There's a lot I am not certain of...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year...if you’re a doctor or lawyer or banker. For us artists this time of year can be daunting.

If you’re in school, presumably for the performing arts, most probably you’re home for the holidays. For me coming home from university meant having to hear my dad lament about me wasting time and money studying to be an actor. Then the family would jump in with their two cents.

If you’re out on a contract, most likely there’ll be some sort of holiday promotion or benefit you’ll be a part of. During the season it was always about which charity we were going to do work for. Or better yet we had to squeeze in rehearsals and then promotion work in an already heightened show schedule.

If you’re a working actor in New York, or L.A. or Chicago or wherever you’re pursuing a career, it means your day job is probably taking all of your time. Maybe it doesn’t even afford you the holiday off. My day job during the holidays does take the majority of my time. I cater waiter, which means the more holiday parties affluent people throw, the more work I have. That translates to more money in my pocket. That makes for a happy new year.

No matter what the case is, with the holiday season comes parties, reunions and family. Most of these get-togethers boil down to one thing: I'm a performing artist existing in situations populated by non-performing people. It’s not always true, but a great percentage of the time these non-performers have no idea what we do, how we do it or the fact that our doing it is a vital part of society. And even though the vast majority of people are ignorant about how the Business of show works, everyone has an opinion or an experience.

No matter what level of success we’ve had, the conversation at a party or reunion always turns to what we’re doing with our lives. And everyone almost demands you hear what they have to say about it:

“Acting isn’t going to make you money.”

“Your cousin Kelly is going to school for architecture. Why can’t you do something productive like that?”

“I was a ballerina. When I was in third grade I took ballet for a whole year.”

“I dated this actress once. She was hot but a mental case.”

“Why aren’t you on Broadway yet? You’ve been in New York for a whole year. I don’t think you’re trying hard enough”.

And on and on and on until someone comes up with the most original idea ever:

“Hey, why don’t you show us your stuff?”

For my dad, he always wanted to see me tap dance. We would be watching a movie musical (after I begged for hours to do so) and there would be a tap number. Inevitably he would say things like “I bet you didn’t learn that in class”, or “you probably can’t even do that”.

I would laugh it off and continue watching the movie, unaware that this would be a reoccurring theme in my show business life. At parties and gatherings I would be put on display, essentially reduced to being a performing monkey.

Every year, every party, every celebration it was always the same. It never stopped. It didn’t matter that I spent $65,000 on a degree. It didn’t matter that I was still basically in school with all my dance classes, voice classes, and acting lessons. It didn’t matter that I had to miss meals to afford to take those classes. It didn’t matter that what I do is just as important and necessary as what a doctor or lawyer or banker does. I had to be judged and proven worthy of the title of artist...by non-artists.

And every time I declined. 

Every time but once.

When my mom went into the hospital the last time before she died, the whole family gathered. One night it was just me and my oldest brother sitting in the hospital room. He turns to me and says “why don’t you sing something for her?” So I did. I sang the first thing that popped into my head, “Everything’s Alright” from Jesus Christ Superstar.

Try not to get worried

Try not to turn onto

Problems that upset you oh

Don’t you know

Everything’s alright

Yes, everything’s fine

And we want you to sleep well tonight

Let the world turn without you tonight

If we try

We’ll get by

So forget about us tonight

In the middle of my singing, to our dying mother, my brother says “You’re trying too hard to be perfect. Just sing, like this...” He proceeded to sing some song. I don’t remember which one. I was too upset on so many levels that it just got blocked out.

From that point forward I flat out refused to perform on cue. If I wasn’t being paid or if it wasn’t going to advance my career or fluff my resume I wasn't doing it. At parties when people find out I’m a musical theatre performer they inevitably ask to hear or see something. I simply say one of two things.

“I’m a professional. I get paid a lot to perform. Are you paying by cash or check?”

Or if I’m in the mood for a lengthy discussion I say:

“If I were a dentist, would you ask me to extract a tooth right here, right now?”

I love parties as much as the next person, probably more. But there is a difference in being a guest at the party and working at the party. If nothing else, catering has taught me that. I want to enjoy the festivities, not be a puppet with strings to pull whenever someone wants entertainment.

I don't need to prove myself or my worth to anyone.

What we do as artists deserves respect, just like any doctor, lawyer or architect. What we do as artists deserves monetary payment just like any banker, nurse or teacher. If those things aren’t forth coming, artists have to choose not to share their art. WE are a valuable part of society as a whole and should be treated as such.

You as a performer have to stick up for yourself. If you aren’t being paid, or it isn’t advancing your career or putting a notch on your resume think long and hard about why you would do it. And then don’t. Before anyone will respect you, you have to respect yourself and your Art. Otherwise you’ll spend every holiday party hearing...

“...Why do I pay for all those lessons? Dance for Grandma. Dance for Grandma!”

...without a song or dance what are we?

It’s December first and I’m just posting November’s blog. November was unusually busy with work and trying to raise funds for the show I wrote. I did write a blog and it would have posted on time had I figured out what the heck I wanted to say. It turns out that blog was coming from a place of negativity which made the task of putting a positive spin on it almost impossible. Like I said there was a lot going on.

Awhile back my friend Lisa had noticed that I had become very negative and very depressed. Nothing was going right in my life: no love, no job no nothing. So she challenged me to post one thing I was grateful for everyday for 123 days.

Every day for 123 days I would post something I was grateful for along with a countdown to number one. Some days it was difficult. Others it was easy. By the time the final days came around I was constantly searching for something to be grateful for. All day long I would literally think I’m going to post about being grateful for this or for that. The whole day was spent being grateful. After the challenge was over I really missed posting about my gratitude.

Doing this challenge altered the course of what was happening in my life.

When it came time to blog for November I didn’t want to do the usual Thanksgiving, count your blessings thing. Been there done that. Besides I was so angry about a few things that had happened and disappointed by what more than a handful of people had done or didn't do as the case may be. The only things that came out while writing my blog were, let’s say, not nice. Or inspirational. Or helpful in anyway whatsoever to anyone.

I thought about the people who would read the blog. What would the high schoolers get out of it? And I remembered seeing a picture on Facebook that said “be the person you needed when you were young”.

All through elementary school I was a star pupil; kind, polite, reserved, you name it I was it. Through a little trick I maintained a straight A average. I’ll share that trick another time, maybe. At any rate, in the fifth grade I was reading on a college level. In the sixth grade I would finish the entire days’ worth of school work within an hour. I was lucky enough to be chosen to “student teach” the kindergarten classes in the afternoon. I think they did that just so I would have something to do.

I had tons of friends

Junior high came and things started to change. My trick for maintaining high grades wasn’t quite working. I actually had to do a little homework, but just a little. I joined clubs like the Yorkers, a New York State historical society club and Junior Achievers, a club for future entrepreneurs.

I had a few friends.

Then High School happened. And as fate would have it, High School started for me before puberty did. I was left behind by my “friends” because of all the hormones flying around. I say “friends” because in elementary school my “friends” only wanted the answers to the school work. In Junior high school my “friends” only wanted to borrow money. None of which I ever saw again. And now I had nothing to offer those “friends”.

So there I was starting High School friendless. There was only one high school in my area. All the kids from three different junior high schools were stuffed into one building. (I say stuffed like it was some huge sort of thing. There were only 350 people in my graduating class). My whole safe small middle class world was blown apart. There were kids there I had never seen before. Attitudes I had never encountered. Rich kids from a part of town I didn’t know existed were there. My mother knew them. She was friends with their mothers. And she knew that if I were to succeed in life I needed to have an edge on them.

Immediately my mother started with her insistence that I do stuff that looked good on a college application. I would go to school, hate every moment of it, then go home and be nagged at about my grades and homework and what I did or didn’t do for college. My brothers and sisters were a nuisance at best. They were star athletes, scholars and popular. Then there was me, the middle child.

I focused on everything I didn’t have and everything I wasn’t. And it got to be overwhelming.

I decided that I wasn’t worth the space I took up on the planet. It was time to give up that space and let someone more worthy have a little more room to live and thrive. I decided that I was going to kill myself.

One night I was alone in the kitchen. I took a steak knife out of the draw. With both hands I grasped it. I aimed for my heart and took a deep breath...

“Just one more day.”

A voice in my head said just wait one more day.

So I did.

The day started out just like any other day. I had no prospects, no desires, no needs and no dreams. I was just there. My dad woke me up. I got ready for school. I had breakfast with my mom. And again she started in with the nagging about joining a club or doing something that could be put on a college application. In order to get her to shut up I promised I would join whatever club had a meeting that day.

Off I went to another day of hell in high school.

In homeroom I listened to the announcements closely. If nothing else I was a man-child of my word. Whatever club had a meeting, be it the chess club, or swim team, or descendants of Egyptian kamikaze sumo wrestlers, it didn’t matter. I would choose one and I would join.

Luckily, there was no choice to be made. Only one club had a meeting that day. Only one club was looking for new members. If you’ve read the very first blog I posted, or visited my website you know which club it was. But just for clarity sake it was the Drama Club.

Soon I would have a purpose. Soon I would have goals and dreams and a group of friends that liked me for me. And thank god soon after my 16^th birthday, puberty hit. With doing two major musicals a school year, my life made sense.

Flash forward X amount of years and here I am. Do I still struggle with all the things I struggled with in high school? Sure. Those things don’t go away. I just learned how to deal with them. And all the while I’ve lived life. I’ve traveled around the world, performed in several countries, lived in Europe, toured the United States with shows, met some amazing people, had the show that I wrote performed in New York City with people from and destined to be on Broadway. I have an apartment, I have a job, I have a career. And I have friends, great friends from all over the world, that love me for exactly who I am. All this makes me feel special.

I now realize I’ve always been special. And guess what? So are you. Everyone is. The trick to Life is finding where your special fits into this world. And trust me it does fit somewhere. I know it does because I found where mine fits. It just takes time to search for that place. 

The holidays can be rough for so many people for so many reasons. As the season begins in earnest, let me be that voice in your head that says “one more day”. Let me give you the hope and strength to find where you fit in the world.  Take all the time you need. There's no rush. You have your entire Life to find it. And once you have, always be grateful for it.

#1...

"...I say thank you for the music..."