2: THE CENTER DID NOT HOLD
David and I had been friends and collaborators for 18 years at this point. Even when I thought I’d left theater behind to focus on my own music, David showed up with another intriguing show he was hired to direct and hoped I’d be up for another sound design or composer gig. We played to each others strengths and we’ve always had fun—even when outside circumstances tried to harsh our vibe—so I’d have to be extremely busy or extremely foolish to say no; I was neither of those things when Troilus & Cressida came along. But now we were sitting in a bar in the middle of the day, drinking beers instead of doing our jobs.
It felt wrong—surreal—after weeks spent preparing for the artistic pressure of tech only to have the plug pulled before the work began. At least we held on to a sliver of hope we’d soon be back to Shakespeare Land, delivering another live production into the world. Of course those days of social distancing stretched on for eternities and, after David and I said our goodbyes that afternoon, it would be three years before we’d see each other in person again.
Schools closed and suddenly my son Ethan, just a few months from completing second grade, was bound to the iMac I pulled out of the garage; I’d intended to get rid of the damn thing, but now that hunk of junk was essential hardware. There was no plan in place for public schools, so my new job became IT tech support under house arrest. If I ever wondered what hell sounded like, it was two dozen 2nd graders on Microsoft Teams with all their mics unmuted.
Meanwhile, it became clear we may never stage Troilus & Cressida. I mixed the music, such as it was, and sent it out to the cast and crew. It would have evolved in the trenches of tech rehearsals right up until opening night, but now it was like an artifact from Pompeii, frozen mid-scream; a minor testament to an uneasy time.
***
Even if my foray into production music was something I could do from home, time and stress took its toll and I no longer knew what I wanted to do with music. Or what I wanted to do at all. I had my family to keep me afloat through depressing days that felt like weeks, and weeks that felt like days. I wouldn’t get re-energized about making music for two years—on my 50th birthday in fact—when I started a pair of projects that consumed me well into 2023. And then came a surprise offer from an old friend, taking me back to where a lot things really took off: in the year 2000 and a show called Texarkana Waltz.
