A few years ago I wrote a short memoir called Indie Theater Guy, about my twenty year stint running a nonprofit dedicated to advocacy for the New York City theater community. The book is a fun account of a series of adventures that I never expected to have. You see, I spent the decades before that working as an accountant and computer guy for Marriott International. The surprising and improbable things that happened to me when I got involved in the theater world–from appearing in a couple of (tiny) films to producing an early podcast series to hanging out with a host of actors, directors, playwrights, and other artists–were hardly, as they say, on the younger me’s Bingo card.
But I learned to be open to whatever interesting stuff the universe wanted to throw my way. I won’t say that I’m ever going to be a person who will try anything…but I am a naturally curious person and I really believe that doing is the most important thing in life. For example, when I engage in my main regular hobby, which is playing with LEGO, I savor the process of making and building. Once the project is complete, I don’t really worry about what happens to it.
I guess I collect experiences more than I collect things.
I am fortunate now to have found a partner to share my life with–that’s Arthur. When he read Indie Theater Guy, he told me that he looked forward to a lifetime of adventures together. Our first couple of years together were shaped mainly by the illness and then death of my mother, along with a few too many operations and illnesses of our own. That’s passed now; and so we begin in earnest a time of adventuring. We hope.
In any event, this blog is now here to record some of those adventures. Really just for us, as a way of savoring enjoyed experiences. I did a lot of writing when I was doing the theater stuff I mentioned above–I wrote thousands of theater reviews, along with profiles and other articles for a website about theater in New York City. Recently my friend John Clancy (a terrific director and playwright who was a co-founder of the New York International Fringe Festival) asked me what prompted me to start writing reviews. The answer: to share my enthusiasm for art and artists that I loved. That was always the impetus for my theater career and now as I embark, in retirement, on what I hope will be a fulfilling new “career” venturing into new places and experiences with Arthur, I want to share the good stuff with anyone who cares to read about it. (I guess that’s you.)
I hope that this blog, which I have given the rather silly name “Adventures with Marty and Arty” (NO ONE calls either of us by those nicknames, by the way), will evolve into something interesting. I am excited to see where it goes…and, more importantly, where Arthur and I go. And what we do. And what we’ll find.