Back Story: Just do it!

I know there are a lot of people out there who hate the famous, long-standing Nike advertising slogan. But if you examine it without that corporate baggage, it’s really not so bad. I have lived by the motto, “Just do it!” probably since my teen years, before there was a Nike company. I always thought of it as a democratic principle, as in, this is America, anyone is free to try to do what they want, so, just do it! Do your own thing!

Living by that motto, I have done some pretty stupid things that I am too embarrassed to recount here. “Just do it!” can lead to a lifetime of failures. In my case there have been a string of them, but there have also been a few notable successes, and a few cases where I “just did” something stupid and got lucky.

Last night, after the final performance of the 10-minute Play Festival at the Presbyterian Church, a few of us were cooling down in the church office. Lorrie Sparrow, who had directed a couple of the plays and acted in one of them, stopped by to introduce herself. Although we had been involved in this project together, we had not met because the individual plays were rehearsed in different spaces at different times and had only come together for one dress rehearsal where we were all rather preoccupied.

Lorrie, as with several others involved in the 10-minute plays, has a professional background in theater. She is a terrific actress and director. She expressed her gratitude for being included in the festival. I told her we were glad to have her and hoped she would be available for future projects. She said she would and thanked us for not just talking about it but actually doing it, co-organizer Kay Reimers’ and my sentiments, exactly. “Just do it!”

The 10-Minute Play Festival to support community theater in Yellow Springs this past Thursday and Friday was one of those times when I just jumped in and did it that turned out to be a notable success. Two hundred people saw our plays over two nights. We put on a quality show and by all accounts they enjoyed it. More importantly, they seemed to come away with a resolve to continue to support community theater, as we try to jump start it by stopping all the talk and just doing it.

Thanks to Kay Reimers and all the actors, directors and writers who put this thing together. And thanks to all those enthusiastic theatergoers who came out to see what we were up to.

-vh