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...”