I can't quit you

This past Tuesday morning I woke up feeling like someone had punched me in the stomach. "It's over..." were the first words to float through my furry brain, even before my eyes opened.

For the last two months I've been rehearsing for a workshop of a new play and on Monday, June 1st, we presented it to The Actor's Studio playwrights/directors unit. I am all too familiar with the sadness, that terrible empty feeling that sweeps in when a show closes, but I didn't expect to feel it at the close of this workshop. It's not like I hung out with the cast every night after rehearsal. It's not like we even rehearsed more than a few hours a week. And it's not like I spent six months living in this character or even got to finish finding out who she is. It was just a workshop. A short rehearsal process, a brief exploration of all of the possibilities that this play could become.

But oh, my heart is broken.

And I'm glad it is.

For the last few months I have been so frustrated, felt so doubtful of the path I've chosen. Even after I got this gig, I was kept awake long after I should have been asleep, worried that I was just making a fool of myself. And this play was such a challenging piece that, at first, it only brought up new feelings of inadequacy and fear. After every rehearsal I wrestled with myself: Can I do this? I can't do this. I must find a way to figure out who this woman is. I have no idea who she is! I'm not worthy of her! And on and on and on. I am so dramatic. I am my own worst enemy.

And then early last week I started to get the feel of her. I started to really figure her out. And then I fell completely in love.

This is what I do. I fall in love with the characters I play. It's the only way I know how to be true to them. Even for auditions, I fall madly, deeply in love. And it's always hard to pull myself away.

This play is an incredible piece of work: Complicated, challenging, funny, desperate, brilliant, devastating. The first time I read it I had chills all up and down my spine before I'd even gotten to the fifth page. That considered, I really shouldn't be surprised that I feel so empty, so alone. And I'm grateful, I really am grateful that I feel this way because it is just another reminder that I am doing the right thing, that I am following the path I ought to follow for my heart and my spirit and my everything.

Maybe the thing is, maybe I need to be more specific about exactly what it is I want. Because part of what was so attractive to me about this project was that it was a new play, written by a new playwright, etc., etc. I love being a part of something that hasn't been done before. I was fortunate enough to have the pleasure of listening to Estelle Parsons talk after our presentation, (I won't say "performance" because it was really more like an invited rehearsal or a staged reading) about how the new generation of playwrights, directors and actors need to stand up and create something that people have never seen before. In this age of movies and Internet and 1,000 TV stations, theatre is dying. And if we don't want to be confined to the Disneyfied crap that has infiltrated most of Broadway, we need to start creating new ideas, new platforms, new performances. I just got so excited listening to her talk, it was all I could do not to rush up to her and throw my arms around her neck and beg her to take me under her wing and teach me everything she knows. I want, I want, I want to create incredible things and instead I suffocate myself with self-judgments and self-criticism and fear. But this new ache in my heart signals hope. Hope that I will be able to let go and shake myself off and give myself another chance. Deep down I know I can do this, I was born to do this. And I'm still here. I'm still doing it. It's a lot harder than I ever imagined it would be, but that will make the payoff so much sweeter.