Break a Leg

I have been thinking about community a lot lately. I don’t mean community as defined by the location of your house; I think that by now, for most of us, our streets are no longer our playgrounds. As we “mature”, we spend more time indoors (working, watching television, cleaning, cooking) and we only see our neighbors on our short walks to our cars. For those of us who don’t park in the garage, that is.

What I’m referring to as community is a sense of belonging to a group.

You may call the notion primitive; you might even fear that I have fallen in with a guild. Fair enough. Indeed, there does not seem to be as much of a need for community in the original sense: we no longer help tending to our farms or building our houses; the majority of us buy our food from stores and we can hire people to build our custom homes. I’d go on, but you get my point.

However, I don’t think we as modern individuals have outgrown the need for community. As I’ve grown up, the situations life throws at me have grown increasingly difficult, and I myself still enjoy the support of the more experienced and the fresh perspectives of the less. But, as a post-University adult, I’m finding said community nearly impossible to find. I moved hours away from what little family I had here in Canada to find my dream job, only to find myself surrounded by fabulous coworkers—who have lived here their whole lives, have established long-term friendships, and are busy with budding families. Whenever I do seem to find a community, it’s artificial (like the hypocritical hippies in their early twenties who wish they lived in a commune inhabited solely by other beautiful young people) or arbitrary (like meeting once a week at a church or getting together whenever someone “has the time”).

What I’m ultimately getting at is that I think I understand why people go to coffee shops by themselves or even post ridiculous opinions on news website forums, hoping to strike a nerve. We’re looking for a connection, wherever possible.

Both Drew and Jennifer mentioned in their previous blogs that it’s the fans that feed their passions for acting for that same reason, although on a different scale: it is the value of connection. My point is that the company here on this website, the fans supporting this amazing show and the wonderful cast and crew itself, has always been extremely positive. It makes me feel pleased to be a part of this Internet community, which although artificial in terms of need, location and even time, has striven to make an honest, personal connection.

So thank you all yet again, for all the beauty, class, style, and gyrating you are putting into this giant project. After all, Ebay was getting too expensive and I needed some free joy from somewhere.

Femke