By Any Means Necessary

“Do you like green eggs and ham?”

“I do not like them, Sam-I-Am. I do not like green eggs and ham.”

“Would you like them here or there?” –Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

I’m sort of back to that place I’ve always been in my career: Wherever I was working with agents, or working in L.A. or New York, at the same time I was always going off and doing my own thing. Like we’re going do a short play or a short film, finding jobs on my own. Like when I was at the University of Kansas, I was getting my Masters, and there were only so many spaces….Finding space for yourself when you’re writing plays on your own, you’re not the first person on the list. So constantly, especially there, I’m going all over campus. And I would find spaces that fit plays. I’m finding places on campus, I’m like, ‘Oh man, you know that stairwell under the Natural History Museum, have your read that Pinter play, One for the Road, where this guy’s doing those interrogations? Why won’t we do that there? And we’ll put the audience on the stairs.’ So I was doing environmental theater faster than I could think. And of course, there’s always some teacher saying, ‘you can’t do theater there.’ Yeah, you can. I’m kind of in that same place.

That’s one of the things they tell students. Any time somebody says, give me some advice, it’s not like, ‘here are the keys to the kingdom,’ My big one is, ‘don’t take no for an answer.’  Somebody says no, that’s just one no. Go around them, or find something else. . . So I’m still out there looking for money, to make a movie, or finding a place to stage a play. Who cares if the audience is here in Romania? Or if it’s in L.A? Or if it’s in Canada? My job is doing theater, not doing Broadway. Broadway used to be synonymous with doing theater when Tennessee Williams was around. There was no regional theater in the same way, but now we can do it anywhere.” -Neil LaBute, Stage Raw Interview with Steven Leigh Morris

“When you hit a wall of your own imagined limitations, just kick it in.” -Sam Shepard

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Go make your art.

In a boat.

With a goat.

In the rain.

In the dark.

On a train.

In a car.

In a tree.

In a box.

With a fox.

In a house.

With a mouse.

Here and there.

Anywhere.

Just do it.

Go make your art.

By any means necessary.