Please take your seat

I just got home from the theatre where eight of us spent the morning putting half of the new seats into the space. We now have 46 seats installed with more to be done this coming week. At around 12:30 PM, I was finally able, after years and years of planning and hard work by so many people, to take a seat in the front row of the new theatre. It was an unbelievable feeling to be sitting in a front row seat looking onto a stage where dreams really can come true. I looked up into the three stories of space over the stage and realized that this could be the only 96 seat venue anywhere that has such a large stage with such a small house. I kept looking up, to just maybe see the angel that was the inspiration for me writing in the first place [from the play Angels in America]. After a few seconds, I turned and looked around me. When I did, I saw many angels, hard at work, who had already landed. They were laughing, putting in sound, putting in seats and with one special angel taking pictures of it all happening. Angels have come to earth at 4th and Jasper. It's getting so close..................

Remembering my aunt Olga Derowski

I had just posted last week about the death of my aunt, Helen Sokolowski, one of my grandparent's Walt and Sue's daughters who died last week so close to the rebirth of her old home at 4th and Jasper. Last night, after Helen's funeral, I recieved a call from my cousin that my aunt Olga, the youngest sister in the family, had passed away last night. Olga had been suffering from dementia for some time and died peacefully. As hard as one death is to fathom we now have another to mourn. So close to new life we always are.........things over the horizon are always close to us....and....always led by angels.

Read this article in today's Boston Globe

The art of saving a city - The Boston Globe

As you can see by reading this, Camden has sister cities all over the country. Here is yet another example of a city being saved through the arts. Come down to 4th and jasper and be a part of the excitement. Camden will rise. Heal Camden!

Remembering my aunt, Helen Sokolowski

My aunt Helen died Monday morning. She was one of my grandparent's four daughters and was raised in Walt's Cafe, so soon to be reborn as Waterfront South Theatre. I remember back in the spring when, on one of our volunteer painting days, Helen came into the theatre for the first time through the same old doorway that for years was the entry to her father's bar. I walked her around and showed her the lobby, theatre and then went up the steps to show her the other two, new floors, then in the midst of their creation. As she came down into the lobby she looked out the two large windows, exactly the size and type that were there so long ago when she was a girl. At that time I saw that she had tears in her eyes and just kept telling me "this is great...this is so great". Cancer took her swiftly this past Monday morning, so soon before the corner's rebirth. So...now instead of watching "Last Rites" from her seat she will instead watch it with her parents from a much higher venue. Life...in all of its shifting forms always continues. Although I will miss her so badly at the opening I have a feeling that she, along with my grandparents, have already taken their seats. See you soon at 4th and Jasper.

A high spot in Mr. O'Neill's memory...jogged into mine by LBI

......And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience. Became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see- and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason. [He grins wryly] It was a great mistake, my being born a man. I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!

Long Days into Night - Eugene O'Neill

Brick by brick.....

I stopped by the theatre about an hour ago to watch a crew of people install our new steps and handicapped ramp....brick by brick. This will be the path that, hopefully, many, many people will take into our new home; a home where this season the men who built the ships of World War II and their neighborhood will again rise, Harlem of the 1940's will come to back to glorious life and the words of Clifford Odets and Eugene O'Neill will again ring. All of this.......brick by brick. This is so symbolic of how we got to this point. Meeting by meeting......donor by donor.....play by play.........craftsman by craftsman....and now...brick by brick. A foundation must be solid for a building to rise...the same is true with a theatre company. Thank you to all of the "craftsmen" out there who...dollar by dollar....and dream by dream are putting 4th and Jasper back together again. Heal Camden!

Air, Light, time and space [Buckowski quote of the day]

“ you know, I’ve either had a family, a job, something has always been in the way but now I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this place, a large studio, you should see the space and the light. For the first time in my life I’m going to have a place and the time to create.”

No baby, if you’re going to create you’re going to create whether you work 16 hours a day in a coal mine or you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children while you’re on welfare, you’re going to create with part of your mind and body blown away, you’re going to create blind crippled demented, you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your back while the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment, flood and fire.

Baby, air and light and time and space have nothing to do with it and don’t create anything except maybe a longer life to find new excuses for.

Charles Buckowski Words to live by.

Craftsmen at work in the theatre

I just walked through the theatre and watched two men install the final tiles in our new bathrooms in the lobby. They are the old type tiles one would have seen in old saloons back in the day of Walt's Cafe, selected to bring as much of the past to our new home. On a normal day I wouldn't share what our bathrooom floors look like but watching these craftsmen work, carefully bringing the corner back to life, tile by tile, with detail and talent, brings us all one step closer to our new reality. We'll be there Saturday morning until noon or so working on finishing doors and sanding steps. We love volunteers!! Come on by if you have some time on this busy holiday weekend. And when you do...trust me.......check out the bathroom floors!!