Think it o-o-ver...

Wow. May is done. Before it started I noticed I was getting more and more work scheduled from my day job. So much so, I decided to put a hold on everything else. That meant taking no classes, no lessons, and going to no auditions. I would just make money to pay my bills.

I was ok with this. Auditions had slowed down considerably. There wasn’t anything that I just had to be at or die. I had wanted to get back to voice lessons. I just didn’t get a moment before May to set them up. I also wanted to go back to Dance class. With the schedule of work that I had, that would be impossible. One week in May, I put in 75 hours of catering. Seventy-five hours! The physical toll on a body from catering that much is like working a 200 hour work week at a desk job.

There wasn’t much I could do besides eat, sleep and work in May. I did, however, get a chance to sit behind the table at a pretty big audition though. It was enlightening to see and hear all those hopefuls display their wares, searching for a buyer.

Time is still at a premium for me, but I want to take a moment to share with you what I witnessed at that audition. Instead of interesting stories and connecting anecdotes about my, or my friends, related exploits in the Performing Arts world, I’m going to cut right to the point-

Stop.

Stop singing iconic songs like “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. You may sound amazing singing the song. You may believe you have a new and interesting take. One or the other or both may be true. But you cannot compete with the people behind the table’s memory of the song being sung by (in no particular order)

Judy Garland

Israel Kamakawiwo’ole

Sam Harris

If your amazing version of “New York, New York” could outsell and outlive Frank Sinatra’s version, then you need to not be singing it at an audition. You need to professionally record it and share it with the world.

Know where your strengths lay and what will get you noticed.

Stop.

Stop asking questions that either:

A.) You already know the answer to.

 
or 

B.) The answer is easily found in the information on the monitor’s desk, on the internet or in the text of the piece you’re auditioning for.

This does not give you an opportunity to make a personal connection to the monitor or people behind the table. It’s like screaming “I am not prepared” at them. And in fact, hinders any connection you could establish. Use those precious moments to concentrate, focus and do whatever you need to do to let your personality shine through the work.

Stop.

Stop making excuses. If you’re late to a call simply say “My name is ______. My apologies. I’m late.” And be ready to drop your stuff and walk into the room, More often than not, the monitor will ask if you need a minute to collect yourself. That is, if they'll still see you.

However the monitor is not going to relay the message that your cat wouldn’t take his medicine, ran under the bed and wouldn’t come out, to the people behind the table. Nor does anyone care that there was a “sick passenger” on the train causing it to go out of service.

The only thing the people behind the table want to know is, how well you are suited for the available parts in the show that is currently being cast. And if you’re talented and lucky, the next show that they’re casting.

Stop.

Stop spewing your neurosis all over your fellow auditionees. You know if you talk a lot when you get nervous or upset. Someone in your life, be it your parents or friends or teachers, has already told you this.

If auditions trigger incessant talking, you have a couple of choices. You can find someone else who has the same reaction. Then the two of you can go off, in a far corner, and talk till your tongues fall out. You can step away from the others who are preparing for the audition. In a far off corner, and blather to yourself in a soliloquy form.

Holding rooms are not the place to let your "eccentricities" roam freely. That stuff follows you into the audition room and displays itself to the people behind the table.

Get help in identifying and controlling your nervousness. That in itself will improve the quality of your auditions. It will also probably greatly improve the quantity of auditions as well. And we all know it's a numbers game.

Stop.

Stop trying to psych out your competition. You know who you are. I see at least one of you at every audition. At vocal calls, you ask what someone is singing and then make a face at their choice. At dance calls, you sit in a center split or stand with your leg up the wall because you “feel tight today”. At acting calls, you somehow figure out how to announce, to the entire holding room, that you’ve worked with the director, the playwright, the casting people or anyone else who happens to be behind the table.

The audition is about you and how you can best serve the piece at hand. If you want to get cast in a piece and do what you know in your heart you were born to do, focus on being prepared. Focus on being polite. Focus on looking and sounding the best that you can at that particular moment.

Focus on you. Have confidence in yourself and your talent. Everything else just gets in the way. So just...

“Stop.

In the name of love...”

The internet is for porn...

The Art of performance boils down to one thing: interpersonal relationships, having them in real life and mimicking them on stage and screen. The concept is quite simple in theory. It’s getting much harder in practice.

I think we all understand how this works in real life. We see it played out in person time and time again. Someone gets something because they’re charismatic, or good looking or a genuinely nice person. Where the problem comes to light is on line.

I play World of Warcraft. There. I said it. I admitted to the world that I play WOW. If you happen to not know what WOW is, it’s an MMORPG. For those who may not know what that stands for, it means Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. It’s much easier to say MMORPG.

Like most MMORPG’s, in WOW the player has the ability to choose his avatar: an icon or figure representing a particular person in video games, internet forums, etc. The player has the ability to choose, within the parameters of the game design, what they look like and what they wear. Once that’s chosen, the avatar is ready to go into the game universe and do stuff. In my case it’s cast spells and kill crap.

My avatar represents who I am in that world. It can be a complete representation of who I am irl (in real life), who I want to be, or just some combination of what the RNG (random number generator) comes up with. Any way it’s done, that is who I am in-game.

When auditioning for theater and film, the people behind the table want you to be the best you can be. They want to see a complete representation of who you are, irl. That representation has many aspects. The more aspects that complement each other, the easier it is to be cast. A well-known casting director recently said that people behind the tables “have no imagination”. They want you to bring yourself to the role you’re auditioning for.

The conundrum lays in the fact that they people behind the tables also want you to be the character you’re audition for. (Thanks reality TV).

At any rate, an actor creates their avatar. They decide how to present themselves at an audition. They decide what material to prepare, how to dress, and, when and if they prepare for the audition, to name a few things in the equation. All of which manifest in the mini-performance for the people behind the table.

Easy, right?

Well, it used to be.

I have played WOW almost since the beginning. There is an in-game function that can tell you exactly how long you have played the game, the character and the level you are currently on. I’m not going to say how long I’ve actually played. I’m not ready to admit that. But I’ve played long enough to see how the game has evolved.

Way back in vanilla (‘vanilla” is what gamers consider the initial years of a game), one had to traverse the game world to find quests. Quests are just that, quests. Once in a while, you meet a fellow player or two who were doing the same quest as you. You’d type a message to those players and ask if they wanted to tackle it together. You did what you had to do, kill the monster, rescue the fallen warrior, invade the camp or stop a summoning ritual. Even though you had help, you essentially did it alone. Each individual got the entire loot for completing the quest. Then you all went on your separate ways.

Soon came the invention of guilds, groups of like-minded people who would quest together and share the loot. If the guild wanted to have a meeting, all of the members had to be online, in the same online world location. Then came the ability to send guild messages on a private in-game channel. Soon after came markers on the map which told you where the quests were. Then markers on the map to say where you could complete the quests. The ability to group up and do quests with people from around the globe was introduced. You no longer had to be on the same server (in game world) to get things done. Then came third party voice chat systems that allowed gamers to talk to each other in real life (irl) while playing the game, then, whether they were playing the game or not. Finally, links to your real life were introduced: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This all became possible based on the available technology and its advances.

I’ve been in the business of Show since I was a teen. I’ve studied theatre history, both ancient and modern. I’ve been in it long enough to see how the “game” has evolved.

Once upon a time there were only a handful of places an actor could go to try and get cast in a show or (back then, god forbid) a movie. Once these actors had to literally walk to producers’ offices to try and get an audition. With CV (curriculum vitae) in hand, thespians would pound the pavement, knock on doors, and hope to get seen. Much like questing in an online game. Unscrupulous businessmen would take advantage of said actors in a variety of ways, forcing them to band together for protection: a guild. Casting directors spawned from a need to weed out the talented from the non-talented, in theory. Agents submit an actor for a role, basically pointing out where to go to “quest”. With the advent of the World Wide Web (that’s what “www” stands for when placed before an online address), an actor could be submitted for a role no matter where they were physically. Now with online signups for EPAs (Equity Principal Auditions) and chorus calls, any union member anywhere on the globe can attempt to get an audition.

And finally, in my opinion because of the popularity of reality TV shows, actors are sometimes required to divulge how many followers he or she has on social media. That effectively links up real life with online life. This adds another facet to who you are as a person, a product and a brand.

This all became possible based on the available technology and its advances. And this is where the problems can begin. The people behind the tables are starting to not only pay attention to who you are in the audition room, but also who you are online.

No matter what any person or online platform tells you, there are some hard and fast rules about being in cyberspace.

1. Nothing is ever truly private.

2. Nothing is ever truly deleted.

3. No one is truly anonymous.

4. There is no way to know another’s intention (or inflection) when reading
    their post.

5. Pictures can be manipulated to lie, but ultimately that lie will be your
    undoing.

6. There will always be someone who is offended.

On Facebook there is a group for performing artists. The members of the group cover the entire gamut of professional theatre: actors, writers, directors, choreographers and casting people. There is one common thread. We are all members of Actors Equity. Stories are shared, commiseration is had and yes, actors are sometimes sought.

If we are friends on my professional Facebook page, you are no stranger to my rantings about the current procedure for signing up for an audition. I covered the new method in a blog last year. Suffice it to say that it is not working the way many believe it should.

One such person was Vivienne.

I personally found nothing wrong with the post. She was mad. She vented. Game over. Move on. However, the present climate in our country gave way to this:

I personally don’t have a problem with the word. We used it as kids to mean something was dumb. I don’t use the word now because it offends people.

Poor Vivienne then sealed her fate with:

And then...

Poor Vivienne didn’t get it. Even after responses like:

She shot back with:

And it all just escalated from there, bringing in race and the "N" word, I.Q. differntials between cultures, abortions and a whole host of unpleasent things. Five hundred and thirty-two comments worth at the time of this posting.

Now you’re probably thinking “I would never say things like that, not even online”. And that may be true. But again, online, you are not in control of how someone perceives your posts.

My friend Lisa and I grew up together. Went to school together. Lost touch after school but a few years later we were back in touch in New York City. Lisa is someone I have known, literally, all my life. We are (were) friends on Facebook.

One day I saw a post of hers. She was complaining about how baristas never spell her name correctly. It’s a fairly easy name, but it can be spelled many different ways. She decided that she was going to call out, on social media, every place that spelled her name incorrectly.

After reading that post, I replied saying that if it bothered her that her name was incorrectly spelled she should just spell it out for the baristas. It takes two seconds to reply with a spelling: My name is Lisa. L-I-S-A. She refused, saying that she should be asked how to spell her name because that would be good customer service.

“Lisa, if it involved your career, say for example you were on ‘Late Night with Seth Meyers’, you would make sure your name was spelled correctly beforehand.”

This didn’t sit well with her. She wrote a reply. Then she deleted it. I still got an email from Facebook with the reply. I can only guess that she took down the post. I can no longer see anything recent on her walls, and she doesn’t respond to my posts.

I contacted her and invited her to a table read of one of my plays. No response. In fact I haven’t heard from her, whatsoever, in four months. We used to talk two or three times a week.

Now you may be saying “So what? You lost a friend on Facebook.” Well this friend, this life-long friend, has a mid-level career in theatre and television. And she’s rising. Not only is the friendship non-existent, that’s a contact gone, an ally turned. As one person on Vivienne’s post said:

Spelling her name wrong causes her stress, I lost Lisa as a friend trying to help alleviate that stress. Vivienne lost about 200 allies from her career. These are people who noted her name, banned her from the group and vowed never to work with her.

I got the raw end of the deal, however. Vivienne can go work in Po-dunk Kentucky doing community theatre in someone’s basement. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just isolated from the world of NYC. I lost a lifelong friend and colleague.

The Performing Arts is just a huge MMORPG. You decide how your avatar represents you in the world. You go out into the world on your quest. You can meet people who are on the same quest or a parallel quest. You can help each other out or you can deter each other. You can share the glory or you can hog it all for yourself.

But remember, the people behind the tables are playing the same MMORPG as you are. They want to play with amiable characters. They have access to your social media. If they have questions about who you are as a person, they will go online. They will look at your personal website. They will troll your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Because at a certain point in the game, everyone has the weaponry to kill the monster; everyone has talent. The people behind the table will look for any differential to help them in their quest: casting a show.

When you get lost in the game, sometimes, an NPC (non-player character) will point you in the right direction:

Vivienne is an extreme case. But please don’t think anyone is being fooled by someone only posting cat videos, or food pics, or saying every production they see is awesome and amazing. Be as human online as you are irl. And maybe, a teeny, tiny bit nicer. Because online:

1. Nothing is ever truly private.

2. Nothing is ever truly deleted.

3. No one is truly anonymous.

4. There is no way to know another’s intention (or inflection) when reading 

    their posts.

5. Pictures can be manipulated to lie, but ultimately that lie will be your 

    undoing.

6. There will always be someone who is offended.

Cyber space is an intangible thing. I’m sure there are some who read this will think “So what? Some random people I don’t know won’t work with me.” Or “I lost a friend because of something I posted. That just means that person wasn’t really my friend”. But cyber space can have very tangible, hard-felt consequences.

In 2014 Seyi Omooba, an actress, posted what she believes is true on Twitter:

The actress and daughter of a pastor went on about her day to day life. She was doing shows and living the dream.

This year she then landed the role of “Celie” in The Color Purple at the Curve Theatre. In the show, “Celie” develops a romantic relationship with a woman. This will be a pretty major production in England. After casting was announced, a fellow tweeter, Aaron Lee Lambert called Seyi out on her almost five year old post:

Within a week, Seyi had been removed from the cast, with the full support of everyone involved:

If that isn’t a tangible, hard-felt result, I don’t know what is.

The things you put out on social media platforms will come back to you. Sometimes it comes back in a bad way, like losing a friend or a job. But if you use it correctly...

“...The internet is really, really great...”

Faggots, Lezzies, Dykes, Cross-dreseers too...

So this year’s live televised musical extravaganza was Rent, by Jonathan Larson. I remember hearing the music to Rent when it originally hit Broadway. I wasn’t in New York City at the time, so all I could do was listen to it, over and over again. I had no clue of some of the things they were singing about. But there were other things I related to so much, that I almost became obsessed. And thousands of people did. My dad, however would not be one of them.

My dad hated musicals, in all forms. He thought they were stupid and insipid. He liked westerns and war movies and dramas. Much to his chagrin, born unto him was a son who revered the musical theatre art form.

Being from a small town, we didn’t have much in the way of theatre. Buffalo was the cultural center of the area. We lived too close to Buffalo to actually have a live, thriving theatre scene. It took the same amount of time to get from my parent’s house to Buffalo, as it does for me to get from my apartment in Queens to midtown Manhattan.  So I relied on the movie musicals to get my fix.

I would watch every movie musical that would come on TV. Hello Dolly, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and My Fair Lady were a few of my favorites. I wanted to watch them every single time they would come on. My dad placated me for a while. But I guess it got to be too much for him. After a few years, he started to put his foot down. He refused to watch them, especially if there was something else he wanted to watch.

“You’ve seen [insert any movie musical title here] a hundred and seven times. We’re not watching it again.”

“But it’s so good. I’m sure I missed some part of it ‘cause I was singing along. So I have to watch it again.”

“Nope.”

I would inevitably wail about the unfairness of it all.

“No one promised you fairness in this world.”

And truer words were never spoken. You see, instead of watching a movie musical I had seen a hundred and seven times before, he would watch a war movie he had seen a thousand and seven times before. So I would storm out of the room, unless he was watching Star Trek (the original) in syndication. We both loved that show. We found common ground there.

At elementary school, during recess we kids were always looking for some new game to play. We had three playgrounds and two huge courtyards around our school, in addition to the Olympic sized track and field area. One day we decided we were going to play Star Trek. We were going “exploring”. I believe it was my friend Dick’s idea. Little did either of us know that we would grow up to be actors. Perhaps this is where it started.

Dick and I went through all of our education together. In high school we both joined the Drama Club. We both had our debut performances in Jesus Christ Superstar. He played Jesus and I played apostle number twelve.

Throughout the high school years we did a number of shows, which coincidentally happened to be among my favorite TV musicals. We did The Music Man. Dick was Professor Harold Hill. I was chorus boy number three. Senior year the Drama Club decided to do My Fair Lady. I was in heaven. I had always wanted to be "Freddy Eynsford-Hill".  The character’s stuff was just so romantic and magical. I was cast as "Colonel Pickering", however. And surprise, Dick was cast as "Henry Higgins".

One of the ensemble men could not dance, so he was recast as "Pickering". I was recast as ensemble.

At any rate, all of us guys in elementary school, and it was only guys because third grade boys didn’t play with third grade girls and vice-versa, decided which character we each would play. Then we would set off to explore where no man had gone before...one of the other playgrounds we weren’t on.

Dick picked Captain James T. Kirk. I picked Spock. Little old musical theatre emotional me wanted to play the science officer. I’m sure that would have made my dad proud. Besides, I thought it would be a fun character to play. It was so opposite of who I was. But I wasn’t allowed to play him.

In reality, I’m more akin to "Mark" from Rent. He’s the observer, the one trying to make some sense out of the world by watching it through his camera lens. The problem is, the world doesn’t make sense, and is unfair. (Just like my dad said) So he doubts his talents, which keeps him stuck in his situation. I related to "Mark". I wanted to play him.

Looking back, I realize why that musical drew me in. Rent is raw emotion. There’s only fleeting references to science and medicine. At the time I had no idea what those references meant. "Mark" is the only one who comes close to being analytical in any sense. And then it’s all too much for him and he breaks down.

Today I understand the things that are being sung about. Given the subject matter, the language and the sexuality of the piece I couldn’t believe that it was chosen to be broadcast live on network television.

Rent is one movie musical I’m sure my dad would have watched. He was born in Brooklyn. He lived in New York. How he ended up outside of Buffalo I’ll never know. He and my mom and my aunt would take vacations to NYC in the seventies and eighties. Had he been alive, we would have watched it together through Facebook. I’m sure he would have given a running commentary on what was realistic and want was pure fantasy.

He never understood it was the fantasy that I was chasing after.

I did shows all throughout high school and college. My dad only came to see one of them, when my little brother was also cast in the show. He didn’t even come to see me when I was finally cast as the lead in high school. I played "Proteus" in the musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona with Dick playing "Valentine", the romantic lead of course. It was a triumph for me. My dad didn’t show up though. But one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Demunda, did.

“I didn’t know you could sing. Why haven’t you played more parts?”

I truly had no idea why.

Even through University I never played a lead. I was one of two people in my class to graduate with that distinction. I did have the longest bio, being cast in musicals and Shakespeare and theme parks. Dick played almost every major musical character there was to play. Imagine my surprise when my high school drama club director called me at University to be a lead in a community theatre musical...and not Dick. It was quite a compliment, or so I thought.

There was one reason my high school director called me instead of Dick.

There was one reason I wasn’t allowed to be Spock on the playground.

When I left for New York City to pursue acting, my dad tried to shake me out of the fantasy and prepare me for what would happen.

When, as an actor, I was able to afford to live on 96^th Street and Central Park West in New York City, the fantasy I had been chasing was paying off. There was no reason to heed my dad’s warning. Sure I had a roommate to share expenses, but at the time he was one of my best and dearest friends. I was non-union. I was working constantly. Life was great.

Then I met a friend of my roommate. The guy’s initials are B. S. Unlike all the other names throughout this blog, those are his real initials. I will never forget what he told me.

B. S. was a nice Jewish guy, almost stereotypical in sound and action. He was an actor as well. We had become friends through my roommate. One day the three of us were hanging out in our apartment. B. S. asked if he could see my resume. I guess he wanted to compare formats or something.

He looked over my resume. Then said “I hope you liked Dreamgirls.”

I replied “It was great. The show was wonderful and the people were so talented and fun”.

“Good, because that’s all you’ll ever do.”

This. This is what my dad had warned me about. “It’s going to be harder for you in New York because of who you are.”

I knew my dad was wrong and my moderate success proved it. So I kept pushing and pushing. I kept working. I decided I wanted to climb the ladder and be on Broadway. So I pushed in that direction. I got my Equity card. I was still booking jobs, but at a slower pace. The people behind those tables don’t take chances. They hire actors they know, actors who have worked for the production team before, and actors that look like the original cast members.

Star Trek wasn’t real. All of us kids knew that. And if anyone didn’t, they were dumb because some of those special effects were hokey as hell. None the less, I was told that I could not play Spock in our little game because I didn’t look like him. My friends told me that I had to play Uhura, the ship’s communication’s officer. To them, that’s who I looked like, even though she is female. But Dick could play Kirk, even though he looked nothing like him. Except they were both white.

My ethnicity trumped my gender.

Years later, after I had moved to New York and after I had moved from 96^th Street and Central Park West, an ex of mine was doing Me and My Girl in Connecticut. One of the guys got a better contract offer and was leaving the show. The cast was asked if they knew anyone who could be a replacement. My ex suggested me. I had worked at the theatre twice before, including being a last minute replacement. I had learned that show in 48 hours. I was more than capable and qualified. But I was passed over because the show takes place in England.

My ethnicity trumped my talent.

In between Star Trek and Connecticut, came the community theatre show. I wasn’t right for it. It was beyond my scope, out of my vocal range and far beyond my comfort level. But my high school director wanted me to do it. He said “you’re the only black guy in the area with any talent”. I guess he had a quota to fill.

My ethnicity trumped everything, but not in a good way.

My dream of playing "Mark" in Rent would go unrealized. When Rent had auditions I was told I wasn’t the right type for the character. To an ethnic man that is code for “you’re not white”.  I was told that if I wanted to be in the show, that I should focus on one of the other men. That was code for “you should look at the ethnic tracks”.

For years, the people in my life, well-meaning or not, have advocated that I go for the things that they think I’m right for in Show Business. Those shows and those roles are almost always ethnic. They don’t see me as anything other than the melanin in my skin.

Casting directors reading my resume would hand pick which roles they could see me in. They only roles being mentioned were the ethic ones. It didn’t matter that I had obviously already played everything on my resume.

Agents protested my choice to sing “On the Street Where You Live”, Freddy Enysford-Hill’s song from My Fair Lady. It didn’t matter that the song perfectly fit my voice and my persona.

If someone tells you something repeatedly, it takes a foothold in your mind. You start to doubt what you once were sure about, much the way the character of "Mark" in Rent does. Then you act accordingly.

So many ethnic performers will not show up to an audition unless they know there is an ethnic track in the show. An ethnic track is a role that was originally cast as an ethnic person. Subsequent castings of that show try to recreate the look of the original. The powers that be think that if it worked once it’ll work again. This is also the reason why subsequent casts not only look the same but sound the same.

My dad was right. It was harder for me because of who I am. So I stopped going to a majority of auditions. I knew they weren’t going to hire me, not for the things I was suited for and wanted to do. So why should I waste my time?

Oddly enough, B. S. wasn't getting cast either. He was too Jewish. Frustrated, he left Show Business, never to return. Karmic Justice?

I was dubious at best that Rent was coming to TV. I knew I would watch it, but I thought it would be just more of the same on every level. The same sterilization and presentation for the masses.

Before the show aired, Rent was running interviews with its stars. I had no idea who had been cast. I just assumed they were all stars or known celebrities. I decided to watch the interviews to get acquainted with whom I would be seeing.

This was one of the last ones I watched:

I cried after watching this video. Actual tears rolled down my face. Finally I was seeing someone who represented me playing a role that I had wanted to play, but was told I couldn’t because of who I was.

But I played a part in me not being able to play parts. I stopped showing up. I stopped doing the work of an actor. I started pushing the weight of small minded people around with me like Sisyfus, eternally punished by pushing a boulder uphill only to have it roll down again.

The blame rolled down to me.

Jordan Fisher playied “Mark” in Rent.  Christiani Pitts plays the whitest of white roles in King Kong on Broadway: “Ann Darrow”. Peppermint was the first transgendered person to star in a Broadway musical. Jordan Donica, an ethnic man, originated the role of "Freddy Enysford-Hill" in the Lincoln Center Broadway revival of My Fair Lady.

They showed up.

So I will too. And so should you. There are opportunities opening up for all of us, regardless of  skin color, weight, height, sexuality or gender or anything else that makes you feel marginalized.

People behind the tables and behind the cameras are starting to see that the Performing Arts should be about the human experience, not just about the pretty, the white or the male experience.

Art in this country is moving, ever so slowly, towards inclusion and community. It's time to show up, because it’s beginning to be about...

 “...being an us for once, instead of a them.”

Dhoom machale

Well it's officially 2019. It's so ripe with opportunity and alive with hope. As usual, I tried my best to complete everything I had started. In my mind it helps me to move on to bigger and better things. It's called closure.

There was a time when I actually had closure. But that was before 2007.

In 2007 I did a show and it was the worst experience of my theatrical life. And that experience permeated every aspect of my life. As hard as I tired I just couldn't shake it. It was a ghost with unfinished business haunting me.

I had forgiven the people who had created the toxic environment. I was removed from situation. I stopeed talking about it and ignored those who wanted to perpetuate the circumstances through spreading gossip about it. I thought I had done everything. But I hadn't.

Then I relaized what it was.

After the contract had ended, the majority of the cast was on the same flight home. I sat next to a girl who I had become friends with. During the flight, we watched a movie on her laptop. Unfortunately the movie was longer than the flight. So I didn't get to finish it.

The movie is called Dhoom 2. It's a sequel to a Bollywood film. What I saw of it I loved. I wanted to see the ending. It had everything I love all rolled into one movie: singing, dancing, romance, intrigue, and beautiful people. Here's the opening credits:

Dhoom 2

My friend and I quickly lost touch afterwards. That kind of thing happens all the time. With every contract comes an entire cast of new friends. You rehearse together, hang out together and form instant bonds based on your common goal: perfomring the show. Then when you return to life, you can fall out of touch with a good many of those people.

Anyway, I couldn't ask my "friend" to finish the movie. So I searched everywhere. I even went to specialty video stores. I could not find it. After awhile I would forget about it. Then something would happenand that would make me think of the movie, and the search would begin again.

For some reason about three days ago the movie ran across my mind. I began the search yet again. This time I found. I rented it on iTunes and watched the entire movie again. I mean it's been 11 years, I  had no idea where I had left off.

I loved every minute of it. When it finished there was such a weight lifted off of my shoulders. Eleven years is a long time to be waiting for closure. But closure is what I got. Complete and cathartic.

The chorus from the opening credits,"Dhoom machale", means to create an uproar, a celebration. And that is just what I did.

There are times when you have no idea what has a hold on you, what's stopping your journey and stifling your creativity. January, in my opinion, is a transition month. Take a moment and figure out if you have any lose ends, dangling participles, unfinished business. Then finish it and get ready to move on with your life.


"...And see your wildest dreams, slowly come alive."