If you have been reading my blog all along, you know that for the past six months I have been working on a commission from the Indiana Historical Society and Storytelling Arts of Indiana.  It is part of their “Sharing Hoosier History through Stories” collaboration.

Well, yesterday (Sunday), I premiered it!

I learned a lot from the premiere, and I have a lot of notes for myself about how to improve the program for the future, but I also had a wonderful time during this first public sharing of it.  My “high” afterwards was due in large part to the attentive, supportive listening of the 88 people who attended.

THANK YOU, everyone!

The collaboration between Storytelling Arts and the IHS includes grant money to help museums, historical societies, libraries, and other organizations who would like to host this new Lincoln program during 2009, which is the 200^th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.  For more information, please call Erin Kelley, Coordinator of Public Programs for the Indiana History Center, at 317-234-0427.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

P.S. – During the impromptu “Lincoln stories swap” at the end of my premiere on Sunday, one person told about how the Lincolns had had to ask several couples before they found two people who were available and willing to go with them to the theatre to see “Our American Cousin” on April 14, 1865.

I loved that he told that story.  I added that I sympathized with the Lincolns because sometimes it is hard for me to find people to go with me to the theatre, too, and I get free tickets! 

I want to clarify that it is not hard to find people who want to go to theatre “more often” but it is sometimes very time-consuming to pin down who is going to what with me when.  So far, I have only met one person (Joe Boling) who wants to go to five shows a weekend the way I do, and no person who is free to go with me to all five shows.  That’s why I said I am always looking for more theatre buddies to add to my list.

I have enjoyed “sharing the wealth” of my media passes with Dawn, Adrienne, Chris, Susan G., Ned, Dane, Jack, David, Trevor, Sandra, Christine, Dan, and Kristin (I think that’s everyone.)  I want to make sure I say clearly to these people, “I enjoy going to the theatre with you, and I will definitely ask you again!”

Hope

“Of the People: Stories and Images of Abraham Lincoln,” by Hope Baugh (that’s me!), premieres this Sunday, January 18, 2009 from 4:00-6:00 pm at the Indiana History Center (not to be confused with the Indiana State Museum.) 

This program is part of the Sharing Hoosier History through Stories collaboration between the Indiana Historical Society and Storytelling Arts of Indiana.  Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door and may be purchased online before 5:00 Saturday night via the Storytelling Arts of Indiana website or by calling 317-232-1882.

“Of the People” is not a theatre piece, per se.  It is just me on stage, telling you some of the stories that made me fall in love with Abraham Lincoln and showing you PowerPoint slides of some of the photographs and other items in the Indiana Historical Society’s vast collection.

But it will be live, and it will be “crafted” (well crafted, I hope!) and if you are at all interested in our 16^th president, I think you will enjoy it.  If you are available Sunday afternoon, I would be honored and grateful to have you in my audience.  The stories only come alive when all three elements – teller, story, and listener – are present.

Coming soon here on my blog:

** A review of “Fiddle Shticks,” the new, original sketch comedy revue presented by Three Dollar Bill Comedy Company at the Indianapolis Comedy Sportz theatre.  I went to the opening show last Friday night, and I am going to try to make it to the second version of it at 10:00 tonight.  It is every Friday night for six weeks.  I have an Encore show to judge first tonight, so we’ll see how the timing works out.  In any case, I had a wonderful time last week, and every week is supposed to be a little different.  I loved the writing last week, and the six players were a collective hoot – subtle and brilliant in their individual portrayals and in their interactions with each other. 

By the way, you must be 17 years or older to attend.  I don’t remember a lot of curse words (maybe it’s just because I’ve slept since last Friday) but no topic is sacred.

Also, today when I called to make my reservation, CS manager Troy Hannah gave me several minutes of his time to answer several of my questions about the Comedy Sportz club itself, so I will be sharing that conversation, too.  That man is articulate!  It was fun to talk with him.

** A review of storyteller Motoko’s funny and thought-provoking presentation of “Tales of Now and Zen” last Saturday night.  Even more than her stories, I appreciated the chance to chat with Motoko a bit afterwards.  She generously asked about my Lincoln program and I poured out anxiety that I hadn’t even realized I had been carrying.  She re-grounded me by reminding me of two important things that I had forgotten:  ”The audience is on your side” and “It’s not about you, it’s about Lincoln.” 

** A review of Dance Kaleidoscope’s colorful “Magical Mystery Tour.”   This colorful, high-energy presentation was a real treat, too.  I now have crushes on several of the dancers and on creative cutie David Hochoy, DK’s artistic director and choreographer.

One can never have too many crushes.

My day job is unusually busy these next couple of weeks, too, so I ask your patience in terms of my blog.  As always, thanks for reading.  ‘See you at the theatres!

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

For most of this last day of 2008 I have been reading a fascinating book from my public library called Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, by Joshua Wolf Shenk (Houghton Mifflin Company 2005.)

It is not a self-help book, but it reminds me a little of Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life, which I read when it was a bestseller several years ago. 

Both books say, in a nutshell, “Not everything about depression is bad.  Not everything about happiness is good.”

I acknowledge and appreciate complexity, too.  I am glad to be reminded of its importance.

Still, in this last blog post of 2008, I just want to mention a few things that have delighted me in the past 48 hours or so:

• 1. My friend and sister storyteller, Mary Hamilton, sent me a copy of “The Lincoln Issue” of the Kentucky Humanities magazine. As she says, “Lincoln may have grown up in Indiana and he may have become president while living in Illinois, but he was BORN in Kentucky.” Whenever I try to imagine Abraham’s speaking voice, I think of this Mary’s simultaneously gentle and vibrant accent.
• 2. My friend and biological sister, Bethany Baugh, sent me something she had just discovered in storage at our father’s home: her grade six report on Abraham Lincoln. Oh, my, it was a treat to read that sweet, earnest piece of writing!
• 3. IRT playwright-in-residence James Still shared with me and others this link to some of his thoughts about the creative and emotional journey that he has been on for the past three years, writing a new play about Abraham Lincoln. His piece is called “The Heavens are Hung in Black.” It will have its world premiere in February at the theatre in Washington, DC where Lincoln was shot. I cried in empathy for James’ feelings of unworthiness to be writing about this man, and I took inspiration and comfort from his successes. And I, too, have been finding pennies everywhere since I started my own Lincoln project!
• 4. A few days ago I mentioned that I had met with Bob Burchfield, editor of AroundIndy.com, to record a short blurb to help him celebrate his 1000^th podcast. Today he emailed me a list of all of the Indianapolis area bloggers who helped with this and when “our” podcasts will air on AroundIndy.com:

Jan. 1 – Douglas Karr, Marketing Technology Blog and Compendium Blogware

Jan. 2 – Lorraine Ball, Roundpeg Business Services

Jan. 3 – Tom Britt, atGeist.com and atGeist.net (the Geist Community Network)

Jan. 4 – Hope Baugh, IndyTheatreHabit.com

Jan. 5 – Jason Bean, IChooseIndy.com

Jan. 6 – Jennette Fulda, PastaQueen.com

Jan. 7 – Paula Henry, IndyRealEstateTalk.com

Jan. 8 – James Paden, eCommerceCritics.com (currently in development) and Xemion.com

Jan. 9 – Nicki Laycoax, SquishDesigns.com

Jan. 10 – Kyle Lacy, getBrandswag.com and KyleLacy.com

I am honored to be on Bob’s list of favorite bloggers.  Some of these bloggers I already know and admire; I am looking forward to getting to know the rest!

• 5. Megan McKinney, executive director of the Fine Arts Society, emailed me to say that my Lincoln storytelling on January 18^th will be her “pick of the week” during her January 12^th Indy Arts broadcast. I wasn’t just delighted to get this email, I was flabbergasted. You can bet I will be tuned in to 88.7 FM at 6:30 that evening. According to the schedule on the FSA website, the featured guest will be someone not yet named from the Indiana Historical Society. And hey! Just before that – on January 5 and 8 – Steven Stolen will be the guest! He is the manager of the Indiana Repertory Theatre. I like to hear him talk. I would love to hear him sing. Maybe he will let loose with a melodic line or two on the show?
• 6. Ellen Munds, executive director of Storytelling Arts of Indiana, sent me all of the press releases for the upcoming storytelling events, including one for “Tales of Now and Zen” by Motoko, which is coming up on January 10, 2009 at 8 pm at the Indiana History Center. (That’s Motoko’s photo, above.) But Ellen also sent one about my Lincoln program! It is odd to read a press release about one’s self. But it is fun, too, I have to admit. Here is what it says:

To commemorate the 200^th anniversary of our 16^th president’s birth, Hope Baugh will premiere her original piece Of the People: Stories and Images of Abraham Lincoln on Sunday, January 18^th, 2009, from 4-6 p.m. as part of the Sharing Hoosier History Through Stories Series presented by Storytelling Arts of Indiana and the Indiana Historical Society.

Although Baugh was commissioned to create the piece in early summer of 2008, she did not formally decide on its title until September. Ultimately, she drew inspiration from Lincoln’s unique position as the first president to be widely portrayed via photographs and other visual images. This, she imagines, gave the American people a sense of “ownership” of their President that had not existed before. His humble childhood in a one-room cabin and lack of formal education made him seem truly “of the people”– an image that lingers even today.

Hope Baugh currently works full-time as a department manager for a public library, and part-time as a freelance storyteller and teacher. This year, she will be teaching a graduate workshop in storytelling for Master of Library Science students at IUPUI, and will serve as an Encore Association judge for community theater in the 2008-2009 season. She also maintains a blog called “Indy Theater Habit,” where she reviews several local theater performances per week. While not teaching, blogging, judging or performing, Hope enjoys spending time in her garden.

This event will take place at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center Basile Theater, located at 450 W. Ohio Street. The Basile Theater is wheelchair accessible and has a state-of-the-art sound system. Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door. To order tickets or for more information, call the History Center at (317) 232-1882 or (800) 447-1830. To order tickets on-line visit, www.storytellingarts.org/store/category/Tickets

Free parking is available at the History Center in its parking lot at the corner of West and New York streets.

I was also delighted by the patient, competent help I received from Tavita and Ross at bluehost.com.  I am going to have to hire a WordPress guru in 2009 to teach me everything I want to learn about improving my blog, but they were able to get me started.  AND while I had them on the phone, I went ahead and registered the alternate spelling of my blog’s name.  So…now it doesn’t matter how people spell the middle word in Indy Theatre Habit, they will still get here. 

I was even more delighted that my video guru, Zach Rosing, had alerted me to the fact that the Bluehost guys would not be able to just update me with Fantastico…I know: I didn’t know what he was talking about either, but the Bluehost guys did, and it probably saved my blog from having big problems.  God bless Zach!

Last but not least, my blog had more than 5100 unique visitors this month.  I didn’t expect to reach this goal until 2009.  Whee!

My blog doesn’t actually turn one year old until the end of January, so I will do some kind of year-end review then.

In the meantime, THANK YOU, everyone – for reading, for commenting, and for sending me info and photos and other support and encouragement. 

Best wishes for a safe, healthy, satisfyingly complex and theatre-filled 2009, with love and affection from:

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

When President-Elect Obama spoke to the crowd in Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois on Tuesday night, he referred to Abraham Lincoln.  Here is the excerpt:

 ”Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.  Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House – a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national security.  Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.  As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, ‘We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.’  And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.”

I am honored to have been commissioned to create a new, 90-minute storytelling piece that celebrates the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.  This program is part of the Sharing Hoosier History through Stories collaboration between the Indiana History Center and Storytelling Arts of Indiana.  I will share the piece for the first time at 4:00 on Sunday, January 18, 2009 at the Indiana History Center.  I hope you will join me.  To purchase tickets, please call 317-232-1882 or visit www.storytellingarts.org/store/category/Tickets.

In the meantime, my father is continuing to heal well from his surgery and I am ready to resume writing about live theatre and storytelling in the Indianapolis area.  Thank you to everyone who sent us kind and encouraging words during my blogging hiatus.

Up next: detailed reviews of “Golda’s Balcony” at the Indianapolis Civic Theatre and the double-header at the Phoenix Theatre.  Short versions:

“Golda’s Balcony” is a beautiful and inspiring one-woman show based on the life of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.   In addition to a wealth of historical and biographical information, this show also gave me a lot to think about in terms of the differences and similarities between theatre pieces and oral tradition storytelling pieces.  ”Golda’s Balcony” continues at Civic through Sunday, November 16, 2008.

The combination of “June 8, 1968,” by Anna Theresa Cascio, and “Drunk Enough to Say I Love You,” by Caryl Churchill, at the Phoenix is not feel-good theatre, nor is it do-gooder theatre.  You won’t come home wearing a smile on your face or vowing to make a difference in the world.   However, it is artistically interesting theatre and the acting is excellent.  This double-feature continues at the Phoenix through Saturday, November 15, 2008.

More soon…

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

It’s been a while since I mentioned here on my blog that I have been commissioned to create a 90-minute storytelling piece on Abraham Lincoln to help celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009.  However, last night I turned in the title for it:

(drum roll, please)

“Of the People: Stories and Images of Abraham Lincoln.”

As I told my contacts at the Indiana History Center and Storytelling Arts of Indiana, this title makes me think of Lincoln being the first president of whom there were lots of photographs and other visual images for people to cherish (or curse) and therefore (I imagine) people felt a sense of ownership of him that they had never felt before for a president.

It makes me think of Lincoln growing up poor in a cabin without the chance to go to school, but devouring books on his own…and eventually becoming president.  Which, theoretically, means that anyone could do it.

It makes me think of Lincoln dealing with things that we all have to deal with at one point or another in our lives, everything from the loneliness of unpopularity to the grief of losing a family member.

And, of course, it makes me think of his famous Gettysburg Address.  Say it with me, if you want: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty….”

Actually, that pithy little speech is a mouthful to memorize.  But the ending still packs a wallop:  “…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

This storytelling piece will premiere at the Indiana History Center at 4:00 on Sunday, January 18, 2009.

Coming much sooner: a review of a very fun evening upstairs at the Milano Inn participating in the Mystery Cafe’s production of “Pizza Driver,” by Nita Hardy.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com

No, the main reason is that there is no wiggle room in my life, no TIME for a man to squeeze his way in to my days or my nights.

Sigh…

But I don’t want to give up any of the activities I already love – my day job, my blog, my book award committee, or my gardening – nor am I sorry I said “yes” to any of my three newest projects.

So there you go.

My three newest projects are:

1.  I will teach the 1.5 credit Workshop on Storytelling for grad students working on their Master of Library Science (MLS) degrees via the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at Indianapolis University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) again this spring.  It has been a few years since I taught it last, so I will need to overhaul my syllabus and probably decide on a new textbook by this fall.

2.  I will serve as an Encore Association judge for the 2008-2009 season.  According to Encore’s website, “The Encore Awards are awarded for excellence in Community Theatre in and around the Indianapolis area. There are currently 11 member theatres in the Encore Association.  Net proceeds from the Awards Ceremony benefit the Jean Cones Memorial Student Scholarship Program.”  Encore theatres are run completely by volunteers.

The first two times someone asked me to apply to be an Encore judge, I declined because I like to write about theatre as I judge it.  As an Encore judge, I will not be allowed to blog (or write anywhere, or even chat) about the shows that I see at Encore theatres.

But when Encore president Rich Baker asked me to apply, I decided the third time was the charm and said, “Yes.”  After writing, my second favorite thing is learning, and I am sure that I will learn a lot from working with the other Encore judges and the Encore board.   I hope that the Encore Association will be glad they asked me to join their team.

I will still be able to write publicly about the many other theatres in town, though, so don’t worry about my blog fizzling out.

3.  I have accepted a commission from the Indiana Historical Society and Storytelling Arts of Indiana to create a 90-minute storytelling piece to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, to be performed for the first time at the Indiana History Center in downtown Indy on Sunday, January 18, 2009 and possibly other times and places throughout the state during 2009 and beyond.

I will write more about this last project in future posts.  I would like to share part of my creative process with you.

Please wish me luck with all of this!

By the way, my next blog post will be about a conversation I had with Jim LaMonte and Jeremy Tuterow about the new facility for the Spotlight Players.  In the meantime, I hope to see you at the theatres!  There are several fun community theatre shows opening around town this weekend.

Hope Baugh – www.IndyTheatreHabit.com