Sunday Musings on Memorial Day…which I believe makes it Monday, but it feels like Sunday somehow…

How’s your audacity?

Often, it can be assumed audacity to mean something negative, something rude, something disrespectful.

Audacity actually has polar opposites in its definition. It means boldness, grit, daring, fearlessness, bravery, courage.

Perhaps its definition has to do with how another person sees it IN you.

Nobody puts baby in a corner.

YOU define your audacity. Your audacity is revealed in your actions. How someone else sees that audacity reveals more about them, than you.

The audacity and the artist easily go hand in hand, and now, more than ever.

We are exploring new territory. If we are to inhabit it, we must be bold, we must be fearless, we must be brave.

Being scared or uncertain can co-exist with audacity. Anxiety can be present.

“I don’t know” is perfectly aligned with “do it anyway”.

As artists, we are often a riddle wrapped in an enigma. Our times certainly seem that way, as we observe, release and forge ahead.

Here’s what I know:

Theatre & all things performance & artistic will re-emerge into more, into new, into next. There is nothing in our history that tells us otherwise.

Artists define our times. We breathe life into that new and into the next. There is nothing in our history that tells us otherwise.

Audacity and innovation create, define, reveal.

Find your audacity. As an artist, you have claimed that, or were on the path to claiming it. Now, more than ever, you can be bold, and fearless and firmly stand your ground.

We have work to do. Your audacity directed by your artistry is part of the solution, part of the next, and part of the new.

Embrace your warrior grit and let’s keep working, keep trying, keep revealing. We’ve got this.

From each of our corners, we continue to shape our society, and our times.

Artistic audacity has the power to do that.

History tells us to keep doing what we do. Be audacious. Feel that kick in the ass from what has come before, to begin to forge into new, the next. Release what you can’t carry and move forward. Sit down when you are tired. Nap when you need to rest. The reveal will be spectacular when audacity and artist join hands and commit to each other. That’s our superpower. We have had it all along.

With fondness & fierceness,

Susan