Between Us

It’s good to be known.

That’s a saying in my home when one of us completes another’s sentence or accurately predicts what the other is going to order at a restaurant, no matter how new and long the menu may be. And while it might speak to the familiarity that comes from long-time relationships, I also think it speaks to our deep desire for pattern. For tradition.

During our trip through the sideways landscape of the last two years, we have all learned new patterns. Some by choice, some by mandate. In the midst of all that has changed, many of us have come to treasure more than ever that which stayed the same. That piece of music that still has the capacity to calm the spirit. That ornament that comes out of a shoebox each year that instantly connects us to holidays past.

Last year, we produced A Christmas Carol in a parking lot, with actors performing in shipping containers while audiences watched from their cars. There was something truly dazzling about the innovation of that approach dancing with the familiarity of that story.

Now, though, we are here. Together in a theatre about to share the telling of (spoiler alert) a story of redemption. And while the set is new, the direction is new, and the costumes are new (so many of them, too!), the story is the one we know and love. And there is something that feels so right about that. To return to the known, with the shared realities that have changed us, and to gather again to listen to a familiar story.

Yes, it is good to be known. Whether you are here for the first time, the fifth time, or the fiftieth time – you are welcome here. May this be your new or renewed tradition.

Happy holidays, one and all.

Susan V. Booth Jennings Hertz Artistic Director