It’s the mid-to-late 2000’s and I’m sitting in the hallway of the arts high school I was rejected by (twice) if only to be saved by the grace of my stubborn and persistent mother who for weeks spent every opportunity on the phone with the decision-makers, transforming herself from maternal salve to shrewd “Don’t fuck with me fellas” Joan Crawford-esque saleswoman: they would let me into this damn charter school, or they would live to regret it.
I got in.
Then I immediately regretted it.
To be a theatre kid is to exist on a (okay, sure, rainbow) spectrum. I didn’t know that when I originally set my sights on the stage, assuming all one needed to be a heart-filled performer was passion, drive, and a fanatical appreciation for the straight-to-TV movie adaptation of Gypsy starring Bette Midler and a young Lacey Chabert (to this day I still get “Daddy vibes” for Patrick Riebert who played Herbie— and no I will not unpack this further ‘cause you’re not my therapist OR my real Dad!!).
For years, my aspirations of theatre stardom seemed inevitable because you know, I was a child. “Child theatre” has an abysmally low bar for success, granting any performer who doesn’t puke, pee, or say their lines above a mumble as the new Patron Saint of Performing (actually that’s Patti LuPone, everyone please light an herbal cigarette and say a snotty little prayer to Patti). Being an adolescent “theatre kid” gave me a tremendous amount of unfounded confidence because I could cold read like a motherfucker and I had natural comedic timing and let’s face it— most of my contemporaries were either there against their will or killing time between fruit snacks.
My early acting resume consisted largely of church theatre. I’d have one-liners in those kind of “hip teen church productions” where it’s a play about Jesus but it’s not about Jesus. The kind where “Jesus” was now a weird guy waiting for a bus that gets ignored by a group of human “Sinners” in a quite-literal interpretation of that Judith Owen song, which has always made me feel weird and sad because being a one-hit wonder for Christian Rock just seems rude from the hands of God. Performing in these shows didn’t necessarily make me feel closer to the Kingdom of Heaven, but it did give me the thirst for the salvation of a SAG card, which in the San Fernando Valley is basically like cleansing yourself in the river of Jordan.
In elementary school, I “starred” in the school’s annual production (by Superintendent’s decree, every child needed to have somewhat equal-billing but I was the only child actor who wore a hat!). This was less a play and more a story-less 2-hour mixtape of children under 12 poorly singing boomer rock. It didn’t matter to me. I was precocious enough to have memorized, “there’s no small roles, just small actors” and precocious further to assume I knew what it meant. On opening night, I took to the stage fearlessly, cowboy hat-acting my lines with masterful annunciating and in my mind absolutely Indiana Jones-melted the faces of those sleepy parents and obligated-to-be-there-siblings with my raw, unvarnished talent. I remember proudly wiping off my copious amounts of stage make-up that night and thinking: “This is who I am now.” I had arrived.
From there, I swaggered into a performing arts middle school, which felt like going from Off-off-off Broadway to the proscenium of the Shubert Theatre. Kids here were “real actors”, in so much of the fact that they “really did book commercial acting work”. I was instantly obsessed and jealous of their tiny workaholism. Why didn’t my mother not-love-me enough to push me through Hollywood child labor? Why hadn’t she signed me up for tap lessons as early as 3 years old?! (Perhaps because, um, she was getting divorced?). Adding to the school’s pedigree, we even had the kid who played Spanky in the ‘90s remake of The Little Rascals in the student body (but he petulantly refused to join the theatre program, which even then I knew was some Top-Shelf King Shit). I adapted quickly to this tween microcosm of Hollywood and my 12-year old conversational patterns soon included terms like, “triple-threat,” “audition sides,” and “camera-ready”, which to me meant hastily shaving off my mustache.
And this is where the story turns.
Because as bold and beautiful as I was in the smaller stages of elementary school and church, this was a whole new ballgame. It wasn’t enough to simply shout your line, find your light, or being in the vicinity of an on-stage “Jesus”. I had to have multi-disciplinary irrefutable capital-T Talent. “Triple-threat” wasn’t just a phrase I uttered with the confident air of a child slipping into her Mom’s oversized pumps and playing house, I had to actually, um, be one. And I don’t think I need to tell you that this lack of aforementioned Talent could not simply be transformed by my passion To Be Talented. In fact— as you probably know— as a dog knows because they can smell out danger a whole 3-beats before it even occurs — pursuing this path only made my station worse.
And this is how I became an unhoused “Hooverville resident” in Annie— twice! The Annie radio singer — once! (though the backing track was suspiciously overpowering) (And yes, we did an insane amount of productions of Annie). The “Narrator” in Taming of the Shrew which was actually— oh what’s that? There ISN’T a narrator in this play? Well, tell that to my sweet, suffering 7th grade theatre teacher who was so eager to toss me a bone she willingly botched the Bard’s words, forcing a “recap of the scene you just saw” that ultimately felt like Shakespeare’s version of Pop-up Video (kids, look it up!).
So, I sucked at acting. Okay, maybe I’m being too hard, I was FINE at acting. And I became happy to be fine. I was a Sherman Oaks Kenneth the Page who was pleased as punch to be in the vicinity of greatness. I was an Elle Woods trying her best in the oppressive world of Harvard Law. I was Louise for the 2 whole Acts of the show before she va-va-vooms out of her mousy cocoon and eventually blows the world away as Gypsy Rose Lee. Maybe some actors just peak at age 10. Maybe that was the harsh truth ‘90s Spanky learned on-set while staring into the hollow blues of ‘90s Reba. Maybe the very skills that helped me anticipate my audience’s needs was now reading the room that I had lost them.
So, why am I telling you all this? What could it possibly matter to me, the bonafide adult typing these words and you, the bonafide adults reading? (kids, get off your sister’s computer!) Because engaging with any kind of theatre imprints into your skin forever. It’s not just about “canon event” or shouldering a chip that’ll fuel your artistic endeavors for decades, but about participating in the intangible magic that charges toward the unknown with a community of peers jumping off at the same time. It’s having your tiny mind blown by watching a play evolve from page to the stage and a whole township rising within weeks. It’s being an eager subject to the alchemy that transforms nerves and anxiety to adrenaline and sweat. It’s about living in the permanent impermanence: parts come and go, shows mount and dissolve. Today’s Shrew is tomorrow’s Tree #4. Sunrise, sunset.
Theatre is a hope-filled space because fresh chances are imbued into its very design. It’s an object in perpetual motion, fleeting and special and intimate. It’s never being as close with another cast until you are. Never rising above a background player until you aren’t. Never saying never because “your part”, the part that was written for you, maybe the part that needs to be written BY you, is still floating and waiting and wanting to be snatched up “and if you quit now it’s the only way to ensure you won’t get it”.
Which is how I landed at that aforementioned arts high school.
I’m sure you wondered how I would tie that whole part up.
The summer between my 7th and 8th grade year I opted into the summer school theatre class like the sick little Lisa Simpson bitch I was and am and will forever be, amen. That was where they jammed in yet ANOTHER production of Annie and I yet ANOTHER resident of Hooverville, but this time I strutted the stage like an Old Pro Squatter who never fully moved out. And when regular school reconvened that Fall, I wasn’t anxious like my peers awaiting the new auditions. Once you’ve shot for the moon enough times, you wisen up and aim for the stars. I was at the pre-teen peak of Give No Fucks Mountain. I sang a song from Annie from the perspective of Grace instead of the titular character. I monologued the Taming of the Shrew speeches I SHOULD’VE had but didn’t. And when I strutted down the hall on Cast List Day, I completely forgot the occasion until my best friend Nicolette slammed her tiny body into mine shrieking, “You got Maria in Sound of Music!!!!!!!!!!!”
I was told later that it was “my good attitude” that pushed me across the finish line more than my talent (thank you for telling a CHILD that!), which prevented me from ego but still got me high enough to think I could get into a Fame-like arts high school. There, you’d have to audition with a serious monologue and then “do it again, but this time, as a 3-year old child” (a real prompt I was given); then sing a Sondheim song I learned literally hours before; then contort your body to tell a one-person play through the silent disco of “Theatre Movement”. I thought I wanted this because it was my trajectory to want this and it’s really no wonder I didn’t get in the first time. Or the second. It wasn’t me, I hadn’t arrived. I was just an empty blimp of body and mind still propelled by the dwindling love-bomb of my one and only leading role.
It’s now been 17 years since I last touched stage make-up. Longer since I felt the surge of the spotlight. But ask me to draw the backstage wings or the shop class-turned-dressing rooms, and my fingers will charge confidently through muscle memory. I will always be there, like a ghost waiting to be called. I will always cry when people harmonize, no matter the song. I will always feel for the child actors who forget the lyrics, exploding into cheers when they re-find the thread, seeing them as my peers as much as their protectors.
When I first had the idea for this article series, I was feeling itchy on the WGA picket line. It was only week 2 and I was already squinting up at the bleak reality of being 10,000 Daveys squashed by 8 major Goliaths. I was exhausted by years of picking up a racket to play with corporations, only to have them change the sport mid-game. How could we bypass the gatekeepers? Live off the land? Put on a show? I was desperate to feel inspired. Eager to fall back in love. I called up a friend and sincerely asked, “Should I quit?” He wisely said no (but not after lightly talking shit about all the OTHER writers that “should”, as a Real Writer Friend does). I felt a push to go back to analog. A return to Where It All Happened. At the same time, my theatre podcast about Broadway flops (“The Worst Plays in the World” please subscribe when it debuts!!!) was banking episodes and I found myself face-to-face with the world I left behind through (listen I’m surprised, too) Menopause: the Musical. I went in wanting to goof (and goof I did) but then stumbled out overcome with the cynicism-melting image of Theatre Women in Their 50’s Trying Their Best.
So that’s what this project hopes to highlight. The humanity whose heart still beats despite several calls for emergency resuscitation. The community that can still exist outside of acquisition-heavy corporate synergy. The theatre kids who hat-act their way through a monologue, oblivious to the fact that they’re bottoming out on the performer’s spectrum, but maybe that’s okay.
And of course, the closure I hope to gain because literally WHO THE FUCK gives a CHILD the same role in the same show TWICE?! You couldn’t make up an orphan name and toss me a crutch?? Give me a police hat and chase after a dog?? I know we’re not talking Tennessee Williams here, but was it your goal to turn a 12-year old child into a future comedian???
I hope you enjoy.
