Reginald Edmund

To my Friends and Family,

Sorry you haven’t heard from me in awhile I've been crazy busy as of lately. Everytime a triumph comes my direction, trial seems to follow it. It’s been a taxing journey so far. However, I guess that is the path one must take in the process of following ones dreams... I haven't had much time to write because I've been dealing with a whole lot lately. I just barely arrived back from Prague when I discovered that my storage unit had been robbed. Everything I had of value gone… My extensive movie collection (300+ that I prided myself on having) my television, and entertainment system all gone. All the things that my student loan money had gone towards. All the things that, in three years of grad school I had collected and prided over were gone… Disappeared! I arrived at Ohio University with next-to-nothing and now on the next leg of my journey, My new beginnings in life, I found myself in Minneapolis now once again, with nothing. It’s hard pushing forward when that happens.

Here I was in a strange city, in a place with no friends, no clue what’s going on around me and nothing that I had previously to shelter me in or serve of a reminder of how far I’ve come. None of the trappings of past success were evident in my life anymore. I was ready to call it quits right then and there; Call somebody up and say “I was done, buy me a ticket so I can go home and give up on everything”. Who cares about chasing dreams? I’m sitting in this place; broke, and lonely. I didn’t want to do it anymore.

And that’s when it hit me; I thought of all the doors that had opened for me. I thought about all the lessons I had learned thus far in my life. I learned; how in Houston, while working in the Silver House Theatre to depend on my community to create art that matters, I learned while at Ohio University that I was in fact a playwright and that I have to hold myself and my work to a higher standard be a harder critic on my work than the critics will be, I learned while sitting on the banks of the Vtlava River in Prague, just as I was beginning to believe that I was running out of stories to tell that the world is bigger than my own backyard. So, I finally opened up my eyes and realized that maybe the lesson I’m suppose to learn here in the Twin Cities (During this Fellowship at the Playwrights Center) is that I’m suppose to start with nothing and create something. No holding on to the past successes and failures, but simply building. Building and creating. Take the lessons that I’ve learned and actually apply it to life, in order to help others’ lives. Not everybody has been as fortunate as I have been. Maybe I’m suppose to live a year with nothing so that I can become a stronger, more humble, and more aware of the world as an artist and as a man. Just a thought. Perhaps that’s what makes us grow: The ability to take a look at our own lives and examine each moment and see what it offers us and then learn how to better ourselves from that moment.

So I’m taking those life lessons and applying it to just a couple of things. Two new plays are coming soon: one titled BLOOD MOON, which is a play examining the lives of Children Soldiers in the Congo and the other is a play tentatively titled SOUTHERN FRIED CHRISTMAS which I’m bringing exclusively to the Silver House Theatre in Houston, Texas just in time for the holiday season. So, don’t give up. Don’t quit. Life is only a singular moment and then it’s gone, so you have to make the most of it and look to every minute of that moment as a lesson. Take care and be blessed.

Sincerely,

Reginald Edmund

Many Voice Fellow 09-10

http://www.reginaldedmund.com