I found out yesterday that I am being given an all-expenses paid 11-day trip to Los Angeles in June. But that’s not all: while I’m out there, I’ll be able to see shows nearly every day, sometimes day and night, including events that are part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the Radar LA Festival and the Asian American Theater Festival.
And possibly best of all, I’ll be accompanied by a couple dozen other theater geeks (or journalists, if you prefer) from all around the country, working together with them and learning from them as we meet with leading theater professionals from all around the world.
Which is all a roundabout way of saying that I’ve had the extreme good fortune to be offered a fellowship for the 2011 NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater at the University of Southern California. It’s an insanely amazing program and, with the support of Style and my lovely wife and family, I applied this year and was accepted. My heart hasn’t stopped racing since I got the email last night.
This kind of total immersion experience just sounds like a dream to me. And less than 8 weeks from now, that dream is going to come true. The logistics both job-wise and family-wise will probably be complicated but, when I am able to push those aside, I just feel extremely giddy with delight at this incredible opportunity.
As soon as I am able to focus again, I’ll be able to talk about things like Henley Street’s “Waiting for Godot,” which both Mr. Porter and Mr. Griset reviewed recently and that I caught only the first act of last night. I’m also primed to dig into Barksdale’s “Circle Mirror Transformation,” but in the meantime you can read Mr. Miller’s review at GayRVA.
But for now, my energies will mainly go into regulating my breathing and wiping this fool grin off my face.
8 comments:
Congratulations! I hope you'll be able to share lots of takeaways from your experience on this blog. Keep grinning!
Yahoo and Mazel tov for you!!
jj
That's sounds really exciting! Congratulations! And Yes! Please share all about it on the blog!
Congrats Dave, what an awesome and well deserved opportunity!
That is really fantastic Dave - congratulations!
I AM SO PROUD OF YOU, CRITIC BOY!!! I'm also thankful for the many readers who are interested in what you have to say and have even joined some of the conversations (no matter what side they are on). None of this would matter much without the readers.
I hope the skills and perspective you gain through this upcoming fellowship will translate into good things for our local theater scene... more conversation, more attendance, more awareness, more support.
Very exciting for you to be part of a national conversation on arts journalism. Sounds like many are eagerly anticipating both what you have to contribute to it and what you will take away. I know I am!
Way to go. Sorry I keep saying this, but it's true: You rock!!!
love, yer wife
:)
That's tremendously exciting, David! And so well-deserved. Eraserhead's quite right---we will indeed look forward to hearing about it on Dave's Theater Blog!
Congratulations.
-Grant
Thank you all for your support! I'm sure the fact that I keep this blog -- and that people like you read it -- was an important factor in choosing me for this fellowship so I truly could not have received it without you. I'll certainly be posting dispatches from LA when I'm out there. I can't wait!
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