Mince pies and what it's like to fall in love.

Read what's down there first, maybe. And watch it small (like, not full-screen) if you want so terribly to watch it on this page, but a better idea is to click here after you've read whatever I'm saying and watch it from the source (it's far better quality, for some reason) so then you can actually make it full screen and not have to squint a lot when you watch it.

I don't normally post things like this. And for good reason, I suppose. For me, this blog has always been about writing -- writing for my sake and for yours and for the sake of art. But this is what has been stealing my words lately, so I figured I’d give it to you.

This is another part of me and another art form and another something that I have put my soul into.

The video above is our ensemble scene from last weekend -- Titus Andronicus, condensed -- which we performed at the Shakespearean Festival. It became this huge deal and we ended up performing it twice and some strangers sent up balloons for us “for the sake of our art form” and it was absolutely crazy and fake life-y.

I know it’s terrifying and horrible and very, very scary (the judges also kept saying, “So sexy!!”), but don’t even get me started on our concepts here. I guess we just wanted people to realize that they really ought to react to what humanity is, and if they weren't going to see things within themselves we would shove it down their throats (no pun intended).

Half of us say nothing (e.g. me), but we have stuck our hearts and our souls in this piece. We sewed things and memorized every line and made the cuttings for the piece and painted things and did everyone’s makeup and stayed at high school for far longer than was asked of us, because this is what we believe in.

This is a part of us. This is who I am, and who we are, and who Ben is, and I wish that I had words for it. (That sounds kind of awful. We're not satan-worshipers or anything. Really.)

But I don’t. I don't have the words.

The sound quality isn’t great and the filming is done from the back of the Adam’s and you can’t hear the music and the video is blurryish, but that doesn’t really matter: What you’re really missing the way our hearts beat and the way we were all half-naked and all hypothermia and whatnot, but that it didn’t seem to matter for just .2 seconds, because look -- pay attention!! -- at what we’ve created. You're missing the things that I wish I could write here, but they just wouldn't even make sense.

Also, in case you were wondering, we absolutely swept the competition. The judges were obsessed with us, rival schools were obsessed with us, etc. Word of the "really intense, people-eating, circus scene" traveled like mad and people didn't believe we were a public school (we are). 

When they announced our first place ensemble scene, we all cried and half the auditorium stood up and gave us one last standing ovation. And the tears just kept coming as the awards just kept coming, which is so dumb, but it almost didn't matter if we won or not, after everything we'd done already, but I guess it felt nice to know that every one of our scenes and monologues and every person in Titus had just given their hearts and someone else had noticed and felt the need to mention it.

You might not understand. It sounds crazy, but it isn’t. I promise. (I’m about to go all cliché on you, sorry:) We’re actors. We’re the opposite of people.

Or maybe we’re the epitome of people.

Anyway.

All my love,

Addy

P.S. Can you even recognize me? Meow.