As a theatre professional I probably often take theatre for granted.  I live and breathe theatre all the time and I really enjoy what I do, but sometimes that fact does take a lot of the magic out of it for me.  I enjoy going to the theatre to see shows that I am not working on, but I sometimes feel like I have to go twice to really see the show because I am always thinking about “how/why did they do that” and you really can’t pay attention to everything at the same time!  I suppose I just get a different enjoyment out of going to a show than many people.

One of the benefits of working for Pioneer Theatre is that I get comp tickets to all of our shows.  Usually I don’t have people to give the tickets to and I don’t use them myself on account of I run a lot of the shows.  I often look for people to give tickets to because sharing theatre is the whole point!  Our ticket prices are nowhere near the cost of a ticket to a Broadway show, but sometimes the cost of a theatre ticket can be prohibitive.  The other reason that I like to use my comps is that it is nice to have people at the shows, especially the lesser known ones that don’t sell as well.  That being said, if you are ever in Salt Lake City and want to see one of our shows, just let me know and I will set you up.

So, this year I made good friends with my SCUBA instructor who works up at Dive Utah in Ogden.  When I was telling him what I do for a living he told me that his wife and daughter love to go to the theatre.  I brought up a stack of our season fliers and a pair of tickets to our production of Is He Dead? which made them very happy.  Upon hearing that I sent up more tickets for our production of A Christmas Story, and then I didn’t hear anything from them for a while.

The other day I received the following letter:

Dear Alex,

You don’t know who I am, but I am the lucky recipient of the tickets to see not only “Is He Dead”, but also “A Christmas Story”.  I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your generosity.  It was the first time I had ever been to that particular theatre, and I was so impressed with everything.  The scenery on both of them were amazing, and they were done so professionally, that it was a pleasure to watch.  I don’t think there is a bad seat in the house, and the sound was wonderful, you could not ask for more.

I had never heard of “Is He Dead” but thoroughly loved it.  ”A Christmas Story” happens to be one of my favorite Christmas shows…..and the play was a million times better….THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

My daughter and I are the live theatre lovers in our family, and try to get to just about any and all plays around, and that is why I am so surprised that we have never been to the Pioneer theatre before, but it won’t be the last time….we loved it!!!

Thanks again for your kindness, I really do appreciate it!!!

It is really cool to hear that what we are doing has had such an impact on these people.  Frankly, I think that is what doing this job is all about.  I love sharing what I do and I am happy that I am able to offer this kind of opportunity to the family of my friend.  Getting a letter like this really reminds me why I do what I do, why I work in this industry.  It makes me feel like I am doing the right thing and that I made the right choices to get here.

I am sure that there are plenty of people out there who get some kind of positive feedback and response to what they are doing, and it probably makes them feel similar.  I just love the fact that theatre is such a community activity every person in the audience has an impact on the show that is presented and everyone takes something different away with them.  To be able to share that magic and have it make people happy and excited to come to the theatre is what it is all about.  I don’t look for or need to see my name in the program, I don’t care if my contribution is recognized.  Just knowing that at least one person was moved or inspired by coming to the theatre makes my job worthwhile!

As I understand it, blogging is a two way street.  While sure, I have to write something that other people might want to read, it helps if I read what other people have to say.  Frankly, reading other blogs is probably a lot more interesting than reading the newspaper every day. You can probably get the same amount of world news by reading the right blogs every day as well, you just get more biased viewpoints, which is probably not a bad thing.  I mean, the newspapers and media agencies all have their own slant, especially here in Salt Lake City!

There have been a few blogs that I have been following for a while but I wanted to figure out how I could expand who I was reading and then maybe expand who found me.  It really is a strange fascination that many of us have in wanting other people to read what we write.  I mean, sometimes I wonder if I really have something to say that anyone cares about.  It isn’t like anyone listens to me at work, I have been here for four years and sometimes I wonder who notices!

The three blogs that I have been reading regularly are: Photofocus by Scott Bourne, MonsteRawr by Stephanie Van Sandt, and Youngest Around by Jessica Watson.  Photofocus is a great read for photographers with lots of interesting and useful information.  MonsteRawr is just a firend of mine who I met through ControlBooth.com, and Youngest Around is Jessica’s blog documenting her solo circumnavigation sailing adventure.  Also I have recently started to read Jim on Light as we have started to have some interactions on Twitter.

The big holiday party was lat night and it was a lot of fun.  Getting to see people who i don’t get to see very often is a treat.  It is an awful lot of work to pull off a party like that though.  We had twenty-some odd people at the house.  My mother and I made almost 20lbs of potatoes into latkes, we made 16-ish pounds of corned beef, a turkey and more.  I don’t remember what my father said was the count on number of bottles of wine drunk.

Seeing family and friends is fun, but it is mighty tiring.  People started to show up at 5 and the last guest left between 9 and 10, plus we did all the prep beforehand.  I think I got to tell the same stories over and over to different people, and it is hard to keep up with all of that.  Seeing my cousins Greg Weisman, and Sarah and Brian Swett was nice.  I have not seen them in a long time.  I don’t know if I can convince greg to come out to Utah this year, he has all kinds of other adventures planned.  Maybe SCUBA diving in Israel this spring, he sounded interested in that.

Then of course there are the gifts.  As much as I like getting money as a gift, sometimes I feel like it is a cop-out.  I do kinda need money to pay off all my bills, what with buying a washer and dryer and such, but then I feel like I didn’t really use the gifts that I was given.  There are things that I want to get, but then i feel like I could have used the money to be practical and pay the bills.  Worst of all, is that most of the gifts were in cash, and when i have cash I tend to spend it on things that really are not gifty, like dinner.  It is kind of a dilemma.

Over the course of this trip I did get to visit some friends of mine.  Best of all was getting to see Jesi, who, unfortunately is not working currently, thought that allowed her the time to visit.  We went out to see “Radium Girls” produced by the BU Theatre Department.  It was a great show and I got to finally tweetup with a couple more friends: @gizm770o, @jamisonkissh, and @lightingguru44.  The production was really great, a very interesting show.  I would recommend it to anyone who likes going to the theatre.  One of the other great things about the performance was the fact that they has a talkback after with the playwright, which was very interesting.  I enjoy hearing how good plays came to be.

What really bummed me out was not getting to see my good friend Molly who is currently working at Shakespeare and Company in Lennox, MA.  She had performances most of the days that I was home and then it started to snow on the night that she hoped to come visit.  To tell the truth, out of all the people that were at our party, if i had been able to see Molly, it would have made me a lot happier.  Another time I guess.

So, now thanks to Delta for free wifi on the airplane, I can post this entry.  Go figure that they would actually give something away.  I mean the fact that you have to pay to check bags now is totally ridiculous.  It is even more ridiculous that its costs you MORE to check your bags in the airport rather than online at home even though you still have to go see a real live person at the airport to actually check the bag!  It makes no sense.  More people would fly if it cost less to fly!

I think that is all I have, time to sit back and watch a movie to kill the time before we get in to Salt Lake City.  Then i have to go to work, huzzah for photo call!

I am actually not entirely sure where everyone is.  I know that Dan and Dad went out do deposit Dan’s check and do some shopping, but I am not sure where my mother is.  I though she was home.  We are supposed to make potato latkes today.  I am kinda looking forward to that.  i am also looking forward to seeing Jesi and going over the BU theatre to see “Radium Girls.”

In the mean time I have been killing time helping my dad set up a blog (which he will probably never really use) and messing with the format of mine.  My formatting is still a work in progress, but I have been learning a lot about CSS and customization.  I may just need to build the page from the ground up to really learn it ad make it my own.  I think that I spent way too much time in front of the computer yesterday working on it.  Had fun though.  I was using my dad’s iMac, which really made me want one.  I need a computer with a huge screen!

Possibly one of the best things about being home is good food.  Last night we had great fish, Hake, I think, and sweet potato fries.  It really doesn’t get much better than that!  Well, that might not be true because after dinner we walked up the street to Cabot’s to get ice cream sundaes.  Yeah, my mother won a bet with my dad and we all got sundaes.  Then this morning I woke up to the smell of bacon cooking.  Bacon bagels and eggs, what a breakfast.  We are also making loads of corned beef for the Hanukkah party tomorrow as well.  Of course there is also the obligatory Chinese lunch that we have with my grandparents any time I am visiting.  It may not be home cooked, but it is better than almost all of the Chinese places that I have tried in SLC!

So, here I am sitting and waiting for the next thing to happen.  So far this has been a pretty good trip.  Surprising my dad’s parents before they left for Florida was good.  It certainly made them happy.  Lots of good food, and friends.  It all amounts to a nice bit of time off!