Yesterday was the official groundbreaking event for the new Howard County Performing Arts Center and Artist Flats, held at Toby’s Dinner Theatre. This project has been in the works for a long, long time. I haven’t always been one hundred percent certain how I felt about it but, in the end, I am convinced by two things:
The arts are good, housing is good, and this is a community investment worth making.
We could argue from now until next year about whether any project is the best possible incarnation of community needs, the best possible use of money, the best possible design, the best combination of components…
And then we would not do anything. Perhaps that would be reassuring if our primary goal is to never do anything unless it is The Best.
A thousand ships unsailed, dreams unrealized, needs unmet.
I found it fascinating that yesterday’s ceremony took place on the set of Toby’s current production, The Music Man. How on earth did we ever get anything new and exciting off the ground right here in River City?
If you haven’t seen the musical, then it is important for you to know that River City is a town deeply set in its ways. They are so hung up on maintaining the status quo that the very thought of a single woman running a library alarms them. Thus they are easily bamboozled by a stranger from out of town when he works them into a frenzy about the dangers of a billiard parlor.
The play is set in 1912. Somehow these issues don’t feel so unfamiliar today.
I grew up listening to the sound tracks of those old classic musicals and The Music Man was definitely one of them. Included in the liner notes of the original cast album is an anecdote from creator Meredith Wilson. He describes the show as being inspired by a trunk full of songs he had written over the years about his home town of Mason, Iowa. Wilson built the musical around those songs. One by one, the songs were replaced by new material as it became apparent that something different was needed to establish character or forward the plot. The story goes that the very last of those original songs was replaced quite close to the show’s official opening.
So, now he had The Music Man. But he still somehow had that old trunk full of songs because the show had grown and changed and blossomed into something different than his original concept. And he went with that. He had the skills and the ability and the vision to evolve along with it. Wilson didn’t throw away his concept. He adapted: re-envisioned, improved, reshaped, deepened.
If you haven’t already guessed, I see a straight line from that story to how we handle growth and change in Columbia and in Howard County as a whole.
Wilson had to let go of things that he liked and was probably emotionally invested in so that what he was creating would be better and more true to itself. Wow, that’s hard.
Several weeks ago I found myself writing the following in my journal:
Trying new things is a leap and an effort. And I don’t want to make an effort. I want everything to feel better and I don’t even want to try. Or: I only want to try with success and pleasure assured in advance.
This is probably why I wince a little at the statement which heads County Executive Calvin Ball’s Facebook page: Bold Solutions Build the Best Communities. Not because I think it is wrong, but because it can be so hard to be bold.
And it is darned near impossible for all of us to feel bold at the same time. It is truly amazing that we get anything meaningful accomplished.
We can’t have success and pleasure assured in advance. We can’t guarantee that it is the best of this, that, and the other thing. We can keep working to make our community better and truer to itself.
*You can view the complete set of photos from the event at Toby’s Facebook page.
