New Outlet

Hi folks! As part of my new job, I am blogging for the theatre on the Bangor Daily News website. Check out my latest post!

HERE!

Serendipity

I have moved an awful lot in my life and if there's one thing I know, it's that there is always a point during the process when one gets frantic and starts shoving stuff into boxes without regard for order or necessity or reason. As our friends showed up to help us move early last week, I reached that point. Our belongings were being trundled out of our home and there was still so much LOOSE stuff that I panicked and began wildly throwing things into boxes. Late that night, as we were about to settle in for our last night in the house, I realized that I had no idea where my wedding ring was.

Suffice it to say, screaming, horrific terror reigned for most of the night. I climbed in the moving truck, flashlight in my teeth, crawling over our packed furniture to try to peer into a dresser that I thought MIGHT house my errant wedding ring. I couldn't open the drawers to find out if it was there, so I sat down in my empty apartment and sobbed. I believe I even flung myself dramatically across a suitcase, keening. My husband offhandedly mentioned that I might have accidentally thrown it out. There was a loaded silence before I ran out to the garbage cans behind the building, leaving a trail of my own tears. 

Here's where the weirdness happens: I tore open a garbage bag that I had dumped a couple of hours earlier. I sorted through the trash, gulping back my own sobs. Eventually, I saw something gleam in the lone streetlight that illuminated our alley and felt my heart rise with hope. I brushed away the dust and effluvia, thinking that my misery was ended. What I found, though, was not my wedding ring, but a ring that I had given up for lost two full years ago. A ring nearly identical in style to my wedding ring that I had purchased from the same store that sold my husband my wedding ring.

Fast forward to last Thursday, when I finally unearthed the dresser from the moving truck... As soon as it was cleared, I tore the drawer open, dug through it and found my wedding ring. 

Had I not misplaced my wedding ring, I would never have dug through the trash to find that missing ring. It would have been sent to a landfill, never to be found. I don't know if there's a lesson here or not, but I am kind of, sort of awed by the serendipity of it all...

Letting Go

As a child, I was a whiny kid, always looking for an excuse not to try something that was difficult for me. Usually that meant some kind of physical activity, as I was a C.O.G.A.M. (Child of Girth and Mass...a fat kid). When I was diagnosed with asthma, I believe I almost hugged my doctor because he had just provided me with a lifetime "get out of physical exertion free" card. Somewhere along the line, though, everything changed. In fact, the surest way to get me to do something now is to imply that I can't do it. I developed a kind of maniacal tenacity, as is evidenced by the large number of songs on my iPod with the title "Hold On." That tenacity has benefitted me in a career like mine. In the performing arts, oftentimes the race goes to the person who was just too stubborn to quit, so it became a method of professional survival for me to hold on as long as I could. Moreover, it became a point of pride. I was tough, I was strong, I wasn't ever going to give up... I even committed the poem Invictus to memory and briefly considered it as a tattoo option. "My head is bloody, but unbowed"? Hell yeah! It only occurred to me occasionally that sometimes I held on to certain things longer than was probably necessary. Sometimes, I'd open my clenched fist only to see that whatever I was holding on to had died or disappeared or changed in some irrevocable way. That kind of realization hurts, so I did my best to ignore it. I don't know if that was the wisest choice.

The reason I bring all of this up is because I'm leaving Chicago. I've done this before, actually. I left Chicago back in '06 to pursue a graduate degree (at a school whose mascot is the bulldog...the epitome of tenacity). As I left that first time, I told everyone that I was not going to continue to pursue acting any more -- that I was embarking on a life of academia and I would become a professor. The sneaky thing about saying that, though, was that I was only giving the appearance of letting go of my performance career. I knew I would have to perform as part of my degree program for the next three years. And I knew I had work as a performer during the summers. I wasn't really letting go of anything.

This time, I'm painfully aware of the dream I have to let go of in leaving. Like many improvisors, actors and comedians who have come to Chicago before me, I dreamed of working for The Second City. More specifically, I dreamed of being cast in a revue on one of their two resident stages. I wanted to tour for them and then get chosen to write and perform one of their iconic revues. I've worked for The Second City in a number of capacities, including as a performer on several occasions. Second City got me my Equity card (and got me out of a semester of grad school), but I never got that resident stage revue. I beat myself up for a while thinking that I could have achieved my dream if only I had come to Chicago sooner, if only I had not taken the job that brought me here in the first place and just started taking classes at Second City right away, if only I hadn't moved to Boston, if only, if only... The truth is that none of those things happened and even if they had, maybe none of it would have made a difference. I didn't get a stage. And I never will.

What I did get from Second City is the chance to perform in regional revues, the chance to travel the world, the chance to perform with some of my comedic idols, the chance to direct eager young artists and the chance to teach some wonderful, inspiring people. Second City gave me so, so much. In focusing so much on the dead dream in my clenched fist, though, I almost missed out on the vibrant, living reality all around me. In fact, that reality was larger than just Second City: it encompassed so many other thrilling and wonderful companies, spanning continents. I may not have achieved my dream, but I hadn't even known to dream about the things that I did achieve.

So, as I leave Chicago this time, I hope that I might be clear eyed about ALL of my dreams. I hope that I can watch the skyline receding in my rearview mirror with peace in my heart. I didn't do what I set out to do here, certainly, but how could I have known what wonderful surprises I had in store for me? Perhaps it's time to add "Let It Go" to my iTunes, to temper the "Hold On"s.

Realization

Sometimes, you're granted a moment of clarity. Sometimes that happens in a Ford with a busted bumper as you curse your way through horrible after school traffic (complicated by the presence of a poorly parked truck loaded with produce mislabeled as "mangos" when they were clearly papayas). Sometimes, when that happens, you're on the way to a meeting and you say something out loud...something that sounds a lot like "God, I just want to be the person they need me to be." And then sometimes you burst into tears because you realize that maybe you should be talking to people who need the you that you are already.

Waiting...

We've lived in doggie hospice for the last week. Our buddy took unexpectedly ill last Saturday and has been slipping away every day since. The vet said that the best we could hope for was a month and he assured us that there was nothing we could have done to catch the tumors early. We couldn't have known because he displayed no symptoms. HE couldn't have known because he didn't start to hurt until it was too late. Knowing there's nothing we could have done does not help. Does. Not. Help.

Today, he barely mustered a half-hearted lick of peanut butter. We've slept on the floor next to him for a week (he can no longer jump up onto the bed). We've hand-fed him first his own food, then cooked turkey, then bacon and finally tiny jars of baby food. We've walked him every time he even so much as glanced at the front door. We've petted him, we've stayed up all night with him in case he needed one of us, we've refused to leave his side. The one thing we DIDN'T do, was pay attention to what was in his eyes.

It's time.

To quote the Tin Man, I know I have a heart because it's breaking.

“He is my other eyes that can see above the clouds; my other ears that hear above the winds. He is the part of me that can reach out into the sea. He has told me a thousand times over that I am his reason for being; by the way he rests against my leg; by the way he thumps his tail at my smallest smile; by the way he shows his hurt when I leave without taking him. (I think it makes him sick with worry when he is not along to care for me.) When I am wrong, he is delighted to forgive. When I am angry, he clowns to make me smile. When I am happy, he is joy unbounded. When I am a fool, he ignores it. When I succeed, he brags. Without him, I am only another man. With him, I am all-powerful. He is loyalty itself. He has taught me the meaning of devotion. With him, I know a secret comfort and a private peace. He has brought me understanding where before I was ignorant. His head on my knee can heal my human hurts. His presence by my side is protection against my fears of dark and unknown things. He has promised to wait for me… whenever… wherever – in case I need him. And I expect I will – as I always have. He is just my dog.” - Gene Hill

England

I just spent a few days in England.  I visited places that meant the world to me. This poem kept bubbling up (especially the last stanza):


Loud Without the Wind Was Roaring

Loud without the wind was roaring
Through th' autumnal sky;
Drenching wet, the cold rain pouring,
Spoke of winter nigh.
All too like that dreary eve,
Did my exiled spirit grieve.

Grieved at first, but grieved not long,
Sweet—how softly sweet!—it came;
Wild words of an ancient song,
Undefined, without a name.

'It was spring, and the skylark was singing';
Those words they awakened a spell;
They unlocked a deep fountain, whose springing,
Nor absence, nor distance can quell.

In the gloom of a cloudy November
They uttered the music of May;
They kindled the perishing ember
Into fervour that could not decay.

Awaken, o'er all my dear moorland,
West-wind, in thy glory and pride!
Oh! call me from valley and lowland,
To walk by the hill-torrent's side!

It is swelled with the first snowy weather;
The rocks they are icy and hoar,
And sullenly waves the long heather,
And the fern leaves are sunny no more.

There are no yellow stars on the mountain
The bluebells have long died away
From the brink of the moss-bedded fountain—
From the side of the wintry brae.

But lovelier than corn-fields all waving
In emerald, and vermeil, and gold,
Are the heights where the north-wind is raving,
And the crags where I wandered of old.

It was morning: the bright sun was beaming;
How sweetly it brought back to me
The time when nor labour nor dreaming
Broke the sleep of the happy and free!

But blithely we rose as the dawn-heaven
Was melting to amber and blue,
And swift were the wings to our feet given,
As we traversed the meadows of dew.

For the moors! For the moors, where the short grass
Like velvet beneath us should lie!
For the moors! For the moors, where each high pass
Rose sunny against the clear sky!

For the moors, where the linnet was trilling
Its song on the old granite stone;
Where the lark, the wild sky-lark, was filling
Every breast with delight like its own!

What language can utter the feeling
Which rose, when in exile afar,
On the brow of a lonely hill kneeling,
I saw the brown heath growing there?

It was scattered and stunted, and told me
That soon even that would be gone:
It whispered, 'The grim walls enfold me,
I have bloomed in my last summer's sun.'

But not the loved music, whose waking
Makes the soul of the Swiss die away,
Has a spell more adored and heartbreaking
Than, for me, in that blighted heath lay.

The spirit which bent 'neath its power,
How it longed—how it burned to be free!
If I could have wept in that hour,
Those tears had been heaven to me.

Well—well; the sad minutes are moving,
Though loaded with trouble and pain;
And some time the loved and the loving
Shall meet on the mountains again!

Birthday Pictures 9

From a friend I have yet to meet:


"Here's a picture of me that my sister took while we were waiting for fish & chips at the Ivar's restaurant in Burien, WA.  It was the first picture my Sis took with a cell phone.  The T-shirt I'm wearing celebrates the BBC series Red Dwarf, which was carried by the Seattle PBS affiliate.

A few weeks later, after lunching at the same restaurant, I won a doubles bowling tournament with a young man who had recently returned from Army duty in Afghanistan.  Since we had left the tournament before it ended, the tournament director couldn't take a picture of us (with an oversized prop check) for their website. When the tournament director called to tell me I won, he asked if I could e-mail a picture.  This is the one I sent him."

Birthday Pictures 8

I love it when good people get to be parents.  This picture is from one of the kindest, most supportive people I know.

"I hope you enjoy the photo of Eli attempting to camouflage his way into his blanket."

I sense a future Hide-and-Go-Seek champion on the horizon...

Birthday Pictures 7

I got some birthday pictures from friends AND some nice folks I have yet to meet.  This is from an improvisor and her story is this:

"This is a picture of me (right) improvising on stage with Dooley (left, adult) and his baby... This was taken at the 6 year anniversary show of the group we used to perform in together, and which I still perform in.

In this picture I am improvising with a baby.

This picture makes me have strange feelings."

Birthday Pictures 6

From my friend Bill, who said of his companion in this picture: "When I'm with her I'm spending 100% of my energy being in the moment..." Yay for love!

Birthday Pictures 5

A couple of years ago, I got my first ship contract with The Second City.  Our first cruise was from Miami, through the Panama Canal and up to Long Beach, CA.  Our first port was Cartagena, Colombia. This picture is from one of my castmates:

"Since on the cruise ship we only got to see it during the day, here's
how it looks in the walled city of Cartagena at night.  I was there in
June and still traveling about Colombia."

Birthday Pictures 4

From a dear, sweet, talented and kind friend who did something very brave in moving to Chicago:

"Here's a photo of the Damen Blue Line Stop I took this past autumn. I chose this photo for you because I took a leap of faith by moving to Chicago in September 2012. I didn't have a job for three months after moving, and I was sleeping on an air mattress in a tiny 8x10 bedroom in Wicker Park. The Damen stop will always remind me of my big move to Chicago."

Birthday pictures 3

A picture and some travel advice from a friend.  Not sure if she knew this, but crispy cheese (what I call "cheese scab") is my favorite food of all time:


Here is a picture of a cheeseburger from Shady Glen. Manchester Connecticut (where I'm from) is known for three things:

1. Silk Worms
2. Being the retail capital of CT (all of the stores, all of the time)
3. Shady Glen cheeseburgers

If you were a theater kid growing up in Manchester (or any of the surrounding towns) you went to a post show dinner at Shady Glen. And if you weren't a sociopath, you ordered a cheeseburger (or a grilled cheese sandwich, but only if you were vegetarian/trying to impress a dude).

The trick to the Shady Glen cheeseburger is taking three to four slices of American cheese and cooking them on the burger so the cheese on the burger melts into the meat and the cheese on the side fries into this crisp halo of happiness. The result is nothing short of amazing/horrifying (but only when you think of what you're putting into your body).

I highly recommend it. IF YOU GO, DO NOT GO TO THE SHADY GLEN IN THE PARKADE. I cannot stress this enough.

Birthday Pictures 2

From my friend Thomas: "(T)his photo has given me great laughs (and still does). This is marketing! or the exact opposite of that...I took this photo in a Carrefour City grocery on the Rue de Faubourg St-Denis in Paris..."

Lady 'Gina, Rubyfruit Flavor. It's the pulpiest!

Birthday Pictures

On my birthday, I requested that my friends, acquaintances and perfect strangers send me pictures.  I love photography so very much and I love stories even more and have requested pictures and the stories behind them multiple times over my life.  I'm finally starting to go through my birthday presents and am sharing them now.

This is from an improvisor friend who said that he loved this picture of himself because it was an early indication of his love of play and creativity. Rock on, my friend.  Rock on.

Mary Poppins

At some point during every Christmas I spend at home, I inevitably pick up one or more Mary Poppins books and binge read.  This time, I was struck by a passage from Mary Poppins Comes Back.  In it, the newborn Annabel talks to a starling:


"I am earth and air and fire and water.
I come from the Dark where all things have their beginning.
I come from the sea and its tides.
I come from the sky and its stars, I come from the sun and its brightness.
And I come from the forests of the earth.
Slowly I moved at first, always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream I awoke and came swiftly.
I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and, came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long journey." - P.L. Travers

The starling chides her and says that she will never remember all of this as she grows.  No human can.  Sure enough, she forgets.  But at this closing of the year, as we assess our paths and map out our futures, let us all remember that we came from the Dark where all things have their beginning.  Let us all remember all we have been and think of all we shall be.  May we all feel warm wings about us.

Blessings

As an actor, I tend to have a flurry of shows that occupy my thoughts and take up a certain amount of energy.  The scripted shows have been painstakingly memorized and prepared for and the improvised ones have been dutifully orchestrated.  When I show up, though, I simply perform.  Somehow, the preparation, the struggle and the weight of everything is not foremost on my mind.  I just go to the theatre and do my job.

These last few days before my holiday break have shown me a different side of performance, though.  The side of the director and teacher.  I have three shows in three days where my role has been to prepare my cast to shine as bright as they can in front of standing room only crowds.  I have worked with each ensemble for months and these shows have been the culmination of their extraordinary dedication.  After last night's show, I was exhausted.  After tonight's show, I was exhausted.  After tomorrow's show, I expect to be annihilated.

What I didn't fully realize (until having three of these shows back to back) was how much I invest in each of the shows I direct/teach.  I live and die by every individual's performance on that stage.  When one of my cast/students have a "win" onstage, I celebrate.  When I see them before the show and their face says "I am scared," I agonize with them.  My job at these times is to make these brave actors ready for their journey to the stage.  I would sooner cut off an appendage than have one of my performers feel unsure.  If I somehow let a class/cast go onstage not feeling like they will OWN that performance, I have failed.

So, for the past few days, I've been totally wiped out.  I swear to god, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Beijos

In 2008, I assistant directed an Augusto Boal play (the world English language premiere of said play, but I digress...into self aggrandization, apparently) and was exposed to many different aspects of the Brazilian theatrical culture.  On the heels of that production, I sort of kind of desperately wanted to visit Brazil.  One day, in front of a few professors and some students, I said as much.  Timidly, and with no real conviction, but I DID say it. Within a matter of a couple of weeks, I was being shepherded through the process of applying for a travel grant that would allow me to go to Brazil, introduced to Augusto Boal (then a Nobel Peace Prize nominee) and just happened to find a street map of Rio de Janeiro at a book store on sale.  About a week after THAT, I got the grant.  I said I wanted to go and, before I knew it, I was going.  Brazil just kind of happened to me. I won't bother with a travelogue as I've talked about my first trip to Rio before but, suffice it to say, it was magnificent.  I loved Rio more than just about anything.

This year, I happened to read a post on a Facebook page about a South American Improv festival to be held in Rio de Janeiro. On a whim, I replied to the post, saying how much I'd like to visit Rio and be part of this festival.  A couple of months later, while eating lunch in Maine, my phone buzzed. One of my lunch companions said "What happened to make you smile like that?!" I put the phone down.  "I'm going to Brazil.  I get to go to Brazil again." My most recent trip to Rio is another post for another day, but it, too, was magnificent.  Life-changing and brilliant and inspiring and RICH.

It seems magical.  It seems like all I've had to do in the past is whisper how much I'd like to visit Rio de Janeiro and the universe rouses itself to bring all of its best luck and happenstance to bear. On the off chance that this may be true, consider this my standing whisper, universe:  I want to go back to Rio.  I will always want to go back to Rio.  You just let me know when.

Malignant

One thing I hate is the terminology surrounding a person's death from cancer.  Do not say that they lost their battle with cancer.  That is a lie.  Did their cancer live after their own body's death?  No, of course not.  Therefore, they did not "lose."  Their fight may have been a suicide mission, however.

Playing Like a Coach

Let's start out with a piece of information that might seem kind of superfluous at first blush: On Saturdays in the fall, I get REAL southern. I am a University of Georgia football fan with all of the insane zeal of the newly converted.  Ask me to talk about Knowshon Moreno in the brilliant 2008 Sugar Bowl season and I'mma light up like a Christmas tree.  Oh, and if you're a masochist, say the name "Tebow" in my presence and just see what that gets you.   UGA and SEC football are my fall obsessions. I. AM. INVESTED.

So, why am I bringing this up now, other than the fact that it's football season and shit like this video makes me cry with my hand over my heart while singing "Glory, Glory to Old Georgia"? Why indeed...

Flash back to 2009, when Matt Stafford entered the NFL draft, leaving UGA's QB position open to Joe Cox.  It was...not a good season. Cox seemed uniquely good at throwing interceptions.  After the Sugarbowl season of 2008, I wasn't ready for my favorite team to suck so hard.  I was livid.  I went so far as to tell my Florida alumni friends that they had a better team that year.  It was THAT bad.  One day, after a dismal game full of interceptions, I listened to a post-game interview of Cox.  The interviewer asked Cox what his plans were after UGA -- was he going to choose to enter the NFL draft?  Cox replied that his ultimate career goal was to hopefully be a coach.  I believe I remember screaming at that point.  Screaming "THAT'S WHY YOU SUCK!  YOU'RE PLAYING LIKE A COACH! EVERY OTHER JERK OUT THERE IS PLAYING LIKE THEY'RE GONNA BE IN THE NFL! AND YOUR GREATEST CAREER GOAL IS TO HAVE A RECEDING HAIRLINE AND WEAR DOCKERS!"

After a recent Saturday game, my husband reminded me of the time in my household when we spit on the ground after saying Joe Cox's name. I laughed because, well, Aaron Murray and Todd Gurley.  But then I gasped in horror. I was the Joe Cox of my life.

I was playing like a coach.

I am an actor.  I love being an actor.  I am a teacher.  I love being a teacher.  I am, at the moment, auditioning for a lot of work for me as an actor.  I am also applying to a metric butt-ton of academic positions for me as a teacher.  Somewhere, though...  Somewhere along the line, I stopped being 100% an actor in auditions and 100% a teacher in my job applications.  I was teaching like an actor and acting like a teacher.  In no particular moment of my professional life was I 100% the person that was asked of me at that moment.  While sitting in the waiting room of an audition, I was thinking about the class I was going to teach that night or how I needed this job so much.  Consequently, when I went into that audition room, I wasn't doing my job as an actor, I was worried about a thousand other things.  I was concerned about GETTING the job, not DOING my job.  In applying for jobs at various universities around the country, I wasn't completely focused on submitting the best portfolio I possibly could. In every opportunity where I was called upon to step up and show what I've got, I hedged my bets.  I was thinking about my fallback options when I SHOULD have been thinking about being the best possible iteration of myself in that particular moment.  I was anticipating failure.

I was playing like a coach.

Not surprisingly, it hasn't worked out so good for me, either as an actor or as an academic. What encourages me is this:  the UGA team of 2009 is in the rearview and this year's team is exciting and wild and weird and winning.  It is never too late to stop being half who you were meant to be in any given situation.  I am not half a teacher and half an actor...  Half the time, I am 100% an actor and the other half, I am 100% a teacher. I will not be the Joe Cox of my own destiny.