Awakening from a Dream...

Or as I look back on some of the things that I wrote and said...I am awakening from a nightmare.

About a year and a half ago, I began my graduate studies at the University of Massahcusetts, Amherst. I am studying to earn an MFA degree in lighting design. When I came into the program, I believed myself to be one of the best lighting designers around. And where I still believe that I have the potential to be a great lighting designer, whose to say or define best. That said, I realize now, that I have so much to learn. I may have great potential, but I am far from being a great lighting designer.

So, I am waking up and taking a long hard look at a post that I wrote in September of 2008. It was a "review" of A Midsummer Night's Dream, produced at Hartford Stage in Connecticut. What I wrote reflects my lack of knowledge, understanding, and joy in the theater. I tore into a piece of theater, because I walked in judging it. I walked in to critique a piece of theater, rather than walking in to enjoy a piece of theater. If I may venture one word of advice to my readers it is this, don't see theater to review it, see theater because you want to be told a story.

Hartford Stage produced a piece of theater that told a story. Looking back on that experience, I was in no place to say whether the story was good or bad or otherwise. In fact, I am sure it was a wonderful production, but I was too stilted by my own ego to see, hear, and understand the story being told. I look back on what I wrote and cringe! At the time and even recently, I thought that what I wrote was justified and true. However, after reading it, I know that what I wrote couldn't possibly be true. It may have been true to me at the time, in my ignorance, but not now with hindsight in full swing. My experience proves two things: Ignorance is not bliss, and hindsight is 20/20.

So, I want to send out a resounding apology to Hartford Stage, the production team, the design team, and the actors who worked on A Midsummer Nights Dream, and even to my own, be it small, reading audience. I should not have written a "review" of a performance that I didn't plan to enjoy. It is a shame that I will never be able to experience that production again, because I am sure that I would have enjoyed the story being told in the way it was being told in the world it was being told.