Contemplating Commendations.....

I can't resist a good alliteration, y'all. It was this or Reflecting On Rainbows.

It's now been almost a week since my Fringe show came to a close. It feels strange now for it to be done. I put the application in so many months ago, thought I might only get one show, ended up getting two shows, and in such a great venue - it's all pretty amazing.

Even more amazing is that I have found out today that the show has been nominated for a Fringe award in THREE different categories! Which is insane. (The three categories are Music, Theatre, and Musical Theatre, by the way. My show wasn't really Theatre, but I'm not going to complain!) I knew going in that these were good songs, and good stories, and that they needed to be shared. But to have so many people that came along giving me great feedback, and then being nominated for three awards, is pretty amazing. People were saying things like - these songs should be on radio; I could see these songs in a musical (spoiler: I did start writing a musical about queer faith, which some of these songs would feature in, but it has been on the shelf for most of this year); I need to hear this as an album; you should perform this in other spaces; this made me cry; I loved that so much; those songs were incredible; and many other things.

It feels incredible to hear people saying these things. Because this is what I love to do. And more than that - this is my thing. Like, I have fingers in a lot of pies. Anyone who knows me will know that. There are so many different things that I do, and enjoy doing, and a decent number of things that I do well. But this - this is, more than anything else, my thing. Singing songs, telling stories, of my own journey, and connecting to other people through that. Whether that's to build understanding, or relationship, or empathy, or some combination of these; this is what I want to be doing. With, like, most of my time and energy 😅 But, you know, capitalism and money and survival and all that. Jobs are very good at soaking up a lot of time and energy. And ADHD is very good at not letting me focus on one thing.....

But I want to do this more. I want to do things like share Rainbow Religion with more people, more than the fifty-ish that showed up across two performances. Part of that will happen through getting the recording up online, and sharing it that way. But that's also not quite the same as doing it in person. So I guess, putting the call out there - if you know of a place that might be interested in having a show like Rainbow Religion, hit me up. Admittedly, I might need them to have a piano or a keyboard there, my keyboard is.....a bit out of action at the moment 😂 (I don't know where the power cord is for it any more, and it is rather old). But yeah. I'd love to bring this to more people. And I'd love to record these songs, with more instruments, get a proper band happening for them, that sort of thing. I even have music video ideas for a couple of them (like, one is a full on dance video, one is a freaking claymation weird thing). Write more songs. Share them. Do more of all of this.

Because we need more people sharing these sorts of stories. Stories from queer people, from trans people, from neurodivergent people, from people that have gone through shit and are happy to talk about it. The stories in Rainbow Religion have been about dealing with religious trauma, and growing up in the conservative church; and from the reactions that I've had, it feels like this is something that resonates with a lot of people. And that makes sense to me. I think particularly the generation I'm from, and around it, many of us were brought up in church. And there's a lot of stuff that can come out of that, that's not really great. But this isn't the time to do my show over again! I'm just glad that these stories are resonating with people. And I'm glad that what I'm doing is having an impact. So thank you.