“Hey.”

“Hey, Director,” Randall says, measuring some fabric. “What can I do for ya?”

“Is Clem around?”

“Nope.”

“Oh.”

“Can I help you instead?” he asks.

I am skeptical. While he’s a nice guy and definitely knows what he’s talking about, I just don’t ever find that I have much in common with Randall. I prefer talking with Clem about these sorts of things. I shrug and decide to go for broke.

“Sure,” I say, pulling out my director concepts for A Raisin in the Sun, Mother Courage, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “I’m working on my concepts for the upcoming conference.” He nods, knowing full well what kind of preparations I’m making for the conference.

“What’s the problem?”

“Well, I wanted to show you my concepts and see if you could give me any advice.” He nods and I hand him the papers. I keep going. “For A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for example, I’m a little confused. I don’t want to go with pure Elizabethan style costumes, but I don’t want to go modern either. Both are overdone. So I figured I’d go with French Baroque. I like the time period, and it’s different and… well… I don’t know if that’s a good enough reason.”

I pause, waiting for him to respond. He doesn’t.

“Is it?” He looks up.

“Well, do you think it is?” I shake my head. “Then you need to find a reason. Read through the script again, see if you can find some parallels between the French Baroque period and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” I nod. I point to the A Raisin in the Sun concept.

“My idea here was–” I begin. He cuts me off.

“Where are the acting concepts?” He shuffles the papers. I stare at him. He looks up at me. “The actor concepts?” I’m dumb-struck.

“Uhh…” I’m speechless. Of course. What’s the whole point of directors? To direct the actors! I had forgotten to include actor concepts!

I had conferred with my friend William regarding the concepts in the first place, and since he’s first and foremost a lighting designer, naturally the discussion centered around technical design aspects. I’d completely forgotten about the acting side of things. How stupid can I be?

By this time next week, I assure you, my faithful readers, that my full director concepts will be posted. Somewhere.

God, I’m a fool.