no temp

i woke up thinking of that giant pool

hawaiian rocks jutting up all around

the water clear and turquoise, but also mysterious

blue-black as it descends

all around us people jumped

feet first or cannonballed

and i wondered what they'd find down there

a sharp coral or something with teeth

maybe just the pride in the knowing that they did it

today i am standing on that cliffside again

but there is no turquoise water

no dried salt on my skin

only an unreliable thermometer

and you on the phone telling me you're really throwing a lot at me

she struggles to take regular breaths and it could be nothing

it could be everything i've been afraid of

there could be nothing down there

it could be the thing with teeth

Phantom limbs + Joan Didion

There is a well at my center, somewhere above the diaphragm and below the thyroid, prolly, and that’s the place where the stories start. I think it’s also the place where I just store love, in general—it’s what flares when I watch my children fall asleep or my husband does something thoughtful + lovely or someone gives me a gift—intangible or store-bought—that is exactly the thing I need. There’s inflammation in that space in those moments, but also when I have something to say.

Also, too, in this moment: when I have the need of something to say without the first clue what that something is.

How do you know when a thing has fulfilled you, creatively? How do you feel filled up? A year+ without performing (with who-knows-how-many-more months to go) + some recent reflecting with one of my best friends has forced the question on me. I can’t decide what I think. I usually write to decide what I think. Joan Didion famously said that first, but she and I have this in common, I guess.

In the last year, people have asked me a lot if I miss theatre. I have no idea how to answer this. I mean, the clear answer is yes, of course, without question. But it’s simpler than that. Would you miss an arm you’d lost? (I don’t mean to be flippant about limb differences—it’s just the first thing that came to mind.) I mean, there’d be immediate pain , bloody + obvious, and the necessary healing that would take place, but after that? Eventually, you’d learn to do things with your other hand, I suppose.

It’s an imperfect metaphor, but you get my point, yeah? Learning to do things with my other hand this year has mostly meant writing + crafting, things that often take a backseat when I’m in a show, because I simply cannot do everything. Some people can. Beyoncé can, and I’ll take her MasterClass when it comes out, but until then, it’s like FAMILY. CREATIVE PROJECT. SANITY. CHOOSE TWO.

Covid brought my career, like every actor’s career, to an abrupt halt. It had to. We were careening toward something contagious + dangerous. The Great Intermission (do we like this phrase? I can’t decide.) began because it had to.

Me, at the end of a long April road trip to judge a high school show. After I parked my car, I had sunglass prints on my nose (photo) + a head full of thoughts (post).

In that stillness, I returned to my sewing machine to make quilts + to my computer to make words. I used the precious creative energy I had left to reboot my Etsy shop + finish a novel I’d been tapping away at for two years. After that, a short play. I sold some ornaments. Then a shorter play. Then one that split the difference. Now another book, while the one I finished last summer whiles away its time in the inboxes of the literary world, looking for a caretaker, like that baby bird in “Are You My Mother?”

Maybe I’m losing the plot here.

Here’s my point: I write all that out + marvel at myself, at what I managed to do during this endless repetition of days. I am wildly proud of the work I’ve done. It matters.

And yet…

There is this phantom limb that hurts or itches or something. Part of me wonders: if theatre never truly returns to the way it was before (and a lot of it shouldn’t return to the way it was before, but those are thoughts for another day), are these small, quiet pursuits enough?

There were a great many years (well, nine, but listen, it was a LONG time) where I performed not at all. None. Nothing. I missed it, of course I did, but I was happy, too. I was teaching + making art (just for myself) + making tiny humans. When I finally came back + got the newsprint under my fingernails again, I swore I’d never let that much time go by.

And now, here, this. Thirteen months gone since I was on a stage. The longest hiatus I’ve taken since those years out of the spotlight, with no idea when I can return. Is there solace in words? Definitely. Words are the most important thing to me, always have been. Are those words—on paper but not spoken—enough to pave the potholes in my heart? Can they be, someday?

I don’t know the answer to this, except that I know words are easier. Words don’t require me to be away from my family for hours on end. Don’t ask me to punish my sleep, my health. Don’t put my body, with all its wobbly insecurities, on stage for literal review. The characters I write are waiting on me, instead of me waiting to inhabit them. The math is easy—the words are worth more.

In theatre, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. (Or something. Math, you know.)

All I know is there is an itch, but nothing to scratch. So I write. I sew. I wait to see if it will all be enough.

A Reckoning.

Four years ago on Election Day, I took my daughters with me to vote at a fire station in my neighborhood outside of Philly. I instructed them not to touch anything, but to watch and watch closely as I did an historic thing: cast my vote for president for a woman. I'm still proud of that choice + grateful we got to do that together.

This year, I went alone on the first day of early voting. I stood in line, distanced + masked, and then a man walked up, his hat pulled down, sunglasses on, hands deep in his jacket pockets. I had already assessed the layout, looking for an exit. I didn't bring the girls, because I was afraid of the "very fine people" who rally with tiki torches in Charlottesville and ram cars on the freeway in Austin. What if those people decided my vote was too risky to stand.

Of course, I wouldn't be writing this if that man had done what I feared. He was just a dude, passing by the library on a morning walk, wearing glasses because the fall day was dawning bright and crisp. But this is the difference: four years ago, I felt safe enough to bring my children. Four years ago, I looked around at the line I stood in with hope in my eyes, and with no fear. This year, the country I live in is different, or at least the way I see it is different. This administration isn't solely responsible for that shift, but I do believe they/he created a culture in which toxicity thrives.

This man. (I can't say his name anymore.) He's been proven time and again to be a person of no moral fiber, but more than that, he's proven himself to be a person who cares only for the stories that keep him in power, to the exclusion of all else. A mountebank. Always with the misdirection, like a greasy magician in a low-rent casino. I was complacent before, comfortable in my country's leadership, unaware of so much of the darkness that simmered underneath.

I should've known these things long ago, that our country was truly sick with racism + xenophobia long before our viral pandemic, should've made myself more aware. But I'm awake now. I'm awake and afraid for us and angry for my kids. When I cast my vote this year for Biden/Harris, I wasn't operating under an illusion that these things would instantly go away. But I was voting for the person I believe will set us back on the tracks and send us down the road toward healing again. I know we have work to do. I voted for the guy who gives me hope that repair, and even healing, is possible.

Today I am going to make delicious food + wear soft clothes + read books I love. I am going to make a fire in my fireplace + make something beautiful with my hands + go for a long walk. I am going to surround myself with things + people I love, even if it's just virtually. I'm gonna take regular media breaks, and I'm gonna encourage you to do the same.

I'll see you on the other side.

A lighthouse.

There are days when I write because I have something to say. A story to tell, or start telling, or finish telling.

There are days when the writing comes because something must get done, and maybe nothing else got done that day, and maybe this was the one thing for which I had bandwidth.

Then there are days when the writing is its own means to no end. It is the only path on the only road and it’s leading somewhere, probably, but where. And why.

What more is there to be said about these daily devastations—the atrocities on the border, in our government, in our bodies. The vitriol. The deaths and hatred and—almost more dangerous because of its invisibility—the quiet contempt toward the Others. The slow degradation, that gentle slope into moral decay.

2020 has been a test of our moral fortitude, but it’s not limited to this year. We’re just a few months away from 2021, after all, and these things aren’t going to clear themselves up. The racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, misogyny that we’re all inundated with each day will calcify and become permanent if we’re not careful. So careful. No, more careful than that, even.

A humble suggestion: wherever you are, look for the art. Theatre is streaming everywhere, on every device. (Locally, this one and this one have a limited window, so check them out while you can.)

Visual art is equally ubiquitous. Like this one and this one, both here in Dallas.

Art is inherently hopeful. A lighthouse in dark waters.

I’m gonna watch, too. I’m gonna keep writing and turning my face toward the sun—the literal sun, actually. In fact, I’m gonna finish this and go outside. Everybody needs to focus on serotonin production right now.

A few weeks ago, I had a vivid dream. Well, all of my dreams have been vivid lately, but this one gave me a clear message. In it, I figured out that all my problems would dissolve if I slept more. My relationships, my work, my head space—it would all clearer, cleaner, my subconscious said, if I would just let myself rest.

So here I am, advocating for that, not only for you, but for myself, too. Naps are a ministry. Art is medicine. If you’re not in a place to hug somebody, take long walk, then a hot bath. Eat the cookie. Drink your water.

And it should be said, there is a way out of a lot of this darkness, but you have to start here, if you haven’t already.

Big + scary + small things, in no order of importance.

My carpets are never dirtier than when I’m looking at them from Downward Dog.

If every person in the world asked five people this question today—“Have I done anything to harm you that I wasn’t aware of? How can I help?”—how different would we be?

Tiny, fractional goals are easier to meet, and easier to continue meeting, than “right-sized” goals. I’m making incremental progress in my body and my work and my relationships, and though it doesn’t feel like much, baby steps are always better than stasis.

Everything that isn’t love is fear. Anger is fear. Regret is fear. Guilt is fear. Fear has a huge makeup drawer.

Thank you, Magnesium Supplements, for showing me back to the land of the REM cycle.

I made a candle. It didn’t work out. I bought a houseplant. It hasn’t died yet.

I don’t let go well. I hang on, apparently, long after I should’ve let go. I hang on by the shreds of my fingertips, bloody from scraping my way up an eroding mountain. The fall couldn’t be worse, really. My muscles are so sore.

One quarter of the way through the MCU, and my youngest is turning into quite the Ironman fan.

I have friends who say that they’re already dreading the coming wave of performance art based on Covid-19 or quarantine. I don’t. I’m inspired by the art people are making and sharing to get them through. By the art people are consuming to take their minds away. What we are living through is unprecedented; it is a massive, global experience. We’re all looking through a prism, seeing different shapes and colors made from the same painting. The writers and musicians and poets among us will live it, watch it, and then later, reflect on it, helping us do the same.

I hope I live to see it.

The breath of quiet moments.

Dark times, friends.

The start of the year felt rough for me. There was a great private tragedy in my family. A good friend was repeatedly snubbing me. Then there was that super fun car accident I was in. It was cold and dark, in the world and in my head.

And then this. Now this.

The world has come to a screeching halt. Many of my friends are out of work or underemployed, making paying the bills an impossibility. There are shortages everywhere, of everything: food, toilet paper, decency. We are long on fear and despair.

The first play I’ve ever written has had to be canceled for now, postponed if we’re feeling optimistic. The first citywide meeting of PAAL here in DFW has been tabled for an indefinite time. Even a smallish vacation I was gonna take is now gone. (Though vacations are not the most important thing, I know.)

I was on a call with two of my best friends last night, and we were lamenting the loss of so much: income, opportunity, connection. And then one mentioned it had been so long since we’d done this, made time for a FaceTime date with each other. Now we could. We can.

The night before that, a group of my friends planned + organized a conference call to watch a terrible movie + drink wine + have snacks together. It was glitchy + noisy + weird + WONDERFUL.

I’ve taken walks with my dog and my kids every morning. I’m now playing teacher + counselor + lunch lady + gym coach + music instructor + IT expert, in addition to wife + mom + writer + performer + human without titles. I am a human doing, trying to be a human being.

The sad stuff is sticking around: my family’s unfolding drama, my friend’s quiet rejection, my play’s delay. The world’s sickness. When I try to look at all of it at once…

Well. Like CS Lewis reminded us, “Reality, when looked at steadily, is unbearable.”

But then my youngest asks me to sing as she practices a new guitar chord. My husband fires up the grill + cooks something delicious for our family. My oldest writes me a note about her worries, and they are small + pedestrian + also everything.

I can still write + sing + make homemade cookies + take a hot bath. I can find solace in the breath of quiet moments.

I hope you can, too.

Life. Bumpers.

I was in a wreck last week.

It wasn't a big one, though I was sandwiched between two cars like the creme filling in an SUV-shaped Oreo. I have a hole in my front bumper the size of a standard trailer hitch, and my neck was sore for a small time.

As it happened, I was on my way to a performance, already running tight on time. But the audience won’t wait, so I exchanged insurance + snapped photos + sped off toward Fort Worth, where my fake eyelashes and pushup bra waited for me.

Most humbling about the whole thing was this: I’ve never been a great driver. I’m easily distracted + have a terrible sense of direction + go too fast too often. But this time, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was being good. Not texting and driving. Not speeding. I was sitting at a stop light, eating my dinner out of tupperware, minding my business—BAM!

-Cheryl Strayed, Wild

I’ve been languishing on lots of projects lately—my musical is at the top of the second act, outlined and ready to be written. My novel is at the literal halfway mark, the remainder also outlined, also waiting. And then there’s me. Looking at these projects. Wishing they were done. Listening to the hum of the deadlines I’ve created for myself as they go whizzing past.

People think it was the Buddha who said, “Trouble is, you think you have time.” It wasn’t. It was Jack Kornfield, an author and Buddhist teacher, often attributed to rewriting the teachings of the Buddha to appeal to Westerners.

Whoever actually said it doesn’t really matter. They were right. I have lazed around under the broken philosophy that I have time to get stuff done. Time to get to the theatre. Time to finish the project(s).

There isn’t a single guarantee written anywhere that has assured me this. It’s a fiction I’ve invented, just like the ones I’ve outlined and have yet to execute.

Too little reading. Too little writing. Far too much navel-gazing.

What’re you trying to do and dragging your feet on? Will it help you to hear, like it helped me, that you will literally never feel like doing it? So stop waiting. Just eat the frog. Do the damn thing.

Or maybe wait until a coupla tons of steel crash into you. For the stubborn jerks among us—(Hi.)—it is one of Life’s Great Mercies to be woken up by a thing that could have just as easily killed you.

I’m awake! I’m awake. I’ll stop hitting the snooze, Universe. Thank you for the reminder that all things, Life as well as Bumpers, are finite.

Grief + art + the ways we deal

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’”

— Alfred Lord Tennyson

A year ago, I did a show that coincided with one of the most confusing + traumatizing events of my life. A before-and-after event, if you will.

Before-and-after events are not always bad. Weddings. Births. Life + work achievements. These all qualify. So do deaths + breakups + losses—the kinds of moments or days that cleave your life in two. The show itself was a beautiful, career-making B&A, happening alongside a personally devastating B&A. It was confusing times.

As the days to begin the rehearsal process approached, I didn’t sleep or eat much. The body keeps the score. I was anxious and messy and irritable, a palpable fear taking over my days. How could I maintain a sense of professionalism while everything unraveled? Should I tell people? I don’t want special treatment. But… do I need special treatment?

I didn’t tell anyone until tech week, objectively the most difficult week in the process. But these people, many of whom have become human life rafts for me, knew on some level that I was struggling before I ever explained myself. The show ended in tears, as was written, and some nights my onstage partner would have to rush backstage and hold me until I could catch my breath. The crying just kept coming.

What was interesting, though, was how much better I felt afterward. I am not a person who does feelings by nature—not my own, anyway—but the material and the context forced me to face them, these feelings. So messy + uncomfortable. I don’t believe in coincidences.

2019 has been a long, long year. One of the longest of my life. And as the days grow darker and the nights grow longer, I feel a pull toward that grief, the kind that swallows without chewing. It would be so easy to focus only on that, the grief + the suffering + the loneliness. It will always be there, to some degree.

But where there is grief, there is also a softening. The chance for rest. For assistance, if it’s allowed. There are long walks + dogs to pet + words, both to read and to write. There is art. There are long-distance phone calls. Collect calls.

I am endlessly grateful for what my artistic life has given my personal life. It has broken my heart a thousand ways, but the healing it has done has more than made up for it. Should old acquaintance be forgot, as they say.

Here’s to grief + healing + happiness in the new year, wherever it may find you.

On cynicism + wonder

Do you know anything about the Enneagram? It’s this ancient system of categorizing personalities into nine groups. I was introduced to it only recently, and I learned that I am a type 3, The Achiever. Basically, this means I am driven + ambitious + fun to be around (according to the test, anyway). There are lots of benefits of being a Three, like I can read a room pretty well, but I also attach my self-worth to achievement. I’m overly concerned with the way things look and can be deceptive.

It also means I am a chameleon, that my personality is fluid and can change radically depending on who THIS room needs me to be.

I’m in my 30s, y’all, and I’m just now understanding how exhausting this is.

I’m also STARTing to understand that I don’t have to be a mirror image of other people in order for them to like me or consider me or cast me. I’m already doing okay—funny enough, smart enough, good enough. I don’t need to be a reflection of you, too.

I was in a room recently, watching a performance and LOVING it. HERE for it. So entertained by it.

And I looked around the room at the other people watching, and they were so BORED. Over it. This was business as usual, the magic that was happening. Yawn.

And here’s the thing: the Lauren of yesteryear (literally last year, before I started to understand all this helpful and intrusive junk about my personality) would’ve taken that as a cue. I should not be so easily entertained. I should not be so easily moved.

But why not? Who does that serve? Does the world need more cynicism?

Every job I take or opportunity that I am given, especially those that level me up, makes me giddy with excitement. I am thrilled beyond reason to get to do what I do, on any level. But this industry is tough, and some of the most talented people I know have been hardened to the magic by the grind.

I don’t want that for myself. I don’t want the grind to build up callouses on my heart, steeling me against the world, making me roll my eyes at something that might’ve brought joy otherwise.

I want to remain soft, flexible. My outrage saved for true injustice, I want my daily perspective to be through lenses of awe, of contentment.

I GET to be a magic maker. As long as that continues to be true, I hope that the grind softens me, scrubs away the callouses and leaves me vulnerable, open.

Full of wonder.

A Love Song for the Brokenhearted

A word about stress.

This year, from about August last year until now, is the most stressed I can remember being for some time. Professionally, personally—I don’t recall I time in my life where it all came together, or fell apart, in such a perfect, insane storm such as this. One hit after another. My life has felt a lot like this scene from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. (Minus the severed heads.)

So how do you keep going in the face of unimaginable stress? I don’t know. I don’t really have answers. Does anyone? Can I have her number?

I run almost daily, and go to yoga on the days when my hips are too sore for running. It cleans it all up upstairs, all the messy, confused brain stuff. The executive functioning. And on the really rough days, when it won’tcan’t clean it all-the-way up, it vacuums the floor and wipes the counters of my brain, which sometimes can be enough to make the whole place feel clean.

I’ve taken on a few new projects with friends, some writing ones and some theatre ones. For some, taking on new projects would contribute to the stress, and okay, yes. On some days, it does. But most of these projects have finite goals and give me more of a sense of accomplishment and energy restoration than depletion. I like to see what I’ve done. I like checking that box on my to-do list.

I’ve started using the downtime feature on my phone, enforcing a full stop on most social media for long stretches of the day. When I’m really stressed, I find myself losing so much time mindlessly scrolling, doing nothing to take care of my mental or physical health. Downtime is really handy on those days.

I’m reading more. SACRED CONTRACTS by Caroline Myss and THE PLACES THAT SCARE YOU by Pema Chodron and EDUCATED by Tara Westover are currently on my nightstand. Oh, and SIDEWAYS STORIES FROM WAYSIDE SCHOOL with my youngest and the fifth HARRY POTTER with my oldest. (The sixth is my favorite in the series, so I’m reading this one to her as fast as I can. Book carrot.) Books are home base. They are olly-olly-ox-and-free. The words will save us.

I meet up with friends, sometimes over Marco Polo, sometimes at an event, sometimes on my couch with some yarn and crochet hooks. This is especially helpful for the overhinky part of my brain, which seems to be extra active these days. Friends remind me that no matter how broken I feel, how lost and alone, that somehow I am still worthy of love and attention. Sometimes I say funny things. Some people still think I’m worth it.

And therapy. I’m back in therapy. It’s helpful and hard and I lovehate it. But these are triage times, y’all. These are the days that must happen to you, Whitman said. If I had a heart attack, I’d see a cardiologist. Potato, tomato.

So much of what happens to us/is happening to me is out of my control. So much of it I try to control anyway.

That’s so stupid, guys. Colossally stupid.

Anne Lamott, patron saint of the brokenhearted and one of my living heroes, has much to say on this topic: i.e., stress and hardship and heartache and happiness. But I love this, and I need the reminder.

“Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheesy holes inside of you. It can’t. It won’t. But writing can. So can singing in a choir or a bluegrass band. So can painting community murals or birding or fostering old dogs that no one else will.”

This year has opened new, cavernous Swiss-cheesy holes inside of me. I am filling them the best way I know how: with creative works, with friendship, with therapy, with lavender-scented bubble baths.

Although, shortcuts are always welcome.

Let's have a small conversation about self-worth.

This is not news, what I’m about to say, so if you’re looking for hot takes, keep surfing. But here it is:

In writing and in performing, the artist creates and polishes and practices and presents, with the hope of acceptance and validation. We spend hours behind the scenes, writing and rewriting, choosing music and polishing monologues. Then we present our work—ourselves—to the people who have the power to employ us, publish us, market us, pay us.

And statistically speaking, it often doesn’t work out.

I served on a panel for performers recently, and we spoke to a roomful of kids who’re also interested in performing. One of them asked me how often I get the job, which is a loaded question, but a fair one. So I did some quick, very unscientific math in my head and came up with this: I get a callback about 50% of the time. Of those callbacks, I get the job about 30% of the time. In writing, it’s similar; with regard to full manuscript requests, I’d say it splits the difference. Probably 40% of the time.

This means, on average, that 60% of the time, I get nothing. Nada. Zilch.

For a very long time, I equated that with talent, or lack thereof, thinking that this 60% meant that I was unqualified or untalented or unable to meet some kind of preconceived notion for who I was supposed to be.

But I’ve come to a place of understanding here, that gives me peace and also annoys the heck outta me.

So, so often, it has nothing to do with me. I mean, sure, I have to come in prepared and I have to deliver. So, so often, these choices are made based on variables that are outside of my control and above my pay grade. I believe in the book I’m pitching, the one that’s gotten lots of read requests but no proposals. I believe in the quality of my performance, like in the audition I gave earlier this week. I gave them everything I had and I knew it went well, and still. No callback came.

Does that sting? Of course it does. And yet, the place I’ve reached in this stage of my career (or at least on this particular week) is this: it wasn’t my turn. And that’s okay. It can’t be my turn every time. That’s ludicrous. My style of performance isn’t for every show. My book isn’t for every publisher.

There is no failure here. There is only the gathering of information. The only true failure comes if I actually give up.

And I refuse to do that.

In this brilliant documentary about auditioning—it’s called SHOWING UP and you should definitely watch it if you’re a creative whose works depends on the ‘yeses’ of others—Chris Messina speaks my heart. Watch. Learn. Be the clown, tip your hat, and move on.

Angling

“At sunrise, everything is luminous but not clear” 
― Norman Maclean

At the moment, three shows that I was called back for are in various stages of preparedness, from early rehearsals to beginning their runs. Two of the losses just broke my heart in the regular way, and one callback was the actual worst audition I’ve ever given. (Like, it was months and months ago, and I still cringe any time the memory rears its ugly head.)

This is a funny industry. Faith Prince, veteran Broadway actor and brilliant comedienne, once said, “You know what they call the prize-winning hog the day after county fair? Breakfast.”

Translation: you’re on top of the world one day, all shiny hair + glowing reviews + celebratory champagne, and then the show closes and you’re back stumping for a gig like the next guy. It’s sort of like interviewing for a job, once or twice a month, forever.

It is—in a word—exhausting.

So here I sit, stapling my resume to my headshot and watching some of my dearest friends enjoying the rehearsal process or the press junkets for shows that I got this close to calling mine. If I tried to tell you it wasn’t hard, I’d be all smiles and lies.

I met with a dear friend and fellow actor for coffee last week, and we talked about this, and he said the wisest thing: “I’ve decided that my career is really all about what I do—how hard I work—between the yeses.”

I’ve got a few fishing lines out right now, and a few others already caught, sitting on ice in the cooler next to me. I’ll show them to you soon, but not yet. Not yet. I’m still fishing.

It breaks your heart, every time you cast out and get a nibble and then reel it in, only to find that some smarter/better/younger fish ran off with your bait. But other fish are waiting, swimming, hungry for a meal. So you worm up, cast again, and sit. And wait.

And while you wait, maybe you close your eyes and feel the breeze and listen to the birds. Maybe you hum a song to yourself, a reminder that the fish isn’t always the goal. Sometimes, it’s your feet dangling in the water. Sometimes it’s the patience of the waiting.

Sometimes it’s just the breeze.

Guest Bliggety-Blogging

Lauren is a guest blogger today over at T3 writes!

Check it out here.

From the way, way back: What I Had Forgotten

The rush of adrenalin from the wanting to try to do a new thing, a scary thing. And the rush of adrenalin when you realize your heart had decided long before your head knew about it.

The terrifying, dizzying dance of nerves during an audition, those moments when you have to prove to the world what you already know you can do. The heart-wrenching realization that, no, really, you’re proving it to yourself all over again, too. Will you forget your lyrics, the ones you practiced a thousand times in the car coming home from the grocery store? Will your excess energy create wobbly, unstable vibrato, or will you push too hard on the high notes and go sharp?

The heart-fluttering email or phone call. The one that says, “You’re in.” The one that says, “You’ve still got it. We saw lots of people, and they were good, but you were the one. We want you.”

The rehearsals and the learning of lines. The inscrutable pencil scritches made in the margins of your script. Blocking your scenes. Forgetting your blocking. The lull in practice when somebody goes up on a line. The ache of the silence when you go up on a line. The jaw-dropping, kidney-punching reality check that you are all dependent on each other, so do your homework. Don’t screw up. 

If you do, though, we’ll hug it out.

The first time you walk the back alleys of downtown to the stage door. Your door. It is still light out, and many folks are clocking out for the day. Not you. Your game face is on. You don’t need to go through the MainStreet entrance, baby, you’re in. You’re one of the players. Back door friends are best, anyway.

The lacing of the costume. The smell of atmosphere-corroding hairspray. The heat—the oppressive heat—of the dressing room lights as you apply your pancake makeup, lipstick, false lashes. The shoes that pinch and are worn at the toes and have just enough give to make sure your point is pretty.

The rituals: Break a leg. Mérde. Thank you, Fifteen. Thank you, Ten.

The wings, so fraught with emotion and tension and nerves. Don’t look at the script, because you know the damn thing, even when you forget you know it. 

The moment, that final moment, before you part the curtain and make your first entrance. You are not yourself anymore, baby. You are other. You have emerged anew.

The crowd watching, waiting, laughing where you’d hoped they would and not laughing where you thought they would. The fear that you will see someone you know and become immobilized with fear at disappointing them, only to realize, once you’re onstage, that now you’re someone else and that audience doesn’t matter. Let the actor backstage worry about that now. You have work to do.

The inevitable screw-ups and missed cues and stories to tell of recovery. The shaking hands and shaking voice, at first. And then the settling, the careful shift into comfort. You’ve got this. You have got this.

After nine years of grading papers and finishing graduate school and wiping boogers and shopping for groceries and taking care of family, here—these things—are what I had forgotten. 

It’s fun to take a moment—perhaps not every day, but every now and then—to sit back and remember who you are, and who you’ve been, and who you might be again. 

* written March 30, 2013, opening night of Lauren’s first show in nine years.

An Angel in a Vietnam Hat

"Find any open table," the volunteer said. We shuffled through the room, looking for open seats next to fellow performers or the homeless veterans who'd just sat in our audience. They'd come in from the nearby VA to watch the show and have a meal, and easily established themselves as the best audience of the run. Enthusiastic, encouraging, engaged. Every high note received applause. Every partner lift was met with oohs. During bows, those who were able stood. They all shouted, "Thank you!" The audience was thanking us. Unprecedented. 

I found a seat next to a few castmates and a few vets: Martin, a shy-smiling grandfather who walked with a cane and reluctantly confessed to his time in Panama and Desert Storm. Earl was a big bear with a fast mouth who took off his New England Patriots cap to explain the quote written on it, spoken by his favorite player, Tom Brady. His hat was covered in Vietnam pins. 

We broke bread, as they say. While we ate turkey and potatoes, we spoke of the show and rehearsals and which numbers were their favorites. "Them girls were in sure good shape, I told my friend!" Earl boomed. "I mean, all that dancing! Them folks that didn't come sure missed a show." We crossed our fingers for Martin and Earl to win the raffle--each prize was a handmade blanket. When Earl's number was called, he chose the smallest one. "I can't have nothing that's too big to carry with me. This one sure looks soft."

Talk gradually got deeper. Martin was quiet--head bowed close to his plate, eating quickly and taking pictures with his phone--while Earl carried the conversation, talking about his four kids and their troubles. Drugs. Abandonment. Neglect. Deep, hard truths. By this time, we'd been served our dessert, but my pie sat, untouched, as Earl spoke. 

When the meal came to an end and the bus arrived to take the vets back to the VA, I asked if it would be okay to give each man a hug. Martin went first, using his cane to walk to the end of the table where I stood. 

"You have the best smile," I said. He did. Martin's smile lit up the room. When he smiled, he meant it for the world. 

"Oh gosh. Thank you. It'll be better when I have my teeth fixed," he said, taking pains to smile with his lips together. 

"No! When you smile, I don't see your teeth. I see your heart." It was true. Martin was kindness on hard times. He hugged me again, longer this time, before quietly picking up his cane and heading toward the door. 

"Earl, can I hug you now?" I said, making my way to the other end of the table. Earl jumped to his feet and hugged me, thanking me for the day while I thanked him for the great conversation. 

"I...I wanna give you something," he said. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a white towel. It was torn on one side, but clean, the kind of towel you'd use to wash a car with. "It's a rag. It ain't nothing. But I want you to have it." 

I took the towel from him and looked at it for a long minute, maybe too long. "It ain't nothing," he repeated. His voice was strong. Proud. "It's just a rag. But I just wanted to give it to you." 

They say when a child gives you a gift--a dandelion, a crayon drawing, a stub of a pencil--it should be taken and cherished. Children give what they have, and it is all they have. They have given you all they have. Earl was not a child—far from it—but the gift was just as sincere.

There's a story in the Bible about this one time Jesus sat down outside the temple and watched the crowd putting their money into the treasury for offering. The rich folks threw all kinds of money in. Big money. And then this one woman--a poor widow--walks up and puts two very small copper coins in the coffers. They were barely worth anything.

Jesus called everyone around him and said, “Listen to me, guys, cause this is important: what this lady just gave is worth more than all that other money combined. Those rich folks had tons of money to give, but they had to sacrifice nothing. But this woman? She had nothing and gave in everything—all she had to live on.”

Sometimes theatre is literature, meant to provoke and inspire. Sometimes it's entertainment, meant to bring joy and laughter. 

Sometimes, it's meant to do work that can't be done any other way. Sometimes, hidden in the middle of a six-shows-in-two-days performance marathon, your life is suddenly made clear by an angel in a Vietnam hat. By a man with a silver cane and a closed-lipped smile. 

Thank you, Martin and Earl. I sang Christmas songs for you, but you gave Christmas to me.

-LL, 12.11.16

The In-Between

I am on a performing hiatus.

My last show closed three weeks ago, my next project doesn’t go into rehearsal for nearly six more weeks. This isn’t a long time, especially not in the performing world, when droughts between bookings can last months, even years.

I am grateful to have a project to look forward to, and grateful for memories so fresh from the last one that I can still feel the mic tape residue on the back of my neck.

I hustled for jobs during the holiday season, auditioning as far back as the spring for gigs that are opening right now, playing familiar stories and songs to packed Christmas houses, audiences desperate to feel merry + festive + spirited.

None panned out, though. Some callbacks came and some didn’t, but no bookings. This is the most common outcome for a performer, something we’re conditioned to expect—so well-conditioned, actually, that when you do book a job, it feels like, “Are you sure? You didn’t mean the girl who went before me?”

Though I licked my wounds for a while, I’m grateful (there’s that word again) for the rest. Grateful for the time with my family, for the chance to read bedtime stories and have a little laying-around time. Grateful that my holidays won’t be as rushed as my summer and fall.

And yet…

There comes a time in every period of rest where I forget what I can do. I don’t know if this is a universal truth or something that is just recurring in my addled brain, but inevitably, at some point during my period of rest, there will come a moment where I think, “Wasn’t that a fun thing, what I used to do? Too bad it’s all behind me. All over now.”

I realize how dramatic that sounds.

Actors are the only artists whose art depends on the work of others. Painters can paint, dancers can dance, but unless you are the kind of actor who creates his/her own work, an actor cannot just act without being granted the opportunity.

But writers can write, and I am also one of those. So December, as she looms in all her bedazzled glory, will be dedicated to health + family + writing, three things that are supremely important to me that have been given the short end of the stick over the last few months.

And I’ll try not to forget the rest.

Little bit of truth, little bit of bull

I have a lot of friends—particularly theatre friends—who pay no attention whatsoever to their reviews. They don't want to be swayed by the critics, perhaps. Or don’t want to be made to feel self-conscious about their performances. Or maybe they don’t care.

I care, unfortunately.

I’ve performed all over the place, and I’ve been reviewed all over the place, geographically and figuratively. I’ve been fortunate enough to receive favorable reviews from a lot of critics, but I’ve also been completely ignored, even as a principal character in a show, as if I weren’t on the stage at all on review night.

And you know, both are fine. Because neither is really the truth.

Reviews are just opinions, after all—even when they’re grounded in evidence and written by experts—and opinions, by definition, are one person’s perspective, one person’s version of a thing. I have a version. The critic has a version. Often we agree. Sometimes we don’t.

When I was performing Diana in NEXT TO NORMAL, I had help from a mentor—a beautiful, smart woman who lived with Bipolar Disorder and talked me through the reality of her diagnosis on the ground. For the purposes of this blog post, I’ll call her Shelly.

One night, for a performance that included a talkback and post-show reception, my mentor came. So did her father.

After the show and talkback (which Shelly participated in), we met up for the reception at a nearby bar, chatting over custom cocktails and glasses of wine. My stage manager asked Shelly’s dad what he thought of our performance.

He sipped his drink and looked down for a while, lost in thought. When he looked up, his eyes were shiny. “You know, I didn’t realize what Shelly goes through every day, until I saw this show. I think I’ve been going about my relationship with her all wrong.”

Sitting in the audience, Shelly’s dad saw something in my performance that shifted his paradigm. My performance, at least as he admitted that night, had an impact on the way he viewed his own daughter.

I like to say that what other people think of me is none of my business, which is true. In theatre and writing that can be hard to remember when reviewers make it your business. They make it everyone’s business, because it’s the critic’s job to do that.

I try not to believe anything that’s said or written about me too much—not the hype or the crap. Because all of it is a little true and a little bullish*t.

But Shelly’s dad? His takeaway after my performance that night?

That was the best review I ever got.

Titles Are Hard.

I used to be a teacher. Before that, I was a newspaper reporter. This “regular person” phase of my life lasted a long time. More years than I care to admit.

During that time, I did no acting at all. I lived in cities all around the country in my early twenties, spitting distance from many prestigious regional theaters. I never auditioned. I kept up with the audition notices and read the reviews, but I counted myself out.

The only writing I did was a small motherhood blog, mostly filled with funny stories or reflections that didn’t fit easily into playdate conversation or the workroom at school.

Maybe it sounds less than fulfilling, but I loved my job. I loved the kids I taught, the people I worked with. I loved the women at the daycare who took care of my baby while I took care of other people’s older babies. I always said I’d never leave the classroom for anything other than writing full-time. I allowed that dream.

I never allowed the dream of performing again. I never talked about that dream. That river ran too deep.

I went on maternity leave for my second child. A few months later, I went to my first audition in years and got the part. I went on another audition and got an agent. The snowball grew.

Here’s what I’m saying: doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.

Be brave, y’all.