Saturday, November 19, 2011

A New World


This post by the lovely Danielle Rennalls was written on November 16. The Open Dream season is now complete and Danielle is on her path to more fun and more work. We wish her the best!


It's a rainy night here in Camp Lejeune, off of the North Carolina coast. We are in the last leg of touring "Peril..." in Eastern North Carolina, having performed in Clarkton and, previously, Southern Pines, NC. I can't help but marvel at the various ecosystems all contained in this seemingly small state; each place has it own energy and pulse, the townspeople friendlier and more helpful than the last. This is my final blog post for the season... Four months flew by mindblowingly fast. I will miss this group of people and all they have taught me through Open Dream Ensemble. I'm grateful to them for allowing me to glean insight into the "business" at large and what it's really like to be a "working artist." I've found joy in speaking or sharing ideas in an open, non-judgmental forum whether it was through Teaching Artist training or formulating lesson plans. Diana shall always be apart of my "toolbox," she's truly reminded me what it was like to be 13 again (give or take a few murderous terraforming machines ;) ). She reinforced the notion that it does take a critical thinking, perseverance, and sacrifice to make dreams come true and I can only cross my fingers in the hopes that I'll have the opportunity to portray someone like her again. She's allowed me to step in myself as an actress after two years of being a director. All in all, I can honestly state this experience has changed me for the better and opened up a whole new world geared towards positive change within our school systems, utilizing a groups multiple intelligences, and, at Open Dreams very core, the importance of teamwork. A very special thank you to the Kenan Institute, Rebecca Nussbaum, and the good folks of NoRules Theater Company for giving me the gift of being apart of this ensemble. Until next year!

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