The Roman poet Juvenal coined the famous phrase ‘Orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano’ — You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body — around the end of the first century. What’s the connection to our series of 13 Ways of Looking at Self-Producing? Juvenal did think of his lacerating satirical poems as a kind of drama in which he “compares human affairs to theater and games.”
But the more important connection to our experiences in self-producing is the imperative to be in shape before and during your self-producing efforts. As someone recently pointed out about me, I am at the age where I have been 12 years old six times over. Yet my conversations with much younger participants in this kind of enterprises also confirm that the rigors of shaping a self-production require the playwright to stay in pretty good physical and emotional shape. More hours, more tasks, and more stress. Embarking upon this effort requires additional energy and fortitude. Your plan should include a regimen that assures the proper rest and diet. If this sounds like you are training for a marathon, the comparison is not an idle one. You don't want to drop out or get injured when you hit one of the steep hills that are sure to be part of your producing landscape.
I do NOT try this but Yoga helps keep a body ready for the rigors of self-producing
The first self-production in this turn on the merry-go-round occurred in 2019 with Alms by Joe Queenan and me. This lesson of this essay was not yet absorbed by me but as I absorbed the stress and strain of getting to and through opening night including last minute rewrites and welcome but unexpected ‘oversales’ my body and mind shut down. The day after opening night was spent in a hotel bed wracked by an exhaustion never experienced previously. Happily, I recovered but then resolved never to put myself in that precarious and very uncomfortable state again.
One testimony to the wear and tear of self-production surfaced in an excellent essay here by Peter James on his now ended career as a standup comedian.
(BTW Peter ironically perhaps employs ‘@afailedcomedian‘ as his Substack handle, but I consider anyone who can write such an insightful piece as anything but failed.)
Don’t look to me for specific fitness routines physically. Seriously, have you googled any photos of me and the twenty pounds squatting around my waist? Walking and biking along with a hodgepodge of morning yoga works for me IF I do those things daily. Obviously, each person’s physical needs will be different. For example, our show last fall, The Jester’s Wife, required mammoth feats of construction because of the amazing set by Gloria Novi. Look at the video of its strike here
If # 10 is about the physical demands of self-producing, # 11 of our Thirteen Ways concerns the mental and spiritual. Again, each must find their own way, but my advice --indeed exhortation -- is don’t neglect this realm even when pressed by a ferocious schedule. For me, a kind of meditation works but if I miss even one session while in the middle of a project because of hrrying off to handle some crisis the deficit usually rebounds on me later that day or week. There’s no makeup class for self-reflection and calming routines. There are many sources on breathing techniques – some of them associated with theater training – but I go back again and again to Thich Nhat Hanh.
Part of this concentration on taking care of yourself physically and mentally must involve taking care of your relationships with others. I've always found the metaphor 'frayed nerves' compelling because it suggests that some forces are rubbing and unraveling what's inside of us until they're ready to snap and break. But the original meaning of ‘frayed’ -- “to affect with fear” --actually included the effects of stress and startle. There’s more than a little of that about any theatre effort with those discordant forces buzzing and beating at our bearing but their numbers and potency abound in self-producing. Keeping calm, asking questions, seeking first to understand are all good moves to keep those pests from fraying those precious nerves of yours. Anchor yourself in an affirmation of what transpires. Hold what happens – good, bad, or indifferent -- a little outside yourself so that those circumstances don’t hold you.
Why? It's a really bad idea to let the vibrations and consequences of that stress play out on other people. I wish I could claim to be ever innocent in this matter. In a show just several months ago, I lost my temper one night at dropped lines weeks after our agreed 'off-book' date. You can't take back a growl and a scowl to an actor. I regretted the effect that it had upon me and the other person. If you do not control them, those explosions will cause collateral damage to your demeanor and the consequences will ripple through the work. The self- in ‘self-producing’ must be your best self.
John Huston's comment is true of self-producing in theater as well: you move from the cocoon of playwrighting to the hive of collaboration and connection. And trust me, it isn't easy for a butterfly to become a bee 😜
https://www.instagram.com/p/C6B2vXTP5t6/?igsh=cGphZmNnMmNsZTli
I appreciate the shout out! I've had to make stretching with intentional breathing (I guess it's a kind of freelance yoga) a part of my morning routine as I've gotten older. It definitely loosens up the mind and body at the same time.