in an attempt to sleep...

It has been four weeks of a grueling schedule. Of very long hours that began at 5 and 6 am on weekday mornings and often did not end until after eleven -- or later, if I went to the Breakfast King to work on lines afterward. (Big shout out to all the waitresses there who were patient with me as I muttered to myself, drank a few cups of coffee and always ordered a fried egg sandwich with a to-go box so I wouldn't eat the whole thing.)

And every day of it, I felt like I was a part of something so big that I couldn't afford NOT to wake as early as I did, get to work, make sure I did what I needed to do there, ensuring I had a job to return to when my focus did. K, M, and G have assembled a family of designers, actors and crew who are each so devoted, one has been compelled to give all he or she has to offer.

And I did. And although I play each of my own scenes from Saturday over and over in my head, noticing the flubs, wincing at the gaps I left and the line I dropped (sorry, W!), I feel like I did all I could do. And I look forward to the next four weeks to do more. To continue to explore the edges of my performance, where I dive and play in waves of ego, risk, fear, consciousness, choice, impulse, instinct, and desire -- that devil that can quickly dissolve any actor's sandcastle. They all roll in, lapping at the shores of my abilities to be or not to be....

It's a crazy thing to be an actor. I noticed us, one night last week, as we all swarmed around our little hive backstage, each of us tracing through the patterns of movement, text, and emotions that make up our characters. Some stared in the mirrors, some read over director's notes, some dressed in clothes only recently made to look old and worn. I felt so understood. So of a mind.

We actors are something other than. We're a part of that tribe of artists who tell stories through their various media; but we are something other than even that, for we inhabit a story for the purposes of its telling. We are both paint and canvas. The human race needs its stories to remind us all what it means to live and die and love and conquer and lose and fade so it will not be quite so frightening or unfamiliar when these things happen in reality. And we actors try it on for size. We button ourselves up in joy and fear, devotion and treachery and walk out onstage to be with you in this incarnation. We believe it from the inside so you can experience it from the outside and be drawn in. So you can then walk out of our theater to live this life, having just been reminded it's yours to live.

Then we go have a drink.

I am so grateful for this vocation.