The Final Performance

... and you missed it. My last live performance of I HATE THIS was Friday, June 22, 2007 in Plymouth, England. A large hall, an intimate crowd, an anti-climactic end to this important work.

I have been in negotiations with certain people about presenting it one more time in Cleveland Heights. This would have been nice if only because there has not been a public performance of the show in four years. And oddly enough, in the last week two different individuals have asked if there are any upcoming performances, or if the show is available on video (it's not, it won't be.)

But when I think of putting it all together one more time, I can't imagine it. It makes me tired. It fills me with dread. I don't want Calvin's play to fill me with dread. It's not the fear of plunging back into these feelings, of ripping open scabs, but rather the horror of playing, of impersonating, of not keeping it real. I have never done that before, and I don't want to risk it ever happening, ever.

I'm done. It took a year to make that decision, but it's made. The show still exists as a radio drama. The WCPN link is down, but WBEZ still has it archived here. And you can buy the script from SANDS UK.

I'm leaving the blog up, there's too much history here, but I won't be posting on it anymore. If you must must must know what's going on in Dave's head, you'll just have to check out my running blog and my cartoon blog.

Thank you. For everything.

P.S. Happy Father's Day.

Boxes

For a little over five years, I have been collecting things that have to do with this show I wrote called I Hate This. I just dropped them into a box in my office, "to be filed later."

It's "later".

There are, or were, two boxes, overflowing with script drafts, programs, posters, postcards, letters, articles, newsletters, photographs, and more. The first box was filled after the New York Fringe in 2004, the other this past year.


invitation to the staged reading, 2002

There's another box, too, set high on a shelf in our hallway, the one we bought in 2001 at the art museum. That one was for all the things we had collected of Calvin's. They needed a place to go once we were through having them sit around what was to be his nursery. Zelda has expressed interest in it in the past, and we had no time to go through it last March 20, much to Toni's chagrin. I want to make sure we can open it and look inside next week.


much too late "apology" from Gerber, 2003
(click on to enlarge)

As for the FIle box I am putting together now, it is breathtaking. I had forgotten some of these items. It brought a sense of nostalgia to touch the small, ticket-sized flyers we used in Minneapolis and NYC. The most startling thing was how neatly the two boxes were divided. The 2002-2004 box has been in the attic, out of the way. The 2005-2007 box has been in my office where I glance at it all the time.


letter from Sherrod Brown following Writers & Their Friends reading, 2004
(click on to enlarge)

The newer box is about SANDS UK, medical conferences, perinatal bereavement organizations. The older one is about theater festivals. That box is about crafting, presenting, promoting a theater piece. The newer box is about using what I had made to help others.

I think I can condense both boxes into one. I don't need 100 extra flyers from each performance, or all the posters and programs. Maybe a dozen or two. I can save pages from newspapers, not entire papers. What I don't know is where I will put the whole thing when I am through with it.

Am I through with it?

Chalk

We received an unsigned package today, addressed to "Calvin Thayer Hansen." Inside? 12 sticks of colored chalk.









Thank you, whoever you are.

Seven? * Sigh *

Viktor Schreckengost

Thanks for adding so much beauty to our part of the world.