Sometimes, interviewing is fun

At the risk of this sounding as odd as it actually is, I'm a freelance writer who periodically writes magazine articles about people and events, which in turn requires calling people on the telephone (as a stranger) and asking them questions.

I am also a person who doesn't really like calling up strangers on the telephone and asking them questions. It almost always turns out just fine, and productive. It's the act of picking up that phone that bothers me, until I actually do it.

Today was one of those days that the end result was just delightful. I am working on a piece about Piedmont Opera's upcoming production of "The Light in the Piazza." Earlier this week, I chatted on the phone with the author of the original novella, from 1960, on which the musical was based. Who set the hometown of the family in the story, for reasons all her own, in Winston-Salem, N.C., which of course makes the musical a perfect choice for Piedmont Opera based on setting alone. (The story's action takes place in Italy, however.)

Today, I got not only to chat with the artistic director and resident conductor, Jamie Allbritten (he's currently in Colorado, however), but with Adam Guettel, the musical's composer, who was kind enough to give me time to talk about how he found the story and made it into a six-Tony-award-winner of the 2005 Broadway season. For a smalltown resident in N.C., it's just not every day I get to do that. And how wonderful is it to get to write about the theater as part of my paid work? Among other things, I've been able to do a three-part article on NCSA's "West Side Story" production in Winston-Salem Monthly, and more recently, a Triad Stage profile of "Bloody Blackbeard" in Greensboro Monthly.

It's totally excellent, that's what it is!

The only downside to this whole experience is that Piedmont Opera did not consult with me when scheduling this production, and the three dates in mid-October fall right in the middle of the time Kathy and I will be out of the country. Darn it! Though I will probably make up for it by seeing a Samuel Beckett play in Dublin, so that should work out as a fair compromise.