Dudley

Facebook, being the weird beast that it is, sometimes delivers bad news to a person in an unforgivably ham-fisted way.  You check Facebook, hoping to get up to speed on the latest BuzzFeed gif parade or register your liberal outrage by sharing an Upworthy post (hi Adam!) and then you run into a post by a stranger on an undergrad alumni page that gutpunches you.

"...any info on Dr. T's passing would be appreciated."

What?!  No. Dr. Thomas, dead?  Unacceptable.  Someone call someone because this is not actually possible and should be rectified.

Unbelievable.

No.

A little background: I went to a very competitive undergrad theatre program.  Crazy competitive.  I'm not going to get into details of how intense and sometimes insane this place was, suffice it to say that I was convinced that if I didn't succeed in this particular program, I'd never, ever work in the theatre ever.  I never felt at rest there.  I never felt good enough or smart enough or thin enough or pretty enough or talented enough.  I never felt ENOUGH.  Halfway through my freshman year, we had to pick a degree track and an advisor.  While most of my class' actors gravitated to our acting professor and our tech classmates drifted to our technical director, there was only ever one choice for me: Dr. Thomas.  If pressed, I couldn't tell you exactly why I chose him.  Perhaps it was the fact that, during my audition to get into the program, he was the only one who laughed.  Perhaps it was his patrician demeanor.  Perhaps it was the fact that he talked TO the freshmen instead of THROUGH them.  Perhaps it was a million things.  But part of it was definitely what the upperclassmen referred to as "THE class."

We all had to take "Survey and Analysis of Dramatic Art" with Dr. T in our first semester freshman year.  We learned, pretty quickly, that our pretensions and our artistic posturing were to be checked at the door because Dr. T would not put up with our adolescent shit.  He expected us to be serious and respectful and hard working and real because he just couldn't stand to see us waste our time on artifice. Still, the upperclassmen would corner us in the hallways: "How's Survey and Analysis going?  Have you had THE class yet?" We'd offer up the latest class topics, but were always met with "Oh you'll KNOW when you have THE class."  And then, finally, we experienced it.  THE class.

A play was being discussed in Survey and Analysis...  Since the class, many of us have tried to remember WHAT exact play we were discussing.  Various theories have suggested it was The Importance of Being Earnest or King Lear.  I think it could also have been A Flea in Her Ear.  Regardless, it was being discussed and Dr. T let us yammer on and on about our twee little 18 year old ideas of the central theme of this play.  We spouted rank nonsense like "Man's inhumanity to man" and used foreign words we didn't fully understand ("gestalt") and generally sounded like a bunch of twerps.  Finally, after an interminable amount of theatre-teen posturing later, Dr. T slammed his hand down on the desk at the front of the room.  The echoing boom of his fist on the desk shut our mouths and drew our attention immediately. Dr. T stood at the head of the class with thunder on his brow.  There was a collective intake of breath from the class, and then the storm broke.  "THIS PLAY IS ABOUT SEX, PEOPLE!  IT'S ABOUT FUCKING!"

Funny story, yes?  But in the years since that day, I have continually parsed it out for the underlying lessons it taught me.  Don't overthink the play.  Theatre is about basic human needs and desires. Stop trying to sound smart.  Shut up and listen.  Over and over and over again, Dr. T taught us those lessons.  Shut up a while.  Listen.  Don't think...feel.

I could tell you a thousand Dr. T stories.  About his thermos full of "coffee" during tech rehearsal and how one of his pieces of direction for me was to "Grab the wheelchair and just spin it the fuck around." About how he'd hold advising sessions outside when the university banned smoking in campus buildings and how he could smoke a cigarette in one drag if it was raining. About our Senior Seminar final which involved a mandatory margarita and bean dip component.  About how I saw him do a keg stand when he was 65 years old. About every time he used the word "fuck" in a way I had never heard it used before.  There are a thousand funny stories.  Pardon me, though, because I'm not feeling up to telling any of those particular stories.

See, Dr. Thomas was the first person who believed in me as a theatre artist.  Eh, no...  That's not quite right.  He didn't have time for that kind of Oprah/Dr. Phil bullshit.  It's closer to truth to say he gave me a spine for the first time in my life.  I lived or died by how I was viewed in the theatre department and I believed it to be the ultimate indication of my future success as an actor.  When I was cast in a lead role as a junior, I put all of my hopes and dreams into this one play, this one role, believing it to be the ultimate test of my fitness as an actor.  At the opening night party, I found Dr. T and asked him what he thought of my performance, hoping that I'd hear good things and be validated in my choice of career.  "I didn't like it, Amy.  I didn't like you.  Not totally your fault, though.  Play's a little preachy.  I hate preachy shit."  I crumbled, tears in my eyes.  "Goddamn it, Amy, it's a fucking play.  Don't WORRY about it." Time and time again, he taught me the same lesson:  Do your job to the best of your ability and do right by yourself because there will always be some dumb motherfucker who hated you.  Good news is that there will also always be some dumb motherfucker who loved you.  You cannot rely on the motherfuckers for your sense of self worth for the simple fact that they are motherfuckers.  The only one who can decide if you are going to be an actor is YOU. Now get the fuck out there and do your fucking job.

I wrote to Dr. Thomas once, when I got my first real professional theatre job.  It was important for me to let him know that I was doing OK, that I was working, that what he taught me was vital to my current success...  I had to thank him for giving me the figurative balls to exist in the world of live theatre. I had just been cast at the Improv Asylum in Boston and he wrote me a lovely response.  The interesting thing about Dr. T, in my experience, was that he was blunt as hell in person, but waxed poetic in writing -- I saved most of my papers from his classes for the evocative grading notes he wrote in the margins -- so, when I told him that I was working at the Improv Asylum, the letter he wrote me in reply was all about the beauty of an artist finding their asylum, their place of rest and protection and freedom, their home...  It was beautiful and it was true.

I don't have much else to say but this:  I owe who I am to Dr. Thomas.  Every thing I've done as an actor has been influenced by him and a large part of the good things I've done as a regular human being are because of his instruction and mentorship. He taught me that the only way an actor can fail is by giving up.  He taught me to advocate for myself and be loud.  He taught me how to use the word "fuck" in all parts of speech.  And he taught me the best vocal warm up ever:  "She offered her honor.  He honored her offer.  And all the night long, it was honor and offer."  Where many people saw me as a chubby, shy girl from Minnesota who would never succeed as an actress, he saw me as a chubby, shy girl from Minnesota would would never succeed as an actress unless she stopped listening to assholes.

Someday, I'll laugh at the thousand irreverent stories I have of Dr. Thomas.  But now's my time for grief. I would be such a waste of a person had Dr. T not cared enough to tell me to stand up and be a woman, to raise my voice, to raise hell...

God give you glory, Dr. Dudley Thomas.  You chose to shout where lesser men would have whispered.

My birthday request

Several years ago, I asked friends, family and strangers to send me a picture for my birthday.  It could be of anything they wanted, provided they tell me a little bit about the picture.  I got a photo of a flock of running Wonder Women, a picture of my friend in a junior high letter sweater, the first snowfall another friend had experienced,  a smiling Dalmatian, a metal nun, the hand of a great grandmother resting on the head of her newborn great grandson,  etc.  When I first asked for photos for my birthday , I specifically asked for a hard copy because I loved (and still love) getting mail, but this time, I'd like to make my birthday request entirely digital.

My birthday is on Saturday and it's a big one. Please send me a picture.  ANY picture.  Tell me a little about that picture and a smidgen about why you decided to send me that particular picture. The picture doesn't have to have anything to do with me,  it just has to be something that matters to you in some wonderful/weird/fun/silly/monumental/inconsequential/inspiring/dull/unique/mundane way.  In other words, Dealer's Choice. And the description doesn't have to be long.  Or complete.  Or coherent.  Or anything at all.

Stymied on what to send me?  I'll give an example of what I'd send you, had you made a similar request: a picture of the Denny's sign in Evansville, IN.  I'd tell you about how I used to hang out either there or at a nearby restaurant with my friends in college.  About how we wound up exclusively patronizing Denny's because the other nearby restaurant was partially destroyed when a plane landed on/in it.  About the corner booth where friendships were cemented over the Sleepwalker Special and of the origin of the phrase "A lot of Binaca and no ego."

Send your pictures to birthdaypicturesforamy@gmail.com.  Let me know in your email if it's OK for me to share your picture on this blog.

Another favor:  send this request to your friends, too!  I want to see what people I don't even know will send me.  This is a long standing anthropological art project that I am deeply inspired by.  I am so looking forward to seeing what comes my way this year!

All of this being said, don't send me pictures you wouldn't show your mother/grandma/thesis committee/boss/priest/guru/sister.  Be classy.

Send me pictures, you lovely weirdos!  And share my request, please, if you are so inclined.

Pride

For the first time ever, I got to be a part of Pride in Chicago.  And I got to be a part of it in a big way.  I marched in the parade with pH Theatre and spent three hours today "Marching."  I put that in quotes because, at the worst moments, it was dehydrated shambling and, at the best moments, it was a big, silly dance party.

Here's my take-away from Pride:  There is nothing more joyful that the celebration of love.

Nothing.

To my LGBTQ brothers/sisters/folks that don't subscribe to a binary description of gender who are as close to me as family:  I love you forever. Thank you for letting me be part of your party today!