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LINDA EVANS<br />
Editor's Note<br />
Misquoting Your Dreams<br />
“Whatever you can do or dream<br />
you can, begin it. Boldness has<br />
genius, power and magic in it.<br />
Begin it!”<br />
love that quote. You probably know who<br />
it’s usually attributed to: Goethe. But what if<br />
I were to tell you that was wrong?<br />
See, an interesting thing happened as I began to write this<br />
column. I wanted to write a paean to dreaming big, but planning<br />
carefully. It’s our annual education issue, and school is starting<br />
everywhere, and the season was filling me with the relentless<br />
optimism and determination that fall usually does, which reminded<br />
me of that quote. The problem for most of my life was that I always<br />
misread it. The quote ends with “Begin it!”, But for years, I ignored<br />
that bit and—somehow—jumbled it up with the Nike slogan, so it<br />
ended “Do it!” And thanks to my own fuzzy thinking “Do it!” always<br />
meant ALL of it, all at once.<br />
But the quote doesn’t say that. It just says, “Begin it!” And it took<br />
years for that penny in my brain to drop. All that’s required is a<br />
step, as small as you want. In fact, probably the smaller the better.<br />
I learned that from Daniel Alexander Jones of Creative Capital in a<br />
workshop he gave on Individual Strategic Planning. So I headed<br />
into this column fully prepared to write about how I now read that<br />
quote. Except, suddenly, even that interpretation of it was wrong!<br />
Because, as I researched the phrase to be sure I could cite it<br />
correctly, I discovered that the quote isn’t even really from Goethe.<br />
It’s from W. H. Murray, and is based on a very loose translation of<br />
some lines the Manager speaks in the Prologue in the Theatre<br />
from Goethe’s Faust. (Head over to the Goethe Society of North<br />
America’s website for the full story http://www.goethesociety.org/<br />
pages/quotescom.html.) And those lines call for action, as opposed<br />
to merely talking about things. So here I was back at taking all sorts<br />
of furious action.<br />
So this fall, as school starts up again and we learn skills to achieve<br />
our dreams, and the new theatre season takes the stage, fulfilling<br />
the dreams of everyone who has worked on those shows, I’m giving<br />
up on that quote, and focusing on something Daniel said in his<br />
workshop. A new motto that reflects my propensity to action, but<br />
balanced with a need to think things through: “No dream too big.<br />
No step too small.”<br />
Enjoy the fall!<br />
Jacob Coakley<br />
jcoakley@stage-directions.com<br />
Letters<br />
Sand on <strong>Stage</strong><br />
TheatreFace.com users discuss life on the beach…<br />
I am doing the show Hooters, by Ted Tally. It has a beach<br />
scene and I wanted to know if anyone had any alternatives to<br />
the use of sand.<br />
Thanks!<br />
Peter Schoenthal<br />
You can look at rubber mulch. The companies that sell that<br />
stuff often sell other more finely shredded rubber in colors<br />
that could pass for sand.<br />
BAM Creative Arts<br />
Can you give us any other guidelines that you have or<br />
want? I’m not familiar with the show or your venue. Perhaps<br />
you could use a paint treatment/spatter? There is a texture<br />
that you could mix with your paint if you can paint the flooring.<br />
David Phillips<br />
At Cirque du Soleil’s show KA, we use ground cork for the<br />
beach scene.<br />
FxDrew<br />
Furthermore, the cork we use is naturally fireproof!<br />
David Fox<br />
Wet sand is hard. Dry sand is dusty. When we had to use<br />
sand at UW, we added glycerin and water with watering cans<br />
and bow rakes to our sand to keep down the dust. We had the<br />
worst of both, hard and dusty.<br />
I advise you to avoid real sand. Last time we painted and<br />
spattered the flooring, but that went well with the cartoon-y<br />
paint style for the comedy we were doing. I would also consider<br />
a ground cloth.<br />
Chuck Driscoll<br />
When we have used sand, I mixed sand with Sculpt or<br />
Coat from Sculptural Arts Coating and put a thin layer of the<br />
mixture on the “hill” I built. There was no dust and keeps it in<br />
place, so need to rake it. Sculpt or Coat is flexible so it didn’t<br />
crack. Check out their website—www.sculpturalarts.com.<br />
Patrick Reading<br />
Have you considered chicken<br />
wire with sand colored toilet<br />
tissue or fabric pieces inserted<br />
into the holes? We did a similar<br />
sort of thing with one of our<br />
operas. It worked pretty well.<br />
Not entirely realistic but enough<br />
to get by.<br />
Phoebe Hall<br />
www.Theatreface.com/join<br />
Find tips, tricks, and more on<br />
TheatreFace.com. Join today!<br />
Theatreface.com/join<br />
4 October 2010 • www.stage-directions.com
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