In Need of Some Inspiration?

A fellow Bat sent me this speech about a month ago, and I wept when I read it, I found it so beautiful. I'm posting it because I've just been through day one of a rather rough tech, and I wanted to be sending out whatever good thoughts are possible. If you're at all involved in theatre, read and enjoy. If you aren't, I would hope it would help you to better understand those of us who are. It's one of the more gorgeous things I've ever read. Enjoy!


USC School of Theatre Commencement Speech

By José Rivera


Congratulations, we’re all colleagues now.



Having been perpetual students of an art form that can’t be fully learned because all the stories haven’t been told yet, we are now able practitioners.



Not only that, we’re partisans in a great struggle that may seem holy to some and crazy to others, but is wildly quixotic even at the best of times.



We’re all veterans of hope, sergeants and captains of an idealism and courage that seem anachronistic and beautifully, dolefully, painfully antique.



Because what we do, what we are trained to do, is to keep an ancient and sullied and disrespected and much maligned and amazing tradition alive.



We together keep the spoken word from going silent, spectacle from disappearing in the ones and zeros of forgetfulness, great life-and-death themes from dying of malnutrition, enormous characters and souls from the purgatory of indifference and ignorance.



Together we keep the The House of Atreus from foreclosure and the Skryker from extinction and Kent and Salem from dying of cancer and Pozzo from getting too lucky.



We are apostles of language, dreamers in blank verse, aristocrats of sight gags, archeologists of gesture and dance and sword battles and mask wearing and mythic games of tragic and comic consequences.



We bring Falstaff to the party and hope he doesn’t get too drunk and pinch too many butts even as we enter through the back door and try to deliver dream-worlds to the wary and the post-modern and the unsuspecting.



We traffic in awe and metaphors and are impatient with the ordinary and expected.



We fight the inertia of silence and talk too loud in polite locations and there is no Ritalin for us.



We don’t succumb to psychoanalysis and the voodoo of easy answers.



We thrive on complexity and ask that our monsters truly terrify us, that our lovers truly slay us with their passion, that our magicians truly make something out of nothing and hand it to us with smoke and a rakish smile.



We seek connections with the strange and communion with brave souls seeking the truth – not the entire truth, just a piece of it will do – a coin of truth we can keep in a pocket near our valuables, that we can spend in those frightening moments when we don’t know ourselves, when we’re in too deep and some clarity would help, some beauty that could redeem and enliven the night.



We turn awful experience and bad relationships and murdering office jobs and loveless parents and poverty and addictions and angst and loss and death itself into the fearsome gold of art.



We are alchemists and con artists, acrobats and used car salesmen, liars and enlighteners, and we are here to do the earth’s bidding because the earth is screaming out its stories and begging for us to write them down, and act them out, and draw her pretty pictures on the face of the clouds.



What’s in store now that you’ve made it through this training ground of the imagination?



Here are some of the highs and lows you can expect on this amazing journey.



There’s joy as you travel to wonderful places and receive the smiles and affection of new friends made in the crucible of performance, in front of raging armies of critics and prove-it-to- me, I’ve-paid-too- much-for- these-tickets, I-saw-it-last- year-in-London audiences and a perfect stranger comes up to you after the show to say they never felt so transported in the theatre before and they understand something about life they never understood until tonight and how you captured her parents’ pain and nobility so beautifully.



Fatigue as you give it everything you have, every single day, every muscle engaged in a marathon that doesn’t end until you end.



Pain because you tell yourself it’s just a gig, just a job, but then you fall in love with it anyway.



Discovery of your limits and appreciation for the breathless power of your mastery.



Bliss when you’ve written that one good sentence; or you delivered that one perfect moment when the lights are on you and only you; or you discover in the text an idea or an image or a parable so true that it makes your audience weep with recognition; or you put out into the world a rendering of a staircase or a costume or a throne of gold in three brilliant dimensions that just last week existed in none.



Awe when you sit backstage, a moment before your entrance and realize you’re about to give the greatest soliloquy in our language.

Gratitude when it dawns on you that you make a living from the honey and perspiration of your mind.



Excitement when you write Act One, Scene One on the top of the first page; and you sit along the wall on the afternoon of your third call-back for your favorite play; and you stand in the back of the house and that moment you worked on for fourteen hours with that actor who never seemed to get it gets the biggest laugh of the night.



Amazement when your lights reflect in the physics of time and space exactly what’s happening in the unlit chambers and labyrinths of the hero’s soul.



Even more amazement when your project, which you put together with faith, spit, and favors turns a remarkable profit in actual U.S. currency.



Humility when you look around and everyone else seems more successful, or richer, or quicker, or better reviewed or living on both coasts and are equally familiar with Silver Lake and Williamsburg.



Relief when you figure out that, like all great cyclical events in nature, your long career will rise and fall and you’ll be hot, then forgotten, then hot, then forgotten, then hot again.



Anger when the words won’t cooperate and the costume’s too tight and you made a grave error in casting the world premiere, or passion seems to be ebbing, or you’d rather have a baby, or the grant goes to your rival, or that barbarian in the second row keeps texting his lawyer, or ten people show up to your reading in a theatre with three hundred seats, or you can’t stand Bushwick anymore, or the McArthur people overlooked you – again – or the sitcom’s too tempting, or your favorite actor’s not available, or the culture’s going north while you’re going south.



Or maybe you’ve forgotten something – you forgot the joy and the magic and the purpose and the need for it all.



But then you remember and come back anyway.

That’s the amazing part.



You come back the next day because even when the words don’t come and the costume’s cutting off the blood to your legs, this activity connects you to your most authentic and naked self, to the child who told sweeping sock puppet sagas and imitated your dad’s big laugh and drew pictures of avenging super heroes, to the adolescent who fell in love with the smell of opening night flowers, to the mature artist who became enthralled with the great blank space, that enchanted oval, on which battles determine the course of history and lovers learned the key expressions of the heart and men and women modeled heroism and humanity and Estragon lost his way and colored girls considered suicide and Proctor wouldn’t sign his name and Arial was free to go and a wicked Moon under a Lorca sky betrayed the idea of love.



You come back to balance art and family, and sometimes your checkbook, because nothing feels as good as the act of acting.



You endure the indifference of agents and literary managers because nothing sounds as nice as the click of that perfect metaphor falling into place.



You put off children, or you put off real estate, or you put off the thousand intangible compromises of the spirit because nothing frees you from the dark enchantments of gravity like this.



You stay up to three in the morning memorizing those sides for your best friend’s new play even though she wrote the part for you and the producers insist you have to audition anyway, because nothing brings you closer to Creation that this.



So why do you do these things?



Why come back when it hurts so much?



What kind of people are we?



How crazy do we have to be to put up with this?



Let’s face it, given the speed of today’s run-away clocks, given the accumulation of power and money in the hands of the very few and all the injustice that flows from that, given the complexity of social intercourse in an age of instant talk and delayed reflection, you’re a member of a different species entirely.



You age differently than the rest of the population.



You try hard not to succumb to the common theories and manias of the crowd.



You speak in tongues when everyone else is speaking in fortune cookies.

You make one-of-a-kind little miracles with your bare and blistered hands for below minimum wage as stock markets soar and die and soar and die.



You write about your existential pain in unsentimental words for sentimental audiences.



Your curiosity is so vast and out of control you don’t know boundaries and you annoy your lovers with your constant need to analyze their every nuance and no answer is ever good enough because each answer leads to ten new questions.



You dream in such vivid colors, you wonder if you can market your sleep as the next cool drug.



Your sensitivity to the pain and joy of others is so acute you might as well have multiple personalities.



You and failure are so intimate with each other you could birth one another’s bawling babies.



You are gifted and cursed with a love of words so intense few other pleasures can move you like Lopahin’s declaration that he bought the cherry orchard, or what Li’l Bit had to do to learn to drive, or what devils of self-doubt whispered to a beautiful and wounded soul in a psychosis at 4:48 am.



For all this and more you came to this school and sacrificed, and worked your ass off, and delayed some big life decisions, and dreamed exceptional dreams, and fertilized your mind, and kept important promises you made to yourself.



That’s the important part: you kept the promises you made to yourself to stay in it and learn.



So now that you’ve come this far, and we’re in this room, together, what’s my advice?



It’s not a lot.



Love grandly.

Work forcefully.

Listen humbly.

Risk intelligently.

Risk stupidly.

Scare yourself.

Recycle your pain.

Think about greatness.

Make babies and make art for them.

Slay your heroes.

Laugh at yourself.

Betray no one’s trust.

Throw parties.

Make time for silence.

Search and search and search and search.



I could go on, but I don’t think you need any more advice from me.



I think you’re ready.



You, the fighter and hero of this morning’s tale are trained and ready to unpack your Heiner Muller and your tap shoes and your colored pencils and are brimming with ideas and full of courage and full of fight and you know the obstacles and laugh in their faces and the dragons you fight are windmills and the windmills you fight are straw and the time to talk about doing it is over.



It’s time to do it.



So lets go out now, you and I, lets go out and make some art.



Thank you and all the best of luck.

Woods-a-palooza!

I am tired, and need to eat before a long day of INTO THE WOODS rehearsal, but wanted to post some of the production shots from BOEING BOEING. As you can see, it was a colorful and hilarious time.

There's a lot of drama going on here that isn't worth going into on this blog, but I would like to say that, despite a TON of obstacles, we are, slowly but surely, making the show come together. There is a great, GREAT deal of work to be done, but the orchestra sounds amazing, and many of my fellow castmates are fantastic. I am a trifle obsessed with Shane Jacobsen, who plays my Baker. If you had a lineup of potential Bakers, he'd be the most likely to be selected. We've named ourselves Bertie and Bettie Baker, and our little boy is Baby Bobby Baker. We're big into alliteration. Anyway, I have a fantastic time working with him, and with so many of my other wonderful fellow actor/singers.

I must eat breakfast before this ten am call, or I will be useless today. Greek yogurt is singing its siren song from the downstairs refrigerator...I'm coming, my darling!

BOEING is going!

Our first preview performance of BOEING BOEING is underway! My character enters about 40 minutes or so into the play, so I'm chilling downstairs in the dressing room (that word was not chosen flippantly - the dressing rooms stay far cooler than the house does, especially with the eight gazillion bright lights they're using for our play), my Twiggy-meets-Babs hair done, and eyelashes so fake they would make Liza proud affixed to my face. The creative team decided not to wig any of us, and since my hair is short, Twiggy it was! I have to say, it's more work than I'm used to putting in, but it's really sleek and different. I don't usually do my hair up to go out or anything, but I might actually...you know, make an effort. At some point.


AS BEES IN HONEY DROWN went beautifully. It was SO much fun to do every day. Seven characters, nine costume changes, about 2/3 of them quick changes that had to happen offstage, and most of them involving wigs and/or hats. Here's me in my favorite costume - as Rhinestone, a backup singer. I had three lines as this character, but it was, as I have said, my favorite. Also, the character's official name is "Backup Singer," but we developed individual names, albums, hit singles, and albums to be released subsequent to the action of the play. This had nothing to do with the direction we were given, just our own crazy notions. I am throwing a tremendous amount of face in this photo:


We had our opening night party at The Bartlett House Museum, an old historic home. The whole house is decorated alternately with gorgeous furniture and BIZARRE odds & ends. There are dozens of elaborate dollhouses and miniatures upstairs, and a gorgeous old parlor, dining room, and hall downstairs. And I covet such a veranda. Among the stranger items to be seen was this fair lady, who is my new bosom chum:



Well, we have a fairly small audience for our preview matinee, but they are responsive and lovely - they seem to really be into it. I enjoy watching my castmates in this show, as they are hilarious beyond measure. Our director put it quite well when he said he couldn't decide which of us was the funniest. My good friend Sarah Hunt is playing Gloria, the American, and she's adopted Texas twang and Texas-sized 1960s hair. She does every inch of it justice. Alesia Lawson, a pal of mine that I met working last summer in Illinois, was brought in (per my suggestion, thanks SO much) to play Bertha (the disgruntled maid) halfway through the rehearsal process. The actress originally cast had a family emergency, and had to fly home to London. She was also slated to play Little Red in INTO THE WOODS, so Alesia took over her whole track. She's gonna kill it as Red! I met the other three actors when we began this project. Emily Ciotti, playing the glorious Italian Gabriella, looks like Sophia Loren when she decks herself out, 60s style, and says that all this teasing of her hair is going to make her family proud, as she's finally embracing her Jersey roots. Gavin Lodge is Bernard - dapper and goofy and adorable. He makes sarcastic comments regarding WICKED quite frequently, but I notice that he's the only one singing "Defying Gravity" in the dressing area. And then there's the amazingly talented and unbelievably funny Derek Milman as Robert. I have most of my scenes with him, and we spent a good chunk of our rehearsal time attempting not to crack up at each other as we flung ourselves across the stage. His EYES, they're comic gold! I've never seen someone's eyes get so wide! I personally think the show is a scream. And our set - our SET! It's incredible! Our costumes look fab, the music is perfect...I love this play, and I'm ever so glad I'm getting the chance to be in it, and with these talented people. A big shout out to our director, Brian Williams, who stepped in at the last minute when the director who'd been hired had to bow out. Farce is NOT easy, my friends. It's very scientific. You have doors slamming at specific times, costume changes, spit-takes, blah blah BLAH...it can be a mess. Luckily, farce is also amusing, so it's worth the initial rehearsal tedium. Seven entrances in this show, six of them doors. Yowza.

Whenever I blog backstage, I find my thoughts are a bit disconnected. I am usually listening with half an ear to the monitor, ready to run off at any given moment. I have large gaps in between stage time in this piece, which allows me to get a lot done! BEES was much more in and out. Labor intensive, that one. Delicious, though. I love playing multiple characters. I live for quick changes. Once you get it down, after a few rehearsals, it's like a beautiful dance, and it's exhilarating to run on stage when the audience saw you 60 seconds ago in a COMPLETELY different costume.

Off to finish the show! Auf Wiedersehen!

Only in Olean

I've been in Olean, NY for almost a week now, rehearsing for the first two out of three shows I'm doing for Twin Tiers Theater Festival. We go into tech for AS BEES IN HONEY DROWN on Monday, and will finish blocking BOEING-BOEING early next week. The casts are fantastic, my directors are grand, and I think we're gonna have a couple of great shows. I had my BEES costume fitting yesterday, and I think I'm going to buy a couple of the dresses off them when I'm done. The play takes place in '97, and some of these costumes are hysterical. My favorite is the outfit I wear as Rhinestone, one of the backup singers in a punk band from London. I'll post photos when I have them - for now, I'll entice you by saying it involves ripped up gray zebra print, a bright red wig, and yards upon yards of tulle.

BOEING is also just a freaking blast - I've wanted to play Gretchen since I saw it on Broadway a couple of years ago. I went three times. Basically, my director told me I could go as far as I wanted to, and I've taken him at his word. We are throwing ourselves around that stage and burlesquing dialects with a ridiculous abandon. I am milking this German accent for every iota of potential laughter. MILKING IT, PEOPLE, MILKING IT LIKE A FRIGGIN MILK COW.

Speaking of which, I hear that Milky White (in INTO THE WOODS) is going to be played by an actual, honest to goodness moo-cow.

On that note, I'm going to work on my lines, read some of the mystery novel I found in a stack of rehearsal props, and maybe watch NOTORIOUS before going to bed. No alarm set for tomorrow - thank you, national holidays! Enjoy the random assortment of photos from the past week! Most of my time has been spent in rehearsal, but we have managed to head to Applebees for karaoke (oh, you read that correctly, all right), play a rather intense game of Jenga, and become regulars at Perkins.