That Championship Season

Suddenly it was bad that we were successful

The finances were stable

We had a core group of actors in the acting company

And we were getting consistently decent reviews

Season after season

Not great reviews

But decent reviews

So what was the problem?

The problem is

We were boring people

We were irrelevant

And in theater

You can be a lot of things

But you have to be cool

Or a trainwreck

You have to be interesting

You can’t be…

Well, I guess you can’t really be consistent

And so success becomes your enemy

Or at least, a certain level of success

I was a business intern during the 2005-2006 season

And it astounded me

The difference

Between what we in the business office thought of things

And how people in the artistic sector thought

Our final show of the year

It was, um, That Championship Season

And it went really, really well

And all we heard from the actors

And the customers was—

We’re bored

This is boring

So the Board gives the Artistic staff shit

And then they turn around

And give that same shit to us

‘Why won’t you let us breathe?’

Suddenly we’re evil parents

Telling the kids they can’t go outside

It’s surreal

Things are going well!

Things were going so well

I got fired

Which is ridiculous

Because I wasn’t even getting paid

But somebody has to go

When people are unhappy

And at the Orpheus

Somebody is always unhappy

So somebody is always out the door

So it’s really hard to stabilize

Because you’re always in a state of transition

Does that make sense?

It probably shouldn’t

Because if you can figure it out

--And most of you probably aren’t business people--

Then why can’t the people at the theater figure it out?

I liked my internship

I had a nice girlfriend who worked in the Education department

I went in the dunk tank at the company barbecue

And from the window in the office I shared

I could see the cathedral downtown

One time I mentioned that to somebody I worked with

Somebody pretty high up on the food chain

I said, ‘Isn’t the cathedral nice?’

This massive building

Right in the middle of downtown

The person I worked with looked at me sort of funny

Then out the window that we look out everyday

And said—

‘Huh—

I never really noticed it before.’

I’d like to say that statement surprised me

But the fact is—

It was pretty much

What I expected

To hear