The Comfy Corner

I've always considered my every day dealings and experiences to be nothing more than an elaborate journey toward myself. That's what acting skool tot me! We are constantly on a journey to become closer to our true selves. And I have never found this to be more true than when I visited one of the finest establishments in St. Petersburg, Florida: Georgie's Alibi. A gay club that boasts theme nights, drag shows, and, of course, a never-ceasing mix of bass bumping, ear-drum demolishing top 40 tunes. So what, you may ask, was unique about my experience in this particular homosexual establishment? It was the first gay club I've ever been to that had go-go boys. It's something I've always wanted to experience on this river of my life and I finally got to experience it! I walked in and was greeted by the man who my friends had been referring to all evening as "Mr. Perfect."

After being swept away to the depths of the rocky mountains for three and a half months and then hastily plopped back into the thriving metropolis of New York City without any sort of intermediary, I have quickly noted one key difference between small towns and big towns. In big towns, you can be as crazy as you want and nobody will care! I realized this on the subway upon my arrival. Usually I am very to-myself and subdued when I'm in public. I always get out of people's way and essentially try to make myself as small as possible so as to not end up with a gun in my face or on the hit-list for the mafia or something (It's probably also repressed fear of this girl I knew in middle school named Marquetta who would knock books out of my hands and shove me into the wall if I got in her way - but that's beside the point. I'm over that... sort of). I even go so far as to only do vocal warm-ups in the subway station if a loud train is passing by (nothing like a vocal sigh as the trains go by). But I realize now that I can do as much vocalizing as I want and nobody will say anything about it or even think it's that strange. I mean, my friend Elise has only been here a short time but has managed to see like three penises on the subway! Three!!! And people don't care! Someone could literally take a shit on a subway car and people would just sigh and change cars. I know this because that happened to me once. So if I do a few lip trillz or practice my riffing skillz on the subway, everyone will still keep their eyes to the floor and pretend that nothing is happening. I have officially granted myself full permission to be as crazy as I want.

In fact, being crazy can even have it's advantages. I would like to take a moment to reference an episode of "30 Rock" where Liz Lemon pretended to be a crazy woman on the subway so that she could get a seat. You don't mess with the crazies. You never know what they will do to you. So my advice to anyone visiting New York for the first time is this: If someone tries to mug you, just whip around and start making monkey noises, jump up and down, flail wildly and start shouting something like, "BANANAS WILL ONE DAY RULE THE WORLD!!!" maybe toss some flour in their face for dramatic effect. You must out-crazy the crazy and you will always win. It's not like small towns where people will actually remember or care. You'll probably never see them again and if you do, they probably won't remember you because you were just one more dose of crazy in a cray cray filled day day. And if you crazy, they will run. Stay comfy y'all.

So I think I've done enough greeting lines with enough companies now to have an opinion about them. We begin with a definition. The greeting line: the thing you do after a show where you thank the patrons for coming, shake hands, sign autographs, and take pictures. It's essentially the stage door of regional theatre! And I've officially decided that I am not a huge fan of them. I mean, I love talking to patrons and encouraging them to continue seeing theatre and what-not but the majority of the time it is just awkward. For both parties involved. It is awkward for the people who just saw the show because they are kinda overwhelmed and in a state of confusion where they are lost for words. Which is why you get comments such as,

"Wow, you can almost act, sing, and dance!"

"Is that a pillow under there or is that all you?"

"Those glasses aren't real!"

"You should consider doing this professionally!"

And that's just a select sampling. Don't get me wrong, most comments people make are genuinely heartfelt and lovely to hear. But every so often the comments are inappropriately hilarious or sometimes they can be kinda unintentionally mean. It's worse when you have to collect money in a basket at the greeting line. Because then you actually need something from them so you have people doing the avoidance smile-and-nod as they guiltily breeze past you. Also, at the theatre I'm currently working for, I've had the unique added frustration of people congratulating me for shows that my friend Anthony was in last summer and I was in fact not in. I usually just say thank you and pretend to be him for a second, but sometimes I have to explain that they have the wrong person. "We went to college together, he's a good friend of mine, we get confused all the time." Although, we don't look that much alike in my opinion. Maybe it's our Emerson training they are getting confused...

There is one greeting line situation that I love. And that is the greeting line for kid's shows. I get to feel like a rockstar and see all the cutest babies in the world at the same time! When I was with "Seussical" there was the cutest handicapped boy who came through the greeting line in a wheelchair and sang "How Lucky You Are" to us. If that doesn't make you cry then nothing will! There was also a kid that came up and handed me and my other Wickersham a banana because he thought we might be hungry. I could have died from the cuteness. Not to mention the hoards of kids dressed like the cat in the hat. I could sit in those kinds of greeting lines all day long. Otherwise, I'd rather change into my footy pajamas and crawl into my comfy corner with a bowl of mac and cheese. So whether you are in the greeting line, greeting people in the greeting line, or if you don't have to deal with this at all, stay comfy y'all.

"White, a blank page or canvas." These are the first words spoken by George in "Sunday in the Park With George." I've never really understood the depth of that first sentence until recently. There is nothing more magical than that silent moment before a band starts playing, the blinking cursor before the first word is typed, the empty staff before the first note is written, the moment before an idea becomes a physical reality. The blank canvas. It is my favorite part about art and I didn't really understand that until very recently.

I am not much of a composer/lyricist but I have written a few things and that moment when the idea in my brain becomes a song that someone else is singing or playing - that moment is more powerful than anything else in the world. I remember in college, when my class sang this group number I had written, I sat there in awe. I could have cried. I didn't write anything down or record anything because I was so mesmerized. It was the first time I've ever heard a made up song from my brain exist in real time with real people. Where there was nothing, now there was something. I also remember my very first day of marching band in the eighth grade and hearing that first downbeat of the first song of our show for the first time. I got chills. I. Always. Get. Chills.

The show I'm in currently in, "The Drowsy Chaperone" has an incredible moment when the overture is being played on a record player and midway through the song it seamlessly shifts from the record player to the live orchestra. That moment always gives me chills. Always. And this is my third time doing this show. I'm currently working on a solo show and I've turned a bunch of my blogs into songs. And that moment when I just sing a melody to my music director and he lays down an accompaniment out of nowhere. That moment is so magical. I hate to use the world "magical," but that's what it is! Harry Potter magic doesn't exist to my knowledge, but that "group mind" where two artists can be on the same page about something without even describing it in words - that be nothing else but magic, right?

So when you are hesitant to start something. If you're hesitant to write that first word, sing that first note, drop that first downbeat, take that first stroke - don't be. Because you are about to create something out of absolutely nothing. And that is magic. And that in itself is a miracle. And that feeling is incomparable to anything else in the world. Stay comfy y'all.

People say that improv can be a kind of therapy for some people. Heck, people say that about theatre too. And it's simply because in improv you get to just be as weird as you want to be. As weird as you probably are. So all of the misfits and weirdos that have never been able to find creative satisfaction in other fields find improv to be a rather comfy corner. I know this to be true because I am that misfit weirdo that recently found his comfy corner in improv. I used to hate improv. Sorry to all my friends that were in improv troupes in college, but I just did not enjoy seeing improv shows. I didn't like watching actors struggle on stage. I didn't like the discomfort of knowing that things could fall to pieces at any moment. I am the type of person that practices too much, demands perfection when perfection isn't reachable, and generally just tries too hard. I like theatre to be in a nice, squeaky clean little box that is polished till it shines. That's probably why I like musical theatre so much. But then I forced myself to join an improv troupe and the walls came tumbling down.

All of the freedom, the relaxation that I worked SO HARD to achieve in college has finally started to sink in. It's like I took some miracle antidote that made the metaphorical stick up my butt just disappear! The problem in college was clear. I was "working so hard" to "relax." Not really very effective, right? But in improv, I can't really work too hard because I don't know what's gonna happen next. So voila! I stopped working so hard and finally I was able to relax and just do it. And the fear of failure in improv is silly because the odds are totally in my favor. Just by the nature of it, it's all totally made up, so you are going to be funny 95% of the time if you are being honest.

So, therapy indeed. It seems like a contradiction to put yourself in a high-stress situation in order to unwind all the things that are tightly wound inside of you. But it totally has worked for me. All of my favorite actors started out as improvisers so of course this is the path I want to be on. So to all of my fellow therapy group members here in Boomtown, thank you for welcoming me into your world. Whether I'm actually good at it or not, it doesn't matter. It's become like a weird drug for me and I'm gonna keep taking this drug until I need something else. For now, this is the best high I've ever had. Stay comfy y'all!

Train travel: a method of travel which popularly attracts smelly people of lesser mental stability, people who highly enjoy talking about themselves and their problems to strangers, and a few normal people who are just trying to save money or avoid planes. I proudly label myself in the third category of train travelers. At least I wear deodorant (usually), I hope that I'm fairly mentally stable and I don't think I talk about my problems too much (except on this blog). I was lucky enough, however, to experience all types of travelers on first-time ever, long-distance, 13-hour train trip to Ottumwa, Iowa. Here is my story.

I arrived in Denver a couple of hours before my train was to depart. Plenty of time to grab a nice dinner, take care of my banking needs and relax at the station, right? Wrong. All of the Bank of Americas in Denver have permanently closed down (but they annoyingly still pop up on Google Maps taunting me like a mirage in the desert), Union Station is under construction so the Amtrak station mysteriously moved to a secluded, hard-to-find part of town (WHO MOVES A TRAIN STATION?!?!), and all of the searching for stations and banks left me with zero time to have dinner. So when I finally found the station (imagine me lugging all of my luggage around the sketchiest part of Denver) it turns out it was packed with approximately 300 high school Christian singers who wanted to constantly practice their Jesus tunes. These were to be my train-mates for the entirety of the 13 hour journey. When I boarded the train, however, I was lucky enough to not be seated next to one of the high schoolers. No, I was seated next to a very large, bald man with a ton of piercings who reeked of weeks of not showering and continually sniffed his shirt and asked me a ton of personal questions. Meanwhile, the mentally unstable, elderly lady in front of me asked on a continual loop, "Where are my socks?" while her twenty-something chaperone kept feeding her yogurt ("You like yogurt, don't you grandma? Isn't this train nice? Do you need your sweater?" meanwhile, "Where are my socks? Where are my socks?"). I desperately attempted to drown them out with my music, but I was sat in a seat that made me go backwards on the train. So there I was feeling slightly dizzy, surrounded by crazy strangers, absolutely starving, and all the while watching the outside world whip past me as I traveled backwards to Iowa. On top of all of this, I took a small sedative to help me sleep. This, however, affected me in the most negative of ways. I got so drowsy that that I couldn't get out of my seat to get water or use the bathroom without the fear of falling on my face. I arrived in Iowa a battered boy and extremely loath to train travel.

The ride back to Denver, I must admit, was much much better. I secured a seat all to myself going forwards not backwards. And I even took advantage of the dining car. I had a lovely dinner with wine (no sedatives this time!), however, they made me sit with strangers. More crazy people who were just competing with stories of how awesome and crazy their lives were. The type of people who talk but don't listen. Beyond that, the trip was amazing. I doodled a lot, read some, listened to music, slept a little, and had a great trip. So Amtrak, you redeemed yourself, sort of. I've decided that there is potential for a comfy corner on a train. But I will never forget the stress of my first-ever train trip. Stay comfy y'all.

It's funny to me. When I am negotiating contracts for a job I always insist that I am given at least one day off a week to relax and explore. However, when I am in the city, building my own work schedule, I don't give myself the same luxury. I always fill my schedule to the max with work, class, errands and chores and I give myself a day off every month if I'm lucky. It's cruel! But New York has this weird way of making me feel like I'm wasting my life away when I'm sitting in my apartment. When I'm at home, I always feel like I'm missing some amazing opportunity. And I probably am, but there are just too many amazing opportunities occurring at any given moment for one person to take advantage of. It's a constant anxiety for me. So I suppose I just have to embrace the fact that I'm not gonna catch everything that is happening in the world and enjoy my days off, kinda like I enjoy my days off here in Creede.

For three of my days off I have ventured down to this magical place called Pagosa Springs. I say this place is magical because it has all the things Creede doesn't have: Mexican food, pizza, a movie theatre, Sonic and the most amazing hot springs I've ever seen. It's like a real life heaven on earth! There are probably about thirty hot tubs hugging the Rio Grande and you can take a dip in each and every one of them. Some of them have waterfalls, some have jets, some are 115 degrees. It's our planet's very own comfy corner! If you are feeling adventurous, you can even take a dip in the river and then dry off by the fire that is always going. Every time I've gone to Pagosa, I've had a lovely dinner, seen an amazing movie, and then watched the sunset (and the rainbows, there are always rainbows!) as I soaked in the healing sulphur waters heated by the core of our beautiful mother earth. And the whole time I've felt completely at peace! I haven't felt like I was wasting time or missing something important or letting life pass me by. I've just embraced my relaxation and lived in the moment. I suppose it's a pretty easy thing to do, though, since I'm surrounded by old biddies who sneak flasks of white wine and whiskey into the hot tubs and drunkenly talk about absolutely nothing in particular. They know how to relax. They've spent their whole lives perfecting the art.

And so I've come to the conclusion that actors don't know how to relax. They party hard, they work hard, they are in class all of the time, in rehearsal, waiting tables, making rent, performing, on the road, but they don't plan vacations often enough. They book a job near a beach and consider that job their vacation when in fact it isn't. It is still a job. Too often do we mix work and free time. We aren't wasting our lives away when we go to the spa or take a summer off to see the world. No, in fact we are giving ourselves the fuel we need to do what we do better. Theatre is gonna keep happening y'all. Auditions are never gonna stop occurring. So why not live life for a bit? After all, it's kind of hard to imitate life on stage when you're too busy making art to live the life the art is imitating, right? So I will soak in my earth water comfy corner guilt free. Because my body deserves it. Stay comfy y'all.