We are less than two weeks from opening night for Legally Blonde! Having blocked the entire show, the cast is now at the point where we are running entire acts, cleaning transitions and rough spots, and working on finer details of the performance to ensure that we put on the best possible show for the audience. Going to the Paramount is the highlight of my day. This show is going to rock. Friends, at the conclusion of Act I, Elle and the ensemble perform this amazing, difficult song, “So Much Better.” Patti Maisano, our Elle, slays that song. The final note in Act I, ohmiGod you guys. Theatre performers live to sing notes like that on stage. I want that final note to go on forever. The crowd is going to be clapping before that song is over, it is just so good.
A few weeks ago, Marco Perez (our Warner in Legally Blonde) suggested to me that I look at the song “Dust and Ashes” from the recent Broadway musical, Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812. I’ve become obsessed with the song. Not only is the song beautiful, but I find the words existentially haunting on so many levels. Sung by Pierre, the male lead played by Josh Groban in the Broadway production, the song speaks powerfully of the doubts and regrets of the character as he reflects on the emptiness of his life. “Is this how I die?” Pierre queries, “ridiculed and laughed at, wearing clown shoes?” There is this moment in the song that resonates with me in a very personal way. Pierre reflects on the things he has given himself to in his life:
“All of my life I’ve spent searching the words
of poets and saints and prophets and kings.
Now at the end all I know that I’ve learned
Is that all that I know is I don’t know a thing.”
Realizing that his search for life’s essence has left him empty and devoid of joy, Pierre believes that only love has the power to wake him from the slumber of living death. Trapped in his unhappy life, Pierre yearns for a happiness that has eluded him. The song concludes with Pierre begging God to not let him die while he is like this.
Over the last week I’ve been pondering why I can’t stop singing this song. At one level, I simply find the song beautiful. It’s something I’d love to perform on stage someday. More personally, Pierre’s own thoughts about a life devoted to “searching the words of poets and saints and prophets and kings” hits close to home. I am a mid-career professor at a Christian university who is paid to do what Pierre describes. These days I’m finding that a lot of the things that I’ve done in my career–presenting papers to small audiences of scholars, publishing essays on arcane topics that are of interest to very few people–are much less interesting or meaningful to me than they used to be. My job demands that I devote time to this, and yet I’m disillusioned by the insignificance of it all. I’m also increasingly aware that many of the things that I used to spend my time doing: debating moral issues with strangers, for example–do more to feed my anxieties than my soul. I want to devote myself to those things that bring my joy. I want to be a better person. I want to do things that are purposeful and important.
Over the last week I’ve been thinking a fair bit about the things I do in my life that serve these ends. Where do I find joy, and what things in my life are cultivating those virtues that I aspire to make a part of my life? While I love my job and feel fortunate to be in the position that I am in, these days a lot of that feeling stems from the freedom my career affords me to do things that are not directly tied to my work as a college professor. To be clear, I still appreciate my job and am fortunate to have never experienced the feeling of career burnout so vividly described by my friend Jon Malesic in his book, The End of Burnout. But these days the actual work that goes into being a college professor is less consequential to me than weekly rituals that are more mundane and not directly tied to the task of researching and writing. Where do I find my joy?
I find joy in the weekly chess club I run, where I get to teach young kids how to play chess and where I help to cultivate character. I love watching my young chess players grow into capable chess players, adept over the board, but also attuned to the practice of winning and losing well.
I find joy in the rehearsal room, where I get to perform for myself and do mundane things like sing scales and rehearse new songs. I love how singing makes me feel about myself.
I find joy on the stage, where I get to collaborate with other performers to tell a story to live audiences. I love making audiences react to the story, to feel that I am conveying a narrative that can provoke laughter, anger, or tears. I love the satisfaction that comes when the final curtain falls and an audience leaves feeling moved by the experience, in a position to ask questions or think differently than they did before coming to the theatre.
I find joy watching young kids learn the joy of performing on stage. I love thinking about the ways that theatre helps kids grow and find their own voices. I love watching my friends who are giving themselves to the work of teaching the craft of theatre to children.
I find joy watching student athletes perform on the field, the pitch, and the court. I love witnessing how years of practice, exercise, and drills cultivate excellence. I love the narratives that emerge from competitive sport, which is itself a sort of theatre.
This summer I’ve been thinking a lot about how to orient my career toward those things that bring me joy. I don’t yet know where this might lead, though I do know that my research interests these days are less polemical, more focused on questions of virtue and care. This Fall I’m working on a grant proposal for a research project on Fred Rogers, he of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fame. I’m obsessed with this man. I am thinking a lot about the lessons his own work might offer for Christian ethics. I’m continuing this year as ACU’s Faculty Athletic Representative, a role that allows me plenty of opportunities to serve student athletes at our university. Legally Blonde wraps in a couple of weeks. This Fall I’m taking an acting class at ACU and will be looking for new opportunities on stage while continuing my daily practice ritual in the rehearsal room. I’m continuing with Backbeat next year and am looking forward to singing pop acapella again.
I need to wrap this post up. I love “Dust and Ashes,” but reflecting on my own life I realize that Pierre’s despair is not my own. I am not trapped in an unhappy life. To be able to work, to be in a place in life where I can feel such joy is something I do not take for granted. If this is how I die, what I life to live.
Come see Legally Blonde!