May 1, 2026

First sight: rabbit scampering across the street to Carolyn’s. 

Opening night of Purification quite satisfactory– sufficient audience to keep me from despair in that regard, the actors a light year beyond where they were when last I saw them. Cecil and Jim got into a loop where they repeated lines until easing back on track, but that’s live theater. Anna had made tremendous strides. Axel was a bundle of glinting talent. I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t seen him before. The play. . .  in my years as a playwright on opening night I had the least emotion surrounding this one, not anxious, not cringing at errors, not secretly applauding my own genius, not probing the room for reactions. It was well. Insofar as it wasn’t well, I didn’t care. It is not my best work, but people will think it is. I sat with a man who was my student in a playwriting course in 2003, who remembered fondly writing a play about men talking at a urinal. The walk from my car to and back from the theater was an epic, at first blue and crowded with incident, then moonlit and solitary.

P and I finished our study of the Four Zoas this afternoon. He and L saw my play tonight, and sent this message: “Oh David, we couldn’t get over how fine your play is and just posted in two places on Facebook the link for tickets. The space was almost full. I hope it will continue to be. Thank you for your gift.”

 April 30, 2026

Bright and cool. The lady on the TV promised rain, but she was wrong.

Ungodly rehearsal last night. Our substitute imagines that talking is the same as directing. He showed vulnerability to some of the more aggressive basses, who began a war of whispering and belligerent questions. To top it off, the bar we headed to afterwards closed as we approached. 

Finally realized that the sickish feeling I have is related to opening night, now 7 hours off. I cannot help. I can only hinder by sending our frantic vibrations--

Frank

 April 29, 2026

As I stand painting in the attic, the calling of frogs comes loud and joyful from the pond. 

Raced down to the sound of a doorbell. I do not have a doorbell. No one was at the door.

From Frank in Cleveland: What an honor to receive this email from you on the eve of opening night of what may be the best play I ever read. I had marked my calendar in the hope I might be able to attend, but alas, I cannot. I can only hope it will be recorded (I would be happy to contribute to make that happen) and if it is, I want to purchase a copy.I continue to believe this play can have a positive impact on people at a time when we are all wandering around saying, "What in the hell is going on?" and "Why in the hell is this going on?" and "How in the hell do we stop this!?"

I have felt all the things you are feeling right now. I remember when I directed The Merry Wives of Windsor, my first Shakespeare play, for free in downtown Canton and carrying set pieces to where we stored them after the final dress rehearsal, an actor said to me, "How can you be so calm when there are so many things that could go wrong tomorrow?" I thought about all the things he was talking about (I said to myself, "You don't know the half of it!") and said, "We have something really good. We have done everything we can to be as prepared as possible. There is nothing left to do, but do it. Whatever will be, will be." That one went great and I went on to direct four more. 

Break a leg. Frank

 April 28, 2026

Two days of intermittent but blessed rain. 

SS says not to bother with rehearsal tonight, so I will finish my painting. 

Rehearsal

 April 26, 2026

Lilies (yellow callas) were languishing in their tubs in the church kitchen, unclaimed after Easter. I gathered them up, brought them home and put them into ground still damp from the rain. 

Downtown to the BeBe to watch a rehearsal of Purification.  4/5 of the cast is stellar– the one who most needs to be, not quite yet, though I’m assured great strides of been made and greater still will come between now and Thursday. Mostly, the nerves relax, seeing that, besides expectable problems like remembering the lines, the interpretation is solid and the actors are good and have been working incredibly hard, and I’m grateful to them however it all turns out. Always grateful to production crew, who put forth such effort of one’s behalf. I remember as an actor not thinking very much about the playwright, though in fact most of them were dead or distant. I need to get over my insistence on correct grammar. “On whom one can depend” and the like stick out too often. The opening scene gets to its point a little too fast. Perhaps the play was written a little too fast, with too much political urgency. There’s also a bit of self-satire, which I didn’t include consciously, but the Muse did. It’s otherwise on the brink of being over-earnest, of never cracking a wry smile. It’s almost impossible to hear some of the most earnest speeches without thinking, “I am allowed to feel they are going too far.” If the art is true, the artifact is wiser than the artificer.  

Walked briskly and without pain from my distant parking space. 

 April 25, 2026

Light but probably sufficient rain. At least no watering today.

Drove to campus for maybe the third time since retirement, to the student art & ceramics sale. How new & happy the students looked, and how happy I was to be briefly among them again. I bought a large pitcher to water the plants on the porch, though it may be too heavy to be used for that very often. The young lady who’d made it was at the check-out table. She smiled and waved and cried. “That’s mine! I made that!’ I was glad that she got to see someone appreciating her work. 

Sweet night. Painting. Music from the age of Charles V on the CD player.

Hit and Run

 

April 24, 2026

Spring returns. Black iris a shock in the front yard. Tree peony wane and herbaceous peony come to the fore. First pale yellow roses, first flat pink climbing roses in the near shade, wild white thorn in utter shade. Even as I type in the attic, perfume wafts through the little window. 

By means of the security cameras watched the cleaning ladies pick at the flowers on the front porch. Couldn’t hear what they were saying, which was a disappointment. They waited until I got home (I usually wait for them to be gone, but my timing was off) so they could talk with me after, by their calculation, a year. They told me how lovely my house and garden are, pointed out loose bricks in the stairway, said how well I look, and complained about the unreasonable client who was their next stop. It would never occur to me to try to negotiate downward a workman’s fee. They wondered if I collect antiques. I didn’t know how to answer. I have antiques and so must have, in a sense, collected them, but I never thought of it that way. Need a bowl? Get an old one. 

Got buzzed by an old black pick-up last evening as I drove to chorus. Its muffler was shot, so loudly and aggressively it wove through lanes on Patton Avenue, trying to inch ahead of traffic. I was stopped at the first traffic light west of the Smoky Park Bridge, looking at the cars stopped a little ahead at the second one. The pick-up wheeled around me, cut the red light, and in five seconds hit the car in front of me with considerable force. The back of the car disintegrated, while the pick-up reversed, found a new angle, and took off through the red light, having committed a hit and run. I waited for somebody to get out and check on the driver, but I was first in line, so I realized it was me. I got out and ran (as much as I can run) toward the wreck. The driver was visibly unhurt, but stunned and disoriented. He was either very stunned indeed or was Hispanic and didn’t understand what I said. He looked at the back of his car, struggling to comprehend. Patton Avenue, especially at that hour, is the busiest street in Asheville, so I knew I couldn’t leave my car where it was. Another driver and I kicked the largest and pointiest debris to the side of the road, and I got back in the car and drove on, over the remaining debris, which I assumed would shred my tires, but seems not to have. Cars going around us shouted ugly things about getting out of the way. When I got to St George’s I called the police, and when I got home received a call asking for details. I knew how incredibly unhelpful my testimony must have been. What kind of truck? No, I couldn’t read the license. . . all I had was the blackness and scruffiness of it, and that fact that its muffler was shot. It must have been bashed in considerably at the front, by I didn’t actually see that. The cop on the phone was very pleasant. As I drove on, I had to remind myself that I hadn’t been the one in the wreck.

Dug weeds and grass from the iris bed, then put in zinnia seeds and watered. While I watered, a cock robin came and stood in the spray. He dug for worms a little, but mostly stayed for the spray, and moved to follow the spray when I moved it. Spent a length of time providing cok robin with a shower. As I worked in the garden, a rabbit grazed unconcerned ten feet away. 

My father’s hoe finally broke, as I was tugging on bamboo. It broke right at the head, so is still usable as a staff and a hand cultivator. 

Rehearsal was unexpectedly merry. 

Huge fire in the River District.