I tried to declutter my house

I freely admit to having a large element of sentimentality which I claim – along with an abiding love of potatoes – as part of my Irish heritage. But are you moved by the idea of ​​grouping together certain theater programs? Call a therapist! And yet…

I had been putting it off, but when I started running out of space in my house to store programs, I knew I had to act. Throwing away the contents of 10 large storage boxes wasn’t an option, but I figured a library or drama school might want them – and then they would at least have a second life.

The programs are an incredible resource because they contain many informative essays (although I admit to only referring to them occasionally), but after several responses of “no thanks” and even more non-responses, I realized with regret that I would have to go to the recycling center.

Getting rid of over a thousand programs was a surprisingly emotional experience. I had been accidentally hoarding them since becoming a theater regular as a teenager and then a critic writing about theater and comedy since the 2000s. I try to control any hoarding tendencies, so I didn’t never deliberately decided to keep them, but, like Topsy, they simply grew.

The programs are spread out, I suppose, between 60 and 40 plays between productions I have seen as a punter and those I have reviewed. So I thought it might be fun to see which pieces I came back to repeatedly, whether for work or for fun.

I could have told you without watching that Shakespeare – particularly Twelfth nightHenry plays and As you like itmy favorites – would feature prominently, as would Euripedes’. Medeathat of Chekhov Three sisters and that of Wilde The importance of being seriouswhich never gets old for me. And so it proved as programs for each of them quickly reached double-digit levels. (This was easy to evaluate because the programs were stored by letter, but not strictly alphabetical order. I like order, but I’m not a real nerd.) Hamlet was also well into the double-digit club.

But a significant proportion of the programs were devoted to new works, often written by playwrights whose careers I have been able to follow over the years, starting in tiny spaces before reaching the West End and Broadway – James GrahamLynn Nottage and Richard Bean among them.

However, rummaging through the well-filled storage boxes turned out to be a big mistake, because that’s when emotions took over. In a box of panto programmes, I found my late mother’s and I went to see Danny La Rue, her favorite programme. interpreter. I kept it because I think even the strictest professional organizer Marie Kondo would allow me to.

The sheer number of Playbill programs (showing in American cinemas) also instantly reminded me how far back my love affair with America goes, while the single-page cast lists of countless Edinburgh Fringe productions was proof of how important a part of my life – professional and personal – the festival was, in the working relationships formed, the painful weeks spent in the UK’s most beautiful city with colleagues become friends for life, the simple joy of being paid to see (sometimes) really good theater.

I found the program for Arthur Riordan’s exuberant and idiotic comedy Unlikely frequency – my all-time Fringe favorite, which I reviewed in 2006 and still frequently recall with laughter. So yes, extremely happy memories – but still, times gone by.

“You read a lot of magazines, ma’am,” the worker at my local recycling center said as I put yet more programs in the dumpster. Well yes, every word from every one of them, even the timid photocopied Fringe documents. Psychologists say that throwing things away can make us feel better. But I didn’t feel relieved at all, just very sad to see a part of my life disappear forever and guilty that the programs had been unceremoniously abandoned.

I was trying to think positive thoughts when I got home, only to find another large storage box hidden, forgotten, under my desk.

This contains programs from the Wimbledon Championships, another of my great loves, which I attended for the first time at the age of 12. Can I bear to throw them away? I might need therapy first.