived; she plays my wife in the show, Rumors, by the great Neil Simon. For the first time since my arrival, I feel like I have my own friends here, versus those I inherited with the Spousal Acceptance Card (SAC :-D).

That isn't to say there haven't been challenges. I have absolutely no regrets, but they are, absolutely, challenges.

I have a large role with a lot to do. I haven't eased into this with.a five-line part in one scene or something. The only real rehearsal I missed was due to my body needing the rest, and not the schedule giving me a night off. The last time I did this, I was in my 20s, and now, I'm well... not in my 20s. I was invited to audition, and I took the part because my character has a car accident at the beginning of the play and I thought he would sit a lot. Nope. I also don't remember things like I used to. I wear a hearing aid. I have ideopathic peripheral neuropathy. I have a dad bod. Well, ok, really two dad bods. 

But honestly, I would not have traded this experience for anything. These are my people. This is what we do. 

And this is my new community. It's not based on a religion, an industry, political activism, or even my subcultural community identity, but on artistic interests and the satisfaction of seeing a production to its conclusion. My castmates include directors and singers, completely separate from this show. And the larger community includes other actors, directors, singers, designers, writers, and the so-often overlooked technicians that make all of us on stage look so good. I would never have imagined that I would find so much in the middle of nowhere.

So for Kelli. For Rick. For Katy. For Brad. For April. For Jeremy. For Margie. For Janelle. For Dave. Thank you.

And for Catie. For Patience. For Dan. For Russ. For Amanda. For Mike. For Matt. For Kevin. For Tara, For Kimberly. For Ashley. And for our beloved Ben. Thank you.