Coming Home to Hamlet
April 18, 2022
Dear friends -
It's nearly six months exactly since we began our one-week rehearsal process for Macbeth. I am forever grateful to all of you for making it happen *with* us, and I'm thinking of each one of you as I write this.
As Adriene reminds me all the time (shout out to Yoga With Adriene fans?!), after expansion comes contraction. I think Macbeth was a phoenix moment for me - the fully feathered-out, adult phase - and then I promptly combusted into a slowly settling pile of ash. And stayed that way. For like, six months.
I am frankly finding the world to be a scary place right now. I guess it always has been. But so many of the things I have been fortunate enough to take for granted feel like they could instantly evaporate. A pillar of urgency and desire has formed in me since November, and so I am embarking on my next theatre endeavor: Hamlet at "LA MAMA Shares" (LA MAMA Experimental Theatre Club in New York City in August).
I did not anticipate the spark of a new idea to happen this quickly. But it did. And here we are.
I haven't decided if I will continue sharing updates about Hamlet here - probably just the most pertinent details. Either way, I will be fundraising through Fractured Atlas within the coming months, an organization that will allow me to apply for grants under non-profit status and to accept tax-deductible donations. This is very exciting, as producing theatre in NYC is a *teensy* bit more expensive than in Northampton, MA.
I woke up this morning to a headline that four separate mass shootings happened in this country over the Easter weekend. Which was also the first weekend of Passover. And also included Ramadan. Not even a full week after a shooting in the NYC subway that injured 10 people (not including the 12 others who were injured by smoke inhalation and panic). I am sick of it.
We are allowed to live without the fear of being shot.
I must contextualize my own work within the state of this country, and the world (I can't go into what's happening in Ukraine right now, but I am aghast and terrified), or I will lose my mind out of powerlessness and fear. Unfortunately, I feel the need to justify to myself, and to my community, why what I am doing matters. I must empower myself to continue to create theatre because it allows me to be the best version of Hilary in this world, and to affect people positively. I believe things would be better if everyone did what made them the best versions of themselves.
I have created a landing page for Hamlet on my website. You can follow that link or find it on my homepage under "Upcoming." On the landing page, there is a button that reads, "Why Hamlet Now," which leads you to a "manifesto" of sorts about why I'm producing this play. And how much it means to me. I fell in love with Hamlet in January 2018 and have been studying the role ever since. This poetry is powerful.
There is also a button on that page that allows you to sign up for a Hamlet-specific newsletter, if you are curious about following the project.
Please stay in touch and let me know what you are creating.
Sending love, good health and gratitude far and wide,
Hilary <3