I wake up around 5 am every morning to work on the musical I’m writing.

I am a morning person. My wifey is not.

I remember when I decided that my best time to write was real early in the morning. I woke up while it was still dark. Melissa rolled over and asked, “What are you doing?”

It sounded kind of like she had just asked me why I was wearing her pink plush robe singing “All By Myself” into her hairdryer.

That’s never happened.

Uh

But I have to say–that first morning when I decided to get up and write was exhilarating. (I just had to look up that spelling after about four failed attempts. Ding.)

I thought to myself, “Yeaaaah. I’m CRAZY enough to do this! I need to write, just like Rainer Maria Rilke talks about!”

I finished the first draft of the libretto a few weeks ago, and it felt great.

For reals, though, I mighta cried.

When I looked at my (what one of my heroes Anne Lamott calls) shitty first draft, I realized these pages of story grew one 45-minute sit-down at a time.

Over the course of a few months, I got to collaborate with my characters and form this kinda-wieldy ball of clay that we can shape into a coherent story.

Yesterday, I shared with a student that every morning when I wake up in the early hours my brain says, “Ummmm, maybe you wanna keep sleeping.”

That’s when I sing to myself….”God I’m a writah!”

Then I kinda chuckle, real quiet, you know. Then I go, “5-4-3-2-1,” give Melissa a lil kiss, quietly launch my butt outa bed, then I go write.

This amusing and dramatic quote from Cassie’s pivotal moment in A Chorus Line is also a conversation. “God, I’m a writer.”

It’s one of the things I believe God gave me a deep desire to do, to share stories.

One crucial point here. I set up the coffee pot the night before. Getting downstairs to a full pot of hot cawfee–this is key.

Forty-five minutes a day for a thing you’ve got the fire for makes a huge difference in just a few months.

Pentecost

What was the moment like when fire crowns danced
On all the gatherd’s heads and outsiders traded
Tongues like keys to cities? What force entranced
Or spirit inebriated them? Pervaded
By supreme intelligence, their brains
And mouths translated wonders unspeakable,
And understanding fell like spring rains
Visiting the desert, sprouting unseekable
Truths from dormant seeds. What must that feel
Like, to give over your mind and voice
To the unknown language, syllables only real
On other soil now grafted by your choice?
The prophets said the spirit would be poured
On all, and what looked ruined would be restored. 

The conduit from heaven to cell

I read the story today about the woman
Who bled for twelve years and believed her healing
Arrived when Jesus came through (like an omen),
And if she could just get near enough, steeling
Her nerve through the throng, using what small 
Reserves of vitality she had for that day–
A widow’s mite–to spend for the chance to crawl
Through stronger, bigger bodies that looked away
From her in the streets since she was, after all, unclean.
She must have been low to the ground when her finger
Brushed the rough, dusty fabric — unseen
By her hungry neighbors, but felt by the life-bringer.
Was her faith-filled hand the conduit from heaven to cell?
Since the Healer said, “Your faith has made you well.”

I’ve had the privilege to be a part of Triad Stage’s production of Man of La Mancha this spring.

If you don’t know the show, it’s about an anachronistically Inquisition-imprisoned Miguel de Cervantes who defends himself to a rag tag tribunal set up by his fellow prisoners by enacting the story of a country squire named Alonso Quijana who fancies himself a knight errant named Don Quixote.

Don Quixote’s deal is that he sees things that we cannot see: Where we see an inn, he sees a castle; a windmill is an ogre to be vanquished; and when he meets a kitchen scullion who has a side hustle in sex work named Aldonza, he recognizes her as the lady to whom he will devote his victories and call upon in defeat, and her name is Dulcinea.

To me, Aldonza is the point of the show; she is the one dynamic character in the musical; the way Quixote sees her changes her.

Near the end of the show, she says to Don Quixote, “…and you looked at me, and you called me by another name: Dulcinea.”

Every night as I hear this line, something moves in my guts. “You called me by another name.”

It makes me think of how the names we are called shape us, the ways we are seen. The ways we think we are seen.

What names come up to you when you think of this?

And then it always makes me ask, “What names do we call ourselves?”

If Aldonza transformed into Dulcinea because a man everyone said was crazy insisted on seeing her as that, how might we transform if we choose to call ourselves by another name?

How might we play a role in transforming those in our sphere if we choose to call them by another name?

I know enough about quantum physics to know that I don’t know anything about quantum physics, but I do remember that those brilliant scientists found out that by the very act of watching, the observer affects the observed reality.

So let’s see what happens if we observe those names and change them where necessary.

I was teaching a student recently whom I know very well. We were doing a familiar series of exercises when she began to grow tentative as we climbed higher. I stopped and realized something that I had not seen before; she was apologizing.

I was surprised that as her teacher I had not seen this before; she explained that this was an issue that had come to the fore recently for her as well. I often find I notice things when they’re showing themselves in student’s consciousness.

I said, “You know the only time to apologize is when you do something crappy and need to say ‘I’m sorry.'”

This bit of advice from a recovering severe over-apologizer.

The thing is, if I apologize for my presence or performance, I’m withholding parts of me from my audience. I’m editing parts that I think might be rejected or misunderstood.

Here’s what’s jacked about this thinking.

Number one, I don’t have enough actual insight on myself to know what should be edited out and what should be put forward; I don’t know what others are perceiving or picking up from me—that’s their business.

Number two, it short circuits the opportunity to have a satisfying interaction. If I go into a room in apology mode, I’m already asking someone else to take care of me. In an audition situation we are the solution bringers; we take care of the table people.

It’s super uncomfortable to let this apology habit go, but if we want to break through to giving full us when we do our thing, then that’s one thing that’s necessary.

And in the event that you do act like an ass, by all means, apologize.

The number of things that we cannot control in an audition room are too many to count.

To name a few: who or what the creative team believe they need for the cast, the kind of day any of the table people are having, the accompanist your creative collaborator, the production/budget needs that dictate the makeup of the cast, the fact that you may look like the director’s ex, the fact you may be too tall, too short, too edgy, too vanilla, too too too too too tooooooo

Almost any actor can tell you of a time he or she walked into an audition room, sang a song, and left the room only to realize that there remained no actual memory of what just transpired.

I experienced this in a particularly embarrassing way when I booked a co-star role on a TV show in LA.

I was new to the TV and film audition world, and by some miracle I stayed focused and offered a decent read in the room with producers.

What did not occur to my 28-year-old brain after booking the job was to do a quick google of the producers’ names so that I’d know who was kind enough to give me a two-line chance.

When a nicely dressed woman approached me on the day and said hello, I introduced myself, and she said, “Yes, I know who you are. I gave you the job.”

Can someone take out their Blackberry (it was 2006) and locate the nearest hole into which I may crawl?

The point is…I had no memory of who was in that room that day because I was highly adrenalized as one wise teacher taught me to call it.

Here’s where today’s tip comes in.

This is what you do have control over in the audition room. Every audition is an opportunity for you to hone a skill. You can go in each time with one particular aim in mind.

Here is a list to get you started.

• Today I’m going to make sure I’m exhaling and inhaling (this is 80% of success in a room, I’m convinced)
• Today I’m going to SEE the elements in the room: the windows, the door, the ceiling, the curtains
• Today I’m going to really see the accompanist and take my time (not too much time) to communicate my sheet music to her or him. I’m going to listen to the piano and collaborate.
• Today I’m going to see, take in, and listen to the table people, even if all they say is “Thaaaank yoooou.”
• Today I’m going to go in slow motion so that in this adrenalized state, I’m actually going at normal human speed.
• Today I’m pretending that this is a rehearsal, and I’m going in to offer my best to this collaboration.

All of these goals help us get outside of ourselves so that we are working from generosity and courage rather than need and fear.

Next time you’re in an audition, an interview, a performance, or even at a party, pick one thing to do. Choose to soften your eyeballs and see what and who is around you. I guarantee it’s going to change your experience.

And if you get the job, for heaven’s sake, google the people before you show up for the first day of school.

I listened to a student a few weeks ago who sincerely asked me if it was possible to have a successful career in the theatre while maintaining other interests, family connections, and maybe even a healthy relationship with a significant other.

I told him that not only was it possible, but in my opinion it was necessary.

This student had some real anxiety because there were times when he wanted to spend time with friends who were business majors (how a music theatre major at Elon University even met a business major, I don’t know, but good job!), go see his family on weekends, and listen to music that wasn’t musical theatre.

I said, “All that sounds like you’re aiming to achieve some balance in your life.”

The student replied, “I look at some of my classmates, and it’s like they can eat, breathe, sleep this stuff. Some days I don’t want to do it at all.”

I told him about a friend of mine who was on a long-running tour who would call in periodically “sick of the show.”

Just because you love what you do doesn’t mean every day is charged with passion and excitement. Ask any writer who decides to put her butt in the seat when she’s feeling major resistance.

This conversation highlighted to me the myths or assumptions we create while watching what we think is going on with those around us.

In this case, it’s the very American message that success in our career validates us as human beings (I’ve believed it….still working on it), so we put all the eggs into that basket.

In college and through most of my twenties, my ego whirred like a shop vac and believed that when I was in a Broadway show, then I’d be a real boy. I could point to that and say I made it. (Please note I was pointing that out to imaginary others….who are these people our ego is trying to prove things to, anyway?)

I had a singular passion to succeed as a stage actor, and this affected every decision I made. I recall saying no to a few out-of-town trips in case I missed an audition opportunity.

There is a place for this singular focus. It helps us accrue all those hours Malcolm Gladwell tells us about. But I think it comes at a price.

Last fall I flew up to New York to attend an open call. I had not been to one in years, and it was nuts to see that all the people waiting in line were different but the same.

Lots of very resonant conversations about, “Oh, when I worked there….,” “What are you doing next???” (pretty dumb question, we’re both at an open call), “Oh, I heard they aren’t looking for….are looking for…afhuiebuiwaohfguawilfiwophgop)(*&^%^&*(*&!!! INTERNAL BRAIN EXPLOSION!

The sucking energy of that actor desperation…this is EVERYTHING–it made me feel sad because it was such a futile pursuit, and I also reflected on my years believing the same thing no matter how quiet or cool I tried to stay about it.

(I also ran into two former students in line for the same audition, so the real value of that experience was getting to give them a hug and tell them they’re doing great and it’s normal to feel mildly depressed and acutely anxious in your first few months (years?) in New York.)

Here’s the thing: if you walk into the audition room with a full life around you, you bring a generosity of spirit with you.

If you’re taking care of your spirit, your family connections, your friendships, getting your bills paid in some way that doesn’t completely vacuum your soul out, and perhaps you have a couple of creative projects you’re mulling or collaborating on, then you have something to go back to when you leave the room.

So, the full-life thing ends up being a really good tool for your career after all.