I got woken up this morning at 6:30 a.m. by a phone call from a woman with the Jewish Ensemble Theatre of Bloomfield, Illinois, who didn't realize I am on the West Coast. They have a festival in the spring where they do workshop productions of new plays and they want to do Saying Kaddish With My Sister!! Very exciting!!

I called my father, whose reaction was--get this--"Do I have to come?" For the record, Dad, YES!! You have to come!! AND--You have to enjoy it!!! Got that?

I am happy about it. Even though Spring is going to be pretty crazy--teaching a lot of classes, too many, probably, but I need to make money to go to Malawi next August with Wing It! and a weekend in Illinois is going to be a little much to throw into the mix, but still. It's great.

(Elsewhere in Luterman theatrical news, my nephew Theo, age seven, is an elf in the Lexington Players' Holiday Pageant. An elf, and I think also, a schoolchild. Anyway, no speaking lines, but his entire extended family, all 170 of them, will be on hand, flashbulbs popping, for when he walks on stage. As it should be.)

I remember when I first started sending Kaddish out, oh, about three or four years ago, and I was convinced that it was going to take the country by storm like a woildfire, or something delusional like that. And it didn't. In fact, nothing happened. Correction: two things happened. A Traveling Jewish Theatre did a staged reading in early '04, directed by Naomi Newman, which went very well, and then the Mirror Stage Company did a staged reading in late '05, directed by Suzanne Cohen, which also went well.

Then, nothing. Then, January 3, 2006, I got a call from the American Theatre of Actors. A "real production"--well, semi-real--the actors would be off book and incostume, there would be music and lights and rehearsals-- in New York City!! Whee-hoo! My whole family came! And it was...less than stellar, performance-wise. Allright, two of the key actors forgot their lines. A lot. They forgot whole scenes.

But we were in New York! And my whole family was there, plus a few dear friends from Wing It! And G and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, and I saw the Van Gogh paintings at the Met, and we rode in a pedi-cab and went to Harlem, and it was all wonderful, although embarrassing, because I badly wanted the "production" to be better than it was. But it really wasn't very good.

Then: more nothing. For a year. And now, this.

So, I'm finally beginning to get that this is the rhythm: work, work, work, work, send out, send out, send out, wait, wait, wait. Nothing, nothing, nothing, then something, then more nothing for an unbelievable long time, then something small which you are sure will turn into something large and glorious and life-changing, only it doesn't, it just is what it is. Then more waiting, which is surprising, because you thought at this point that you wouldn't have to wait anymore. But you do.

So: more work, work, work on some other project. Then--out of the blue--something unexpected. Which is better than watching the damn pot all the time to see if it boils.

So: beautiful, rainy, gray day, with a little something extra throiwn into the pot of cloud soup. I was supposed to go into New College today and photocopy the reader for the Memoir class, but instead I lay in bed till 11, sleeping in and then talking on the phone, and now it's too late to go because I have to meet my Little Sister at 4. And I'm going back to Harbin tonight to get my hair trimmed tomorrow, and soak in the tubs for a day, and maybe even get a little writing done, since all I do while I'm here is email, blog, and Sudoku.

Whoo-hoo! Bloomfield, Illinois! Bring it on!