Newark Ariport here I come

Photo by Iryna_Rasko/iStock / Getty Images

Well my bags are packed and I am ready to go. Except I have over packed.  This is a life long issue with me. I don't know why I do it. I travel a lot but Iwant to take pieces of home with me and seem fearful of being without a particular shirt... so silly. My friends ( Ben Rivers and David Diamond among others) have had to haul my giant cases up tiny flights of stairs in France, Egypt, India and Palestine...) This time I am going for five weeks and I seemed unable to make hard choices.  I have stuffed a suitcase full of things I might or might not need. It isn't about warmth or outfits that are suitable for one event or another. I get hung up on color: "Oh wait there are too many brown things, not enough red." But instead of taking the brown things out I just add the red. I know there are at least three identical shirts in there I should take out. But I had to sit on the suitcase to close it. And Max the puppy kept jumping into it and chewing on my boots and scarves and confusing me. So if I am lugging this thing on planes and trains the next five weeks I can blame this adorable puppy who is kinda hard to leave...

Itinerary is Czech Republic where I will teach at a university in Brno, and the Archa Theatre Festival in Prague, then I will take a train to Berlin where I will work with Gayle Tufts on a new piece, then a plane to Brussels where I will watch and hear a new translation of my play Wider Than The Sky and the Eurostar then to London to see dear friends and to meet with Jonathan Meth about possibilities for a London production of my play My Heart is in the East and meet with Peter Case to further our edible puppet explorations. Finally I will fly to Rotterdam to teach and participate in the Theatre of The Oppressed Festival.

My plan (if internet allows) is to post about the people, experiences and theatre I encounter along the way.

Thanks to Emma Weinstein for teaching me how to blog. Here I go.