Stages speak
STAGES CAN MEAN THE WORLD to people. It’s certainly true for me. Earlier this month, at The Wildflower Playhouse’s grand opening event, about one hundred people celebrated the creation of a new space and its stage. There was a blessing, song, dance, speech, hugs, and even some tears. And there was a show.
Before the start of all live performances, no matter the size or the stakes, there is a buzz in the backstage spaces. All gears click toward a singular moment: lights up. This may sound uncomplicated, but the moment is akin to a three-point shot at the buzzer or successfully tempering chocolate. It takes planning then great concentration, coordination, and finally — courage. So it was, at The Wildflower Playhouse on Jan. 7. There was even a bit of circus on display. A few spoke on how the dream of the space came to be. Jim Avery, the founding visionary of the playhouse, shared that his mother became a thespian at Santa Fe Playhouse, how that theater supported a life-long passion meaningful on so many levels — a passion eventually bestowed upon him. He dedicated the building to his parents. I get why.
Before I was born, my mother did community theater. The only story she has ever told me about this time in her life was about a rat running across the stage during a show and how she kept on with her lines. Theater did not end up being a part of my formative years. Sometimes, our families grant us our passions and sometimes it is a time and a place that sets us on the paths of our lives. I found theater because of a 700-square-foot room in El Prado with a stage — Metta Theatre. I have benefited greatly from its existence. It is where I learned skills and found friendships that have guided my time and my work in Taos.
Along with others, I’ve been able to witness The Wildflower Playhouse come into being. I can’t speak to the toils and gargantuan efforts it took to make the dream a reality, but I will say this — already, the room is buzzing and
Wildflower Playhouse
beckoning for imaginations. Already, it is warm and starting to reek of humans and their dreams. I am a backstage behind-the-scenes kind of person. I love to see performers working to tell us a truth. I love the mysterious process. I love the hard, meticulous and stressful nature of tempering the chocolate. This new playhouse is a place to go to dream and try for it all.
After the world changed in 2020, one of the far-reaching ripples meant an acute shift to an ecosystem of people reading plays and making plays, talking about shows and scraping it all together to make shows in Taos. Thanks to the efforts of Taos Onstage, Ballet Taos, Taos Dance Academy, other performing groups and individuals who just kept at it, projects resumed. Still, there is less theater than there was. At the start of this new year, that a new stage is calling our poetry and our dance, is not only a reason to look forward to 2023, it is a reason to give thanks for the place that we live and the people here who are creating spaces for expression. I also work at a theater. When people tell me stories about their time under the lights, their faces open and eyes sparkle because they are seeing themselves fully alive. What are the arts doing if they are not making us more alive?
The night of The Wildflower’s grand opening, after the crowd migrated to the gallery, I stood on the thrust with my friend and colleague, David, talking about a project that we would like to make. We gazed at the room and sketched out how a story would be told with its dimensions and angles; with its buzz. This is the best kind of conversation.
There is a stage on the south side of town! A playhouse called Wildflower. Come one, come all. House lights fade to black. Warm spotlight down center. Anything is possible.