The Hazards of Love

Once upon a time a buddy of mine and me (well, mostly a buddy of mine) staged the Decemberists' The Hazards of Love. This was 2011-2012. We'd originally tried to stage it in 2010 but Players' Theatre was like, "You have no book, you have no actors, you have no plan, so uh no."

So over the winter of 2010-2011 my buddy and I squirrelled ourselves away in his office on the 5th floor of the Arts Building and wrote a book to connect up all of the songs, acting out the romance and the drama between us with the janitors walking up and down the halls and the student protests crashed like waves on the shields of the riot police. And we went back to Players' Theatre in August 2011 and brought them the book and brought them evidence of the performance rights and brought them the album and brought them a Plan and they said, "Oh cool, let's do it."

So we staged auditions and we wandered all over campus holding auditions in the student union building and the lobby of the music school and friends' basements and I think on the street, perhaps, at one point; and we drove up to the garment district to purchase burlap in bulk; and we spent two days painting leaves on the floor of the black box we were staging the thing in; and at one point I got kicked in the face and took an abortive trip to A&E; and then before we knew it, it was Showtime and the Gazette was there.

Anyway, 13 years have gone by and I don't listen to the album much anymore because it was such a Moment in my life and I feel a sort of reverence about it, and no one seems to mention it, or mention the Decemberists at all really, anymore. They're still putting out music and I still listen to it but not with the wide-eyed wonder of hearing Picaresque or Hazards for the first time.

But Jeremy Keith mentioned it recently in the context of Brad Frost's Cold Album Drumming project and it reminded me of a good old day when we dared, and when we won, and when we got our name on Wikipedia and citation-ed up so heavily that they can never take it off.