It's been a bit of time since I have updated this and I apologize for the delay. As usual, the delay is a mix of a lot going on and most of what was going on not all that interesting. There have been a few bewildering "almost-got" callbacks and auditions, which I hate writing about, so I will resist, but every so often...grr.

It's one of those weeks where I'm just tired. It's quite possible that I have Whit's cold, which was mostly more "tired" than "sick and ____". No matter.

Last night, I went to my first big time musical in quite a long while. We saw Wicked last night at the Pantages and it was pretty terrific, all in all. As a show, it was a pretty typical modern musical, with several different song types with nice, if not necessarily spectacular, dancing. The story was great, really clever and I can see why the show is such a big hit. The leads had played (and in one case, originated) the roles on Broadway and in the tour versions, so there was an easy strength to their performances. Eden Espinosa, in particular, had an incredible vocal presence and brought the house down three or four times. The other lead, Megan Hilty, had excellent comic chops and her voice was so fluid and effortless that it was easy to forget she was actually singing and not lip syncing, if that makes any sense at all.

It has been awhile, I admit sadly, since I have seen a "big" show. Sure, I have seen a few plays here and there (including a terrific all male Shakespeare presentation of Twelfth Night from the Old Globe at UCLA), but for some reason, I have not forced myself to get into any of the shows playing at The Geffen or the other major Los Angeles theaters. There are several reasons for this that I will delve into below, but I guess what I am really writing about is this series of edgy realizations regarding my relationship with acting on stage (made edgier by the fact that my last show, a mildly chaotic Lear with a traveling group in New York, was not one of my better performances).

First off, I prefer and relish the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience. That's my baseline talent--live performance. Everything I do comes from that enjoyment, whether it's doing a speech for a wedding, presenting ideas in a work meeting or just talking with friends at a party. Once a week in acting class I get to perform in front of a small audience, so I do have an outlet, but obviously it's different than being in a "real" play. If I love it so much, if I am supposedly designed for this kind of thing, one might ask, why don't I go out on more auditions? Well, as I have discussed many times before, I am unable or reluctant to spend the amount of time it takes to rehearse day in and day out for 8-12 performances stretched out over a month or so, especially if I am not getting paid for the work. So, that means I have to audition for stuff that's more professional, which means I have to have my days free for rehearsal. Which means I can't have a normal full time job, which means I could not support myself, really. Oh, I am sure I could find some paid tours that would help with expenses, but then I would be away from LA, making it harder to get opportunities in film and television, which would make it easier to make acting my full time job, complete with time off, during which I could be rehearsing plays during the day.

A lot of chickens and lot of eggs. The key, for me, is to make a living acting in film and TV so I can audition for stage work when I have time off. That's my mantra, it's what I tell everyone my strategy is. But that strategy seems very...far away when sitting in an audience watching people my age and younger doing it, right in front of me, having a great old time. Which is fine, that life...that life is particularly focused and exclusive to other experiences. When you are doing a show of that scale, a Broadway show, it is your life, your days are designed in such a way that you are at peak energy from 8-11pm. You never see anyone. You are never around. You live for the show. I've done that, not at that scale, but I have dealt with that time commitment before, and it was great, but I missed a lot. And while that's fine for awhile, eventually it just stops making sense or became unsustainable.

Lots of excuses, okay. One makes one's choices and moves forward, and I don't regret the moves I have made for my career at all, but watching that cast last night engage the audience got me to reflecting a lot on what I enjoy about this whole effort. The other day I bumped into a friend who was at the LiveEarth concert in London. He said my PSA for LiveEarth played a few times in the stadium, indeed, it played several times in all the stadiums and venues where LiveEarth happened. In London alone, there were something like 53,000 people at the show. So, even in half of the people were paying attention and got a chuckle out of that PSA, that's 25,000 people entertained--wham! More people in 22 seconds than I have been able to entertain in my shows so far. My goal, it would seem, to entertain as many people as I can, would seem to be active and healthy and working. But I wasn't there, you know? My work was, one of the 22 second takes that I did in Pacific Palisades a few months ago, that was there and succeeded in what it was supposed to do, but I wasn't there, and I think that that distinction was really driven home last night, that I enjoy actively entertaining people and being able to feel it happening. Which, what does that say about me? That I like the attention? No, that's not it, that really isn't it -- I have written before how one of my fondest acting memories was when I was doing a summer stock theater in Pullman, Washington, and just be able to leave and be anonymous after the show was over, knowing that I had helped make an entertaining evening for the people who came to the show. It's not about me, it's about sharing that moment with the audience, that's what I love.

Which is not possible, most of the time, when working in film and television! Oh, the irony! That the only way to make a living acting would seem to remove the primary element of enjoyment I getout of it! It's kind of like the roses that are bred with no thorns--they have no scent.

Of course, it's not all that dire. I love working with a director and I loved hearing the crew's laughter after a scene is done. I love that, it's totally gratifying and it's the essence of what I am talking about, but it's not the same. But it will have to do for the time being.

So, I left Wicked with a mixed sense of inspiration and frustration, mildly queasy as I wondered quietly to myself about the validity of where I was in my career and how things were going. They are going more slowly than I like to admit, but they are moving forward and I am confident, I mean, I know that this is how I am gonna get things done. I've not done any of this the "typical" way, so I don't expect things to happen in a typical time line. The past week has been tough--I left two auditions thinking that I had nailed the part, that I was going to definitely not only get called back but actually book the part and I didn't even get called back! Humbling, to be sure....nothing is certain, that, and the passage of time, those are the only consistencies in this life.

Tomorrow I drive to San Francisco to spend time with Oliver and other friends and family before he goes off to China. It should be a good, head-clearing visit. I'll take pics and write.

Tags: acting, stage