Also, here’s a straight-on view of the painting:

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Yet in spite of these lurking deadlines (literally), I hardly ever actually talk to my parental and grandparental units about their histories.

It’s a pity. Every time I do talk with them, it’s wonderful, and I learn things about their past and my past that make my life more meaningful and that help me relate more to them, especially now that I’m a father. Tonight, for example, we visited my parents and somehow ended up talking about one of my younger brothers who was born at only twenty-one weeks along and passed away when he was forty-five minutes old. I sort of knew the story from when it happened, but I was only seven at the time and my memory’s fuzzy. Now, though, I’m an adult with two children of my own, including a daughter with some fairly severe medical issues. It wasn’t till I heard my parents talk about it tonight that I really even understood what losing their son must have been like. And now I’ve got the story recorded so I can refresh my memory later when my kids are old enough for us talk about it, and even better, they can hear it from their grandparents themselves. That’s worth a lot to me.

The thing, too, is that it’s far easier to record these things now than it ever was before. I have a phone in my pocket almost all the time. That phone has a microphone and can record audio to MP3s, which take up so little space that I can store hours and hours and hours of conversations on my phone. It’s amazing.

Now I just need to figure out a way to remind myself to do more of these oral interviews before it’s too late…

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You probably know Ben Crowder as the Editor-in-Chief of Mormon Artist magazine. But Ben is the kind of guy who always has several projects going on at one time, and I thought that one of them that he is actively working on right now — the Mormon Texts Project — would be of interest to AMV’s readers.

You can read the rest of the interview on AMV’s site (along with lots of other great articles).

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Oh, during the runthrough this evening, a guy from KBYUFM (the BYU radio station) interviewed me down in the green room. We talked about how I got involved with New Play Project, what it’s like, etc. The three-minute segment (he interviewed some of the other NPP people) will air sometime on Tuesday — I’ll post details once I know them. (I do have to say that it was interesting being on the other side of the interview. But that has to do with a new project which I’m not going to reveal quite yet; you’ll have to wait a couple more weeks to hear about it.)

Theatre’s so much fun. It’s a crazy amount of work, but it’s worth it. Especially when the show is well-received. If you’re in the area and want to come see it, Long Ago & Far Away (which is a set of seven short plays, including one I wrote and one I directed) runs on these dates:

• Friday, July 25 @ 7:30pm
• Saturday, July 26 @ 2:30pm
• Saturday, July 26 @ 7:30pm
• Monday, July 28 @ 7:30pm
• Friday, August 1 @ 7:30pm
• Saturday, August 2 @ 2:30pm
• Saturday, August 2 @ 7:30pm
• Monday, August 4 @ 7:30pm

Tickets cost $5 and you can buy them in person at the box office (the theater’s at 105 E. 100 N. in Provo), or you can purchase them online from the New Play Project website (which I’m in the middle of redesigning, by the way).

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