The lights dim. The coughs and whispers are silenced when the soft pulse of a kettledrum cautiously starts stirring the dark. The warm comfort of the theatre slowly descends on the audience, when suddenly the orchestra springs up and with blaring trumpets and frantic violins flings open the curtains. And in a blaze of light the gates of the imagination are unlocked, and we are thrown into a world where just anything might happen.
And now the scripts and the scores, the notes and the words that a moment ago were no more than dots on a sheet of paper; spots of ink between a few bar lines, are breathed to life. Breathed to life by you: the actors. By you: the singers, the musicians, and, yes, you too: the directors, the stage assistants, the costumers, the dressers, the technicians and all those passionate people who can make miracles happen. Who can make the wildest dreams materialise. In a theatre. On a stage.
O, my friends! To have the power to make dust come to life!
Scripts, books, libretti, scores, lyrics, piano parts and backing tracks: they're all here. All dumb. All lifeless. All dead and all dust until you pick them up, and breathe life into them. And then the words become emotions; then the notes suddenly tingle with exitement. Passion will walk from these silent pages; ardour will burst from the songs; love, hate, sadness, rage will run through these dialogues, like blood urged on by the wild pumping of a heart. And when the heartbeat must stop at last, and the curtain finally falls, these words, these notes, these melodies will not die. They will linger on in the memory of the audience. For comfort. For joy. For happiness.
Mad Charlotte, the grisly Gardener, the noble Chimalpahin, the dissolute Strephon; their writer moulded them from the dust they are, like the rabbi his golem. But without you, they will remain dust. Dumb and powerless.
Now, they need you to give them a voice, a body, a heart, and a soul. They need you to give them...
...the kiss of life.
Thanks for visiting,
Marcel Wick.
