The song does not remain the same

I am looking around my bedroom walls, a tiny room where I meticulously hung my large collection of rock’n’roll memorabilia: drumsticks I caught at a Social D & Roots show that I wrestled some guy for on the floor of First Ave, my Gaslight Anthem poster I carried through a rainy parking lot in Omaha after a particularly bruising punk show, an empty bottle of Jack I took from the stage after a Jason Isbell show (yes there was one swig left and yes I drank it), pictures I took of a bunch of our local musicians, pictures someone else took of the many friends I have made through my musical adventures all over this country, set lists from memorable shows, ticket stubs, an EXTENSIVE Springsteen collection, and even an old African instrument my dad got on his travels to Ethiopia. My friends and family walk into this room I painted lime green and turquoise and covered with musical inspiration and automatically say “this is so you!” And there’s nothing of the person I once was, the person I spent 25 years of my 29 developing. And that person would have done anything for the theater. Growing up, it’s all I wanted. Almost every weekend as a child, my sister and I put on grand productions of Annie in our living room where we lip-synced to the record, banged on pots and pans, and made the neighbor girl wear a sheepskin rug to play Sandy. In high school, I was a theater nerd and spent every Saturday at Crown Center in Kansas City for acting lessons. I knew that’s what I wanted to major in when I was searching for college and that’s what brought me to Minnesota and St. Olaf. I was involved with every theater season at Olaf in some capacity, save for the one I was abroad, staying up all night, so many nights in the theater building: speaking, screaming, drawing, dancing, memorizing, researching, creating. Nonstop. I spent a semester at the National Theater Institute, studying every day of the week, from morning til night, on a farm on the beach in Connecticut, two weeks studying with Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, rehearsing Richard III monologues in the park outside of our bed and breakfast til dawn, rolling around on the floor and dancing on the walls by the river. Then, I graduated with departmental distinction, took my education and experience, and left to figure it all out on my own. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else with my life. It’s all I had ever known. While I was at college ten years ago, something else happened, something different and profound. I began to discover music. To make it clear, I have no musical talent. I have a horrible singing voice and cannot play an instrument. Well, I don’t have the drive to play an instrument. I took piano for four years as a child and played the guitar for about a week. Musical theater was never an option for me. Sure, I enjoyed it, but I couldn't really be a part of it. I discovered live music, rock’n’roll, and it affected me in this way that theater never had. Specifically, Bruce Springsteen’s music. But that’s a story for another time. Let’s just say it was his concert on HBO that caused me to bawl on the hotel room bed at my family reunion. “I didn’t know you were a Springsteen fan,” my friend Brian said when he learned of my summer listening habits. “I didn’t know I was either,” I replied.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I started to seek music out, and my theater focus began to change. I realized how much connection art could have, and I wanted that more than anything in theater. When given an assignment to write a play, it was a version of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska for me. When told to create a found text performance, it was about my relationship with my mom and our first Springsteen concert together. I had found this immense connection to something intangible through my experience as an audience member at my rock shows. I began to think about this night with my college roommate more often: lying on the hill outside Old Main, we were playing the James Lipton Inside the Actor’s Studio questions game and she asked me, if I weren’t doing theater, what would I do, and I answered “taking pictures of rockers in the 70s and 80s.” At that point in my life, I had barely ever picked up a camera...but I had seen those photos of the giants of rock...and they stuck in the back of my mind, amongst the Shakespeare and Albee, for years after. When I left college, I worked at an independent theater in Kansas City, moved back to Minneapolis & dove into the theater scene here. I directed and assistant directed whenever I could. I rehearsed in the party room of my apartment building or even my living room if we had no other space. One of the greatest parts of my years was the Fringe Festival, planning the long list of shows, putting up a production, hopping from venue to venue. I spent almost every night and weekend in the theater. Still seeking that connection. Like the young version of myself, it’s all I cared about. It's who I was.

More intense and real

But the music was creeping in more and more. As the years progressed, I was going to concerts whenever I could, in everything from tiny bars to giant arenas. It was thrilling and raw. Still is. I saw a lead singer smash a beer bottle over his head and sing through the blood. This wasn't corn syrup and red dye. This was real blood. And he was wailing the words to his songs as it dripped over his mouth onto the mic. I sat in Barbette with a friend and we held hands and cried as one of our favorite local musicians sat with just a guitar and sweetly sang about standing on a corner in the city waiting for his love. I’ve seen Bruce raise a stadium of 70,000 people to their feet…and local hip hop acts get a room of 20 to pump their fists in the air with pure abandon. I wanted to tell THESE stories and the only way I could see how was with sporadic emails to an old professor and mentor about my musical adventures, and - with my camera. I bought my first SLR and started to photograph shows. I still remember the first time I was published, running in with my newspaper and throwing it on the table during rehearsal. I was so proud. It was like I had finally found my way to communicate. Meanwhile, the theater part of me was shutting down. It didn't mean the same as it had for so many years. I had found something else. In my mind and body, something better, more intense and real. I knew going into my final fringe show three years ago, that it would be my last. And I was DAMN proud of that show because my friends and I were creating a story about growing up and I could FINALLY tell of my musical journey, what had become my story, the most important one. Theater just was not working. So much was corny and it was expensive. For $20 I could go to a show I probably wouldn't like, and not for lack of searching, or I could see a few local shows and rock the fuck out. To pinpoint it worst of all, as a whole, theater has just become SO BORING. Then, it was over. I stopped going to theater, stopped trying to find those gems that I know still exist, because it stopped mattering to me. Theater doesn't speak to me, to the audiences I've been a part of, like these shows do. It's like that person I was for 25 years of my life is gone. I have music now, my photography, my rock'n'roll and punk rock and hip hop blaring from my computer speakers right now. I have my way to communicate. I have that connection. Evidence of it is plastered all over this city, this world, on grimy venue floors, cracked stages, in stereos and car speakers, and all across my bedroom walls. But what happened to that little girl who put a ragged old nightgown on to sing "Hard Knock Life" to my parents every Saturday morning? Who lived for that? Who lived for that moment before you step out onstage to begin a show? Or sneak back into the audience to let your actors have a play you worked months on? Who found herself in the theatre? Is this sensation I get from live music mutually exclusive from theater or can it truly be a part of it? I want to combine my past and present. I want to find this out.