Preliminary sketch

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

What is the point of all the discipline, hard work, and training?  What does the training and preparation have to do with rehearsing a play and with performance?  The training and the discipline and the sweating and the study and the memorizing are not the end point, but rather the entry.  The preparation is what gives one the permission to take up space and make wild, surprising, and untamed choices.  In the quest for artistic freedom and agency it is impossible to walk into a rehearsal room uninhibited, unburdened.  We are generally chained down by habits and assumptions and by fear of the new.  Permission is what we earn by the sweat, training, preparatory work and dedication.

Anne Bogart in What’s the Story:  Essays in art, theater, and storytelling

Comments are welcome!