I have a dream that one day my four little children...will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I've been reading Martin Luther King this morning. I have a great little book, edited by his wife, of his most significant sermons and speeches, and make a habit of reading excerpts from it on his birthday each year. This year it brought to mind the wonderful book by Jim Wallis, called "God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get it." He writes passionately about the place of spirituality in the public discourse, and holds up Martin Luther King as a shining example, fighting for African Americans' civil rights "with a Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other." It is a book well worth reading.

Photo courtesy of Martin Luther King Jr. Institute at Stanford University.

Amahl and the Night Visitors

I agreed to help out a friend (my choir director Kathleen) and sing in the chorus as a shepherd in a production she is staging in Saugerties this weekend. The leads are all her high school age vocal students (plus an incredible 12-year-old boy as Amahl) - the kids are doing a great job.

I love Menotti's score, which I sang in high school, and eagerly signed up to do it again. Oh my god....those words. I forgot about how many words there are to memorize - lists of complicated pairings, no rhyme or reason to how they fit together. I've been sitting here all morning chanting "olives and quinces, apples and raisins, hazelnuts and camomile, mignonettes and laurel......"

Yikes! Dress rehearsal tonight and I need to be off book. Hopefully, I will get there by then.

Leaving Sesame Workshop......again

This is the place where I've consistently done the best work of my life. And yet, this week, we reached a mutual decision that I should resign as Creative Director. I always knew that trying to innovate and re-invigorate an iconic brand would be very difficult, and it certainly was! For the most part, I loved the challenge and feel very proud of the work we’ve done over these past two years. In the end, I was not able to retain the confidence of management in my creative agenda. I hate to leave the people - some of the best I've ever worked with - and some of the projects. Won't miss any of the rest of it. For now, it's time to move on and dig into some of the new ideas I had been dying to pursue and couldn't in that position.

Somehow, I feel like the Workshop and I are not done with each other yet. Who knows, maybe the fourth time back will be the charm!