![\"\"](\"https:\/\/performingartslegacy.org\/sesmathom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/213\/2020\/08\/Thom-Early-Heashot-81-236x300.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThank you for visiting today.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s a fascinating and rewarding experiment for me, looking at my career in retrospect, far earlier than I ever would have anticipated, especially since my career still seems to be going full steam ahead, even in the doldrums of the current\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0coronavirus pandemic. I\u2019ve been relatively fortunate these days to have remained busy, engaged in multiple projects in development, live-streamed productions, cabarets, concerts, readings and recitals, all from the uncomfortable comfort of my home studio (also known, during non-COVID times as a second bedroom). It\u2019s strange, even frightening to think that this may well be the future for up to the next two years, but it also occasions us to see it as one of those rare times when an opportunity is at hand to create new kinds of work and to reengage with audiences on a new and never-before-imagined level. I have no doubts that what we\u2019re all experiencing in our industry will go down as a critical chapter in our lives.<\/p>\n
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if I can help that one person in the audience who might be so inclined to look back at Thom Sesma\u2019s career without telling that person what it\u2019s all supposed to mean in retrospect, then I think perhaps what I leave behind on these pages is less a precise map or a list of specific directions than some kind of lamp to light the way on any path of their own that they might be on.<\/p>\n Watch this space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thank you for visiting today. It\u2019s a fascinating and rewarding experiment for me, looking at my career in retrospect, far earlier than I ever would have anticipated, especially since my career still seems to be going full steam ahead, even in the doldrums of the current\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0coronavirus pandemic. I\u2019ve been relatively fortunate these […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highlight"],"metadata":{"_edit_last":["225"],"_wpac_members_redirect_to":[""],"_wpac_show_in_search":["0"],"_wpac_show_excerpt_in_search":["0"],"_wpac_nonmembers_redirect_to":[""],"_wp_old_date":["2019-04-07"],"ase_chapter_enable_timeline":["off"],"ase_map_component_start_point":["a:2:{s:3:\"lat\";d:29.76;s:3:\"lng\";d:-95.38;}"]},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/performingartslegacy.org\/sesmathom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/213\/2020\/08\/SesmaHeadshot3-240x300.jpeg\")
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 It\u2019s interesting, sometimes reassuring, sometimes frustrating to look back at specific points in my career \u2013 credits on a resume, a random photograph, a link to a dimly remember news article or interview \u2013 and to be brought back to a vivid memory of how I felt then, or of how I feel about it now<\/em>, or of someplace in between,\u00a0 a pivotal point where something occurred and to find that it\u2019s still unresolved, not yet fulfilled,\u00a0 unfinished; in other words it\u2019s a \u201csomething\u201d that hasn\u2019t yet become history<\/em> \u2013 and what is a legacy if it\u2019s not something that exists within an even greater history, something that is passed on as completed, something that\u2019s no longer an active verb but a noun.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/performingartslegacy.org\/sesmathom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/213\/2020\/08\/tsesma5606_2-300x189.jpg\")
That\u2019s the source of no little conflict as I build this site. As creative people, we are always challenged with remaining fluid, open and available to what any moment brings \u2013 to remaining an idea of something in action \u2013 the <\/span>verb<\/em> I refer to above. To do anything else is simply to build a database. Shaping that noun is a task I find as fruitless as I find it frustrating. Truth be told, I don\u2019t want to be the one who tells you what my career may have meant to me or what it\u2019s supposed to mean to anyone who might be tempted to follow me on the path of my career. I don\u2019t want to do that work for other people. It\u2019s why I feel that one\u2019s legacy is best meant for someone else to define, like a well-told narrative that the individuals in the audience are supposed to unravel. If you do all the work for an audience, you\u2019re taking them out of the creative equation: they become not participants in a singular experience but mere witnesses to a show. And that\u2019s not interesting to me and is eventually fatal to the very idea of storytelling.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/performingartslegacy.org\/sesmathom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/213\/2020\/08\/0088copyRT-300x200.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBut<\/em> \u2013 and there\u2019s always a but<\/em>\u00a0 \u2013<\/h3>\n
That\u2019s a roundabout way of saying this site dedicated to my career in retrospect \u2013 my \u201clegacy\u201d \u2013 is now and will remain a work in progress.\u00a0 In this latter phase of my career and, presumably, my life, looking back may serve to change the way i felt about those things that occurred back then, or even better, change the way I feel about things now.<\/h3>\n