What Do I Do With My Life? A Myriad

The last few days have been a sort of "but if I," "-but if this," "but if that" sort of thing. So here's what I'm thinking: (Keep in mind this is always bouncing around in my head)

PLAN AS IT STANDS: in 2012, Andrew graduates from Yale. We get married and move to NYC. I act (if possible) and hopefully get a job working in the arts and education for good money, too. I will use the Folger connections I'm forging until then to make sure this happens. After a few years, Andrew and I move back to the DC area (hopefully Frederick, MD) and get a house, start planting hobbits (2 only - tube-tying to follow!). Andrew is a professional lighting designer, and I work at the Folger again (unless something better rears its head). Coordinating schedules = good, and I can try to be in some small-co shows when the hobbits are toddlers because Andrew's family is all over MD and loves babies. Once the hobbits are in Middle School, I can commit to more shows. When we're 70, Andrew and I retire to Bruges for 9 out of 12 months of the year. We winter in America to spend the holidays with the Hobbits.

Right?

BUT THEN THERE'S THIS IDEA: Andrew goes to Yale. I apply and get in to Shenandoah and get my Masters in both Letters and Acting in Shakespearean Studies (ML/MFA 3 years program = awesome, right?) I graduate in 2013 and move to NYC with Andrew. We would have gotten married one of the summers before.
EITHER - Above plan continues the same way.
OR - I use my new creds to get more work as a teacher/actor. But not a Teaching Artist. You can't live on that - I can't, hobbits can't...

AND THEN I THOUGHT THIS: Andrew to Yale, Me to Shenandoah, NYC. Move back to DC - and I OPEN MY OWN THEATRE. I have two ideas - I still love the Caitlin <3 Queso idea, but I have another Idea for a Shakespeare Adaptation Theatre. Still starts at Warehouse, mind, but I would convert the space into awesomeness with the money I somehow have, AND have Shakespeare clubs of upper high schoolers (and they exist) to come in and collaborate on one adaptation a year that's Workshopped for the Spring Semester and performed on Shakes'ey's birthday. I form a partnership with a University, and do the same only they're part of the mainstage season. I get a Middle School involved, eventually, and do the same for the Birthday Event. Throughout the year I hold readings of select books, poems, and plays that relate however minutely to Shakespeare, and raise money that way. I have a 3-show season, using Shakespeare's contemporaries (like Marlowe, Fletcher, etc), and re-imaginings of Shakespeare's work (you would not BELIEVE the plethora of material...) One Book a year will have scenes dramatized. There will be cabarets using scenes from several plays based on The Seven Ages of Man that I will eventually begin to commission from grad playwrights and local artists. We do something akin to Myth Appropriations with Shakespeare.... We -

You guys - I think you can tell... this is turning into a full-out DREAM. It can't happen in Frederick. It just can't. I want the Warehouse, and I want the DC Theatre Community that I already know and love.

So, by the time I get back from NYC to do this, here's what I need:
-2 collaborators who are energetic and share my VISION of this theatre community embracing the re-imagining of one of the best re-imaginers in Modern english. It can't be just one - this needs to be a COLLABORATIVE EFFORT. Also, these need to be people I can trust in my absence not to tarnish the dream because I will want to hatch and spend time with my hobbits.
(Reichelt and friends, I'm looking at you!)
-1 or 2 Business consultants who will devote themselves to my cause and help me with the details of the dream so there can even BE a dream.
- 1 or 2 Development officers who share the dream and can help me find Donors, Grants, and springbard (haha, typo I'm keeping) ideas for money-raising to build the dream on.
- 1 or 2 Education Consultants who help me bring the dream to schools and lay out facts to help me with lesson plans. (Alie and my contacts inside the Folger will probably do this for me!)
- A Company of Artists - playwrights, actors, directors, teachers, designers (budding or professional) who share the dream and bring their vision to it in order to make it happen.

Possible? SURELY! The only problem is, I need to keep in touch with DC while I'm in NYC. There's no set date on our return, so I don't know when that will be.

Oh my god - I want this so badly. The thing is, every other week there's something I want this badly. So I want to keep this dream alive - which is why I'm sharing it with you. You know about the dream - keep this dream alive!!!! I am like THIS CLOSE to writing up a mission statement and putting this all on paper.

Will I get the Warehouse? Probably not. By the time I get back it'll either have been demolished or be a Denny's. But I can hope - and I can hopefully keep so well in touch with DC that when I get back it's as if I'd never gone. Also, when I have a 212 area code, maybe DC will hire me.

OH, and this isn't coming out of any raw burn from not working as much as I want to in theatre and so being like "well if I can't work for you, I'll work for myself!" No. This is a valid hope, I think, and one I want to make happen. I can't do it alone. I will need help and time and careful planning. I just hope I'm up to it.

Mullen, when are you moving back to DC? :-)

EDIT: Ten minutes later (No, it needs to be the warehouse because it's the closest thing to an Elizabethan stage DC has and I don't want to build a new space because I love the Warehouse environment and can totally see it meaning ADAPTATION of SK and not WE'RE DOING SK. Make sense? It does to me which is why I'm publishing this.)