Theatre

Theatre is a dangerous profession.  The work is sporadic, unevenly compensated and the rejection inherent in it takes a dreadful toll on one's self-esteem. Beyond that, though, there are other risks.

The best actors are able to use their human vulnerability to connect with the material, their fellow actors and the audience.  Day after day, that vulnerability is tested and worked until, perhaps after a particularly harrowing role, the actor walks around feeling like a human wound.  There is a different kind of vulnerability in improvisors, but it is still present.  They must make themselves walk out onstage without the benefit of a script and just blindly trust that their scene partner will take the leap into the unknown with them and that the audience won't revolt or, worse yet, yawn.  It's scary, to spend your work life looking into the abyss and hoping that it won't swallow you. For that is the very purpose of theatre. As David Mamet said in Writing in Restaurants, theatre's purpose is "to represent culture's need to address the question, How can I live in a world in which I am doomed to die?"

Moreover, there's the fact that the very nature of our work is temporary.  For a period of days, months or (in the rarest and best cases) years, we work with a company on a performance.  The people that we work with become like family during that time.  We celebrate, we laugh, we cry, we fight like ill-tempered weasels, we live together.  And then the show closes.  Sometimes we stay in touch, sometimes we don't.  But every closing night is the dissolution of a family.  We clear out our dressing rooms, have our glass of champagne and walk out of the theatre never knowing if we'll see those people or work on that stage again.  I suppose it's part of what makes being in a show so special, but I somehow only tend to see the hurt.

And then there's the larger community of actors. We see each other at auditions and make small talk, maybe.  Or we take a class and roll around on the floor in elastic waist pants pretending to be zoo animals together.  Or we see a show starring a friend of a former castmate and feel personally invested because we know someone who knows that guy up there, acting his heart out.  We are somehow all connected, even those folks that whose paths haven't yet crossed ours.

So, when a member of this community dies, it hurts.  That person was connected to so many other people whose own connections inevitably wind their way back to us.  A death in the theatre world is like an earthquake with innumerable, infinitely vast aftershocks.  I saw this first in Georgia, where a tragedy took three beloved members of the local theatre community.  I saw it again this week where two young performers died within the span of seven days.  I didn't know them, but I am still shaken and sad.  Those who did know these young people are devastated and I  grieve for them.  I grieve because, at the very heart of it all, they've lost a family member.

No one tells you how dangerous this career can be.

Culture Clash

I am currently in a production of "A Christmas Carol," which was exciting to me if only for the fact that I was finally in a show that my niece and nephews could come see.  They came to the show today and I took them on a backstage tour, telling them about the set, special effects, costumes, etc.  They were particularly interested in the ghosts.  They wanted to know how the Ghost of Christmas Past lit up (hidden lights in her cape and dress), were delighted to know that the actor who played the Ghost of Christmas Present keeps cookies at his dressing room station and that the Ghost of Christmas Future who was a seven foot tall spectre cloaked in black was actually played by a delightful, petite woman.  Everything was a wonder to them.  Awe was writ large on their faces.

As we were leaving the theatre, we passed a group of women in the lobby.  Two of them were wearing hajib in jewel tones and the third was in a full, black burqa.  My niece paused, tugged on my hand and pointed toward the woman in the burqa. "Auntie Amy, was she the Ghost of Christmas Future?"  After I finished stifling my laughter, we had a nice discussion about different religions and cultural practices.  I love my job.  I love being an auntie.

You probably need a good laugh...or twelve

This blog is rapidly becoming a repository for the amazing work of the incredibly talented people that I know.  You know what?  I don't give a shit.  I love my friends, I love their creativity, I love their work and I love sharing it with you.  Behold, the first episode of "Teachers," a web series.



For more "Teachers," head to their website: http://www.teacherswebseries.com/

Abigail, Episode 2

Here's the next installment of Abigail: the web series

The last line is my favorite...

Scary Short Film

Watch this with the lights off and your headphones on.  Creepy as all get-out!

The Visit from DarkLine Productions on Vimeo.

And here it begins...

Here is the first episode from my friends' web series "Abigail."  ENJOY!

Watch my friends kick ass!

If you like comedy, you will like "Bethany," created, performed and filmed by some of my favorite people on earth:



If you like Sci-Fi (come on, you KNOW you're a nerd), you will like "Abigail," created, performed and filmed by some of my OTHER favorite people on earth:



Watch them.  Enjoy them.  So you can say you knew them before they sold out and crashed their Bentley into Lindsey Lohan's koi pond.