I’m not a cold natured individual, but I do have my limits. Yesterday I did something I haven’t done in a long while. I auditioned for a play going up this summer, Fred & Mary, An Unconventional Romance by Micki Shelton (Visit www.ElksOperaHouseFoundation.org.). Shivering in the 58-60 degree, dark Pueblo
of the Smoki Museum in Prescott (Do visit this wonderful museum), I handed over my headshot (printed hastily on my home printer from picture taken in 2006), resume, and performed my two contrasting contemporary pieces. All so familiar and yet not.
For so many years I’ve initiated my own opportunities for creating art through theater, auditioning myself or being asked to do a project. It was…well…it was fun to be required to go through these old, familiar routines, to see old friends, meet new members of our growing theater community. I even wrote my own pieces, moving well outside my comfort zone, but relishing the challenge of venturing into the writing side of theatre.
Prescott, for all its small town community feel and often conservative outlook, has a growing arts world that continually expands in sheer numbers, quality, variety, and willingness to move outside its own comfort zone. It’s a slow process that began over a hundred years ago when locals created theatre on the grounds of Ft. Whipple and made music on Whiskey Row and in their homes.
On March 10th for the second year, under the founding and creative direction of Andrew Johnson-Schmit, our artists of all stripes will come together at the Elks Opera House and celebrate the arts through the Second Annual Buckey Awards For Excellence in the Arts. It’s a time to honor those who’ve been laboring in the fields for decades, those who arrived a short time ago adding their efforts to the creative cauldron and everyone in between.
Even if you do not define yourself as an artist, come meet all those who are either lauded or labor in obscurity, but who understand the value of just showing up for fellow artists. Come in out of the cold of a Saturday evening in March into the warmth of the Elks Opera House. Tickets on sale at www.ElksOperaHouse.com, box office open Tues-Fri, 10 to 2 or call 928 777 1370 .
Gail Mangham, Founder & Artistic Director of The Artist’s Path, wwwTheArtistsPath.org
Second Annual Artist's Path Festival, Love Makes the World Go Round, April 14, 15, 21, 22 at 'Tis Arts Center in Prescott
