The subtitle of this Blog post is “Look, I made a Hat!”. I don’t throw around musical theater jokes too much in my writing, but sometimes, you have to honor yourself!
For those of you who know me personally, or who know me professionally, you know that I recently developed a new piece of non-profit programming for musical theater choreographers called The Choreography Lab. The Choreography Lab is a bi-monthly Salon that allows theatrical choreographers to present musical theater/ narrative choreography at any stage of development. The Salon hopes to help choreographers both develop their craft, and make connections with other directors, composers, and theater writers. The third Salon of the 2013-2014 season is taking place on March 18th, and I believe this is the one that will really be the first full expression of my concept.
I’m thrilled with the progress of the Salon on so many levels. For several years, I have believed that the New York musical theater community was missing a program like this, and I am very proud to be contributing something to the theater dance community that I believe will help other artists. However, on a personal level, I’m very proud that I took what I thought was a BIG IDEA, and made small steps month by month to shepherd this idea from a dream into reality. Instead of telling people “Gee, don’t you think it would be great if…”, or “I wish something like this existed…”, I now can say, “I created this program, because I saw a need and wanted to fill it”.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that talk is cheap. We all know people who say “when I write my novel”, or “when I choreograph an evening of choreography”, or “when I’m on Broadway”. Now, I know some of these things are out of our control (the Broadway thing, yeah, I know, there are a lot of factors that go into that one), but the novel? The evening of dance? The gallery showing? Those things need blood, sweat, and tears, but they don’t require luck-they require action. And, I will go out on a limb and say that even “The Broadway Thing” becomes A LOT more attainable with sustained action, as opposed to never ending talk.
This may sound silly, but I make a conscious effort not to talk about the things I “might” do. Sure, I talk about them with very close friends, or my family, and I write them down and ruminate on them, but I don’t talk about them with my colleagues or acquaintances. Because your reputation is only as good as your word. People will listen to the things you say, and they will notice if you follow through with your plans, or if you don’t. And I think it’s pretty safe to say that we all want to be known as a person who takes consistent quiet action, and not as a person who blows a lot of hot air.
You hit the nail on the head with this post.
I believe talk is worse than cheap.
Every time we say something with little to no intention of follow through it kills off a little bit of our drive, desire and ability to take future actions.
What we intend deliberately will always come true…
To many of us float through life like the leaves on a windy day, getting blown in every direction simply because we don’t put certainty behind our words and intentions…