Seldom do I hate words. I use most of them. The dirty ones. The polysyllabic ones. Even the dirty polysyllabic ones. So, really, I’m free and easy lover of words. But, there’s one word that I’m beginning to hate. In print. In conversation. In grants.
Emerging. I hate that word. Emerging. How it pools in my mouth and falls out. The mental images thrust into my mind’s eye. AND—I especially hate it when emerging (ugh) comes attached with another word…a word that I love: artist. Emerging Artist.
It’s a dreadful combination.
Ok. Perhaps the artist doth protest too much. But…what exactly IS an emerging artist nowadays? It’s important because it leads to the next question: what is an EMERGED Artist?
I have no idea what I am. Emerging? Well. Sure. I’m still searching for opportunities to get produced, to create new work, to have an artistic home. However, I’ve had an Off-Broadway show…and so, by a certain organization’s definition, I have emerged.
But, what is emerged? Is it constantly being produced? Is it making a living just as a writer? Who does that besides Neil Simon? And what about the artists who DON’T want the career that Neil Simon has…they are after very different goals and dreams. And many of those artists may never the “recognition” of an “emerged” artist.
So what is emerging? Emerging to what? To where? Someone else’s definition of success? Of where I should be as an artist?
Maybe I’m asking too much of the business of theater…I want to chart my own course, but then I bump up against these definitions and limitations and desire to only support “emerging” artists…
…I imagine it’s frustrating.
Except for Neil Simon.
