after moving home in December 20th 2024, setting things up and a breath in up to new years eve, I committed myself, within a two week time frame, to turn up to one of my biggest braves to date:

an audition for an open 12-month Acting Studio at the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

having to perform two chosen, published monologues—and always, for reasons that obviously escape the rational in presence—I went for the ambitious: two totally new-to-me sections of writing:

one, my passion piece, was an 80-line monologue from a John Milton epica.

and two, a hugely chewy section of a Samuel Beckett play.

I gave nine days to Milton and only three to Beckett—which was way too much in too little time and hit me with a few despair moments during. It was telling on the day, at my grasping end just a few lines deep. Milton, however, even though unfinished, I delivered with large gustos and spills of the “what it means,” which, to me, is to pay homage to poetic verse: one of the legs for why I was there.

I worked my ass off for this. Even though it is also a culmination of a life’s turning wheel, the two-week lead-up was a ceaseless examination of what the mind can really do—it’s amazing what it can.

I believe that performance of the word is intrinsic to the writing of it—especially in a poetic kind of sense. This is why I turned up. This is why I am committed to this. Expand one, expand both, looped. Also, it is to represent the creative word impassionedly, in service to it being an alterer of persons and spaces. A continuation, in a sense, from where I transition from.

[to be part of a poetic works theatre performance one day perhaps … ]

a walk that, by doing, will be given to others; to perform poetic agency. A walk I will share then.

The facilities and facilitators at NIDA were notched high, amazing. So thankful to have been picked to join. A “so” I have plenty to give, and plenty more than so, in return.

To come...

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