Agnes of God, 25 Years Later.

Originally posted as a Facebook Note, 5/19/11

They're all in their Sunday best; I'm on the right in denim.

As difficult as it is to believe, it's been a quarter century since the seminal theatrical experience of my life that put me on this maddening, frustrating, challenging, and exhilarating path.

I joined the Traip Academy drama club as a freshman, and that fall I performed in a show called And Stuff, a collection of short scenes dealing with heavy 'teen issues,' suicide, sex abuse, peer pressure and so on.  It was hardly great drama, but for me it was steps above my previous school play experiences (I still may need therapy after Mulligan Stew... {shudder})

Traip's drama club, despite our cramped facilities, was one of the region's finer high school theatre programs.  Our 'theatre' was a cramped stage in an undersized gym.  Mr Simmel, the English teacher who doubled as drama coach, took great pride in doing what he considered 'real' theatre, serious dramas, no musicals ("If you want to do Oklahoma," he said, "go to Portsmouth" - referring to PHS's vast auditorium and full-time theatre faculty).  A few years earlier, Traip's entry in the regional one-act play competition was Flowers From Lidice, a holocaust drama which received accolades and was one of Maine's two entries in that year's New England Drama Festival.

Mr Simmel was leaving at years' end to go to grad school.  He also had a trio of talented senior actresses.  Apparently wanting to go out with a bang, he decided that this year's spring one-act competition entry would be a cutting of John Pielmeier's Agnes of God, about a nun accused of smothering her newborn child, which she claims may have been fathered by an angel, if not God himself.  There were no roles for the boys; if seniors Ed King and Mike Spiller had any qualms about it, I was never privy to it.  Agnes was played by Angie White, the Mother Superior by Susan Allen, and Dr Livingston by Anna Jasper.

They went all out on this production.  The chorus director Mr Rutherford inserted arrangements of the various movements of the Requiem into the script, performed by an offstage quartet (Tim Wenck, Veronica Bennett, Anne Saunders and Lisa Lassiter).  We even had a set crew (Ed, Mike, Mike Gaffney, Teresa Jasper, Michelle Lauckner, myself and others), with Dave Williams pulling the various levers of our antiquated lighting system.

The first rehearsal I attended was late in the process.  I sat down with my homework on the gym floor.  And as soon as the offstage chorus started in on the Kyrie Eleison, my mind was blown.  I hadn't experienced anything that struck me on so deep a level.  Angie, Sue and Anna blew the doors off the place, and they weren't even at performance level yet.  The stigmata effect hadn't even been added in yet.  Still, my eyes were opened as to what theatre could do.  Not just entertain, not just make you laugh, cry or think, but to grab you on a deeper level.

Over the next couple weeks I saw Mr Simmel re-work some scenes, work one-on-one with the three actresses, bring them to new levels, etc.  Maybe he saw that I was so riveted by the process that he didn't mind that I really had no reason to be there.

We went to the regional drama festival at Cape Elizabeth HS outside Portland ME, and the various productions were on the whole no match for us.  We were playing chess while they were all playing checkers.  When Angie poked the blood pack, the front of her white habit becoming drenched with crimson as the cyclorama went from blue to blood red, the audience's collective hair stood on end.  We were one of two productions, the other being Cape Elizabeth's staging of Woody Allen's God, that were selected to the Maine State festival, and all three actresses were named to the All-Festival cast.

A few weeks later we boarded a minibus for the eight-hour trek up to Presque Isle for the states.  The competition was much more varied and talented.  I recall a cutting from Brighton Beach Memoirs and a collection of avant-garde pieces by an artsy school in Portland, among others.  Our performance wasn't smooth; there was a major line-fluff at the climax that instantly filled me with panic.  Nonetheless, we were one of the two productions selected for the New England Drama Festival (the other was a nice production of Spoon River Anthology).  Angie and Sue were named to the All-State cast.  On our return to Kittery we were greeted with a police and fire truck escort, and a celebration in the gym - we felt like champions!

The trek to the New England Drama Festival at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford CT was plagued by near-disaster: our minibus broke down somewhere in central Massachusetts, Mr Simmel nobly battling a smoking engine.  We were stranded at the side of the road for a couple hours before a replacement bus was dispatched.

We were blown away by the theatre - an enormous edifice seating some 1500 people, designed by I.M. Pei.  Our set, which took up most of the Traip gym's stage, was dwarfed.  The head of the Festival made it clear that this was indeed a showcase of New England's finest high school theatre by declaring "The competition is over!" to a vast round of cheers.  Jason Robards made an appearance at the opening ceremony.

The selections were, on the whole, a wide variety of styles and genres.  A Vermont school did an avant-garde version of the Billy Goats and the Bridge Troll, another did a cutting of Peter Weiss' The Investigation, and another did a cutting of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour (which put me to sleep, as do most productions to this day...  I was tired, OK?) Our production went smoothly, but wasn't as warmly received, as I recall, by the adjudicators as the previous rounds had.  Angie was selected to the All-Festival cast.

Other various memories from that time - we adopted Ogden Edsel's "Dead Puppies Aren't Much Fun" as our theme song.  Mike Gaffney started a round of the telephone game with the phrase "Angie White Likes A Hot Beef Injection."  Dave Williams recited the logician's monologue from the Monty Python Holy Grail album verbatim.

Somehow in the midst of all of this, during that spring I had a memorable weekend in Quebec City with the French Club, as well as an exchange concert with a school in Connecticut, and was on the wrestling team.  I don't know how I had the time.

I studied theatre at the University of Maine with Mike Gaffney and Sue Allen; I worked with her and her father Bruce in local theatre for years afterward.  Mr Simmel teaches English and Drama at UMaine Farmington.

To this day, our Agnes of God is the standard by which I measure my theatrical experiences.  I've seen full productions of the play, and I argue that Mr Simmel's cutting, even though it cut out some significant events and plot points, delivered a much more powerful punch, trimming Pielmeier's occasional 'playwright tricks.'  And for a rather shy, awkward only child, I suddenly felt part of a large family.  The cast and crew were my brothers and sisters.  This was a true ensemble.  We worked together for a common cause, supporting and uplifting each other.  Maybe it was this more than anything that hooked me on theatre for life.

My three years after Mr Simmel's departure were nowhere near as rewarding, and the quality of the work wasn't as good.  Traip had a few competition pieces in subsequent years that made it to the State competition, but as far as I know they haven't represented at the NE Drama Festival since.  The drama club has since passed through many hands, and occasionally was organized by the students themselves with little to no faculty support.  The school was renovated significantly in the 1990's, and they now have a stage in a much, much larger gym.

Can't believe it's been 25 years.  Tim Wenck passed away a few years ago.  Ran into Teresa Jasper (Anna's twin sister, who was either in the chorus or the crew, I don't rightly recall) the other day.  As for the rest of you, wherever you are and whatever you're doing, you're part of *the* pivotal experience of my life, and you'll always have a place in my heart.

John Defends Oleanna, Mamet's Most Polarizing Play

As presumptuous as it may sound, for years I’ve wanted to rescue Oleanna from its reputation.

For a play that’s presumably about Genderpolitik and sexual harassment, it's surprising just how gender and harassment barely feature in this play.  They’re MacGuffins.  People who leave the theatre arguing over “Did He Or Didn’t He?” are missing the point.  The 1994 film version does itself no favors with its baiting tagline: “Whatever Side You Take, You’re Wrong.”

The genders of the characters could be reversed with only a handful of pronoun changes – this was my original pitch to Jamie and Aimee, which they went for, but was almost immediately shot down by Mamet’s people.  (Playwrights.  Feh.  What do they know?)

Is it automatic that all men in the audience will side with John, and all the women with Carol?  Carol historically had been presented as so unsympathetic, even evil, that the climax of the play brought rousing cheers.  This disturbs me to no end, that a play that really isn't about gender has a tendency to awaken an almost instinctual misogyny.  If I'm attempting anything different -- or if not, at least contrary to expectation -- it's for sympathies to be divided not down gender lines, but inside each audience member's mind.  I want to make it as difficult as possible to take sides.

What is this play about?  Power.  At the start of the play, one person has power and the other doesn’t.  By the end of the play, it’s reversed.  There; the entire play in a nutshell.

Of course, we have to take into account the time in which the play was written (and in which we’re required to set it), the early 90's, during the Clarence Thomas hearings.  Regardless of the veracity of Anita Hill’s allegations, his reputation is forever stained.  Is it fair?

But the play is not a product of its time; it's still thoroughly relevant.  Re-imagined politically, it’s a proletarian uprising against a self-imagined benevolent dictator, himself a rebel in his younger days.  Like that hasn’t been in the news lately…

The most profound and ironic tragedy of John and Carol is that they want to understand each other, and it’s this sympathy and desire for understanding that leads to their downfall.  Carol states it herself: “I don’t want revenge.  I want UNDERSTANDING!”  There are so many instances where their lives might have been better off if she just left the room.  The questions of “why is she here” and “why does she stay” in Scenes 2 and 3 become much clearer (and much more playable) if Carol does indeed have sympathy for John and the position he’s in.  But every time they try to connect, it only makes the situation worse.  Mamet presents empathy as a destructive agent, and this is perhaps the most incendiary theme of the play.  Or at least it should be.

We also became acutely aware of just how much of the plot is guided by external influences.  The phone always seems to ring at exactly the wrong time.  Carol admits that she personally would be inclined to forgive John, but her responsibility to the students and the ‘Group’ prevents her.  Had John been privy to a certain piece of information (spoilers!), Scene 3 would never have happened.

Working on this play revealed many layers of meaning that seem to get lost amidst the din of “He Said She Said.”  Having two excellent actors in Peter and Jess and two supportive producers in Jamie and Aimee made the rehearsal process exciting and rewarding.  Hope you find likewise.

Oleanna by David Mamet, a theatre.unmasked production directed by John Geoffrion runs May 19 - June 4 at the Rebel Chef Café, in the Cocheco Falls Millworks in downtown Dover.  Performances Thu-Sat at 8pm.  Tickets $25/$15.  Order online at http://www.theatreunmasked.com/

On Objectivism

A film version of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged opens this weekend.  This is all I have to say about it:

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

-John Rogers

Thoughts On Defending the Invalid

Howard Sherman of the American Theatre Wing posted a pretty great article titled "Defending The Invalid" about the present and future of theatre.  Yet one of his talking points really struck me, and not in a good way.

4. Yes, it’s expensive to attend in most cases, but when was the last time you bought a ticket to a sporting event or rock concert. Inexplicably, people endlessly discuss how expensive theatre is, but they’re not as quick to say the same of some other forms of live entertainment. I think this is rooted in the idea that theatre is elitist and so this argument is trooped out to reinforce the stereotype, when other entertainments are at least as expensive or even more so. Ironically, sports and rock are priced high in order to pay outrageous sums to a relative handful of people who are often distant figures rarely making a personal connection with their audiences. Theatre is expensive in order to support a distinctly human interaction that is incredibly labor intensive at every level, but if you want to have a moment with your heroes, just take a quick survey of any venue where it’s performed and find the stage door. You’ll see your heroes, maybe even speak with them and get an autograph or a photo, instead of discovering that, say, they’re already on the way to their airport so they can fly home and sleep in their own bed, while you’re still trying to get out of the parking lot.

Although the rest of the article is very on-point, my response to that particular talking point is this:

Balls.

Allow me to elaborate: theatre does not need to be expensive.

I posted a comment on his article (with additions/edits below) thus:

The overriding sentiment of the above talking point can be summarized thus: “Why won’t people pay $100 to see live theatre? Don’t they know how good it is for them?” And that seems shockingly disconnected from reality.

When live (non-musical) theatre and its practitioners are as much a part of the cultural landscape as sports and pop music, then it’s entirely justifiable to price it accordingly. Wake me, however, when Denis O’Hare and Norbert Leo Butz reach the same level of hero worship as Derek Jeter and Justin Timberlake.

I accept that Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Regional LORT theatres operate with high budgets out of necessity, given Union payscales for actors and crew, and the (flawed) assumption that artistic legitimacy must be measured in dollar signs.  When the latter view is taken to extremes, monstrosities like Spiderman: Turn Off The Dark come to pass.

The ideal paradigm for theatre in which [an earlier] commenter’s vision of “Theatre … building empathy, connection and passion for life” can be an actual reality (instead of a quaint trope or marketing phrase), is in smaller venues. A reduction of scale, but not of vision. A performance at a black box theatre seating 99 or less — where one is separated from the performer by inches instead of hundreds of feet — offers a uniquely intense, personal, intimate experience, and is usually economically comparable to a movie ticket or restaurant meal as opposed to a Sox game, a rock concert, or a night at the symphony or opera. And you can wear jeans and not feel judged.

Plus many of the groups I work with bring beer, wine and cookies to share with the audience after. You can’t get more up close and personal with the artists than that.

Over to you, Bread and Puppet Theatre:

100 Best Albums of the 60's

This site has compiled over 2,100 Best-Of lists in an attempt to create a master list of the greatest albums of all time (including rock, pop, jazz, vocalists, etc).  Interesting, and pretty much right on.  Nice mix of the 'unquestionables' and critical darling cult bands, a few even I'm not familiar with.

Here's their Master list of 100 best albums of the 1960's.

1. The Beatles, Revolver
2. The Beatles, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
3. The Beatles, Abbey Road
4. The Beatles, The Beatles (aka The White Album) 
5. The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico
6. The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
7. Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
8. The Beatles, Rubber Soul
9. Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde
10. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced?
11. The Doors, The Doors
12. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II
13. The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed
14. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin
15. Van Morrison, Astral Weeks
16. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Electric Ladyland
17. Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home
18. Love, Forever Changes
19. The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour
20. King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King
21. John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
22. The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet
23. The Zombies, Odessey and Oracle
24. The Who, Tommy
25. The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground
26. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica
27. Cream, Disraeli Gears
28. The Kinks, Village Green Preservation Society
29. The Velvet Underground, White Light/White Heat
30. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Axis: Bold As Love
31. Johnny Cash, At Folsom Prison
32. The Band, The Band
33. Bob Dylan, The Freewheeling Bob Dylan
34. Pink Floyd, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
35. The Band, Music From Big Pink
36. Leonard Cohen, Songs of Leonard Cohen
37. Charles Mingus, The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
38. The Beatles, Help!
39. The Beatles, A Hard Day's Night
40. The Who, The Who Sell Out
41. Nick Drake, Five Leaves Left
42. Jefferson Airplane, Surrealistic Pillow
43. Neil Young, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
44. Frank Zappa, Hot Rats
45. The Kinks, Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire
46. Otis Redding, Otis Blue
47. The Kinks, Something Else
48. The Beatles, Please Please Me
49. Robert Johnson, King of the Delta Blues Singers
50. Aretha Franklin, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You
51. The Rolling Stones, Aftermath
52. The Doors, Strange Days
53. James Brown, Live at the Apollo
54. The Stooges, The Stooges
55. Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, Safe As Milk
56. Miles Davis, In a Silent Way
57. The Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed
58. Crosby Stills & Nash, Crosby Stills & Nash
59. Blind Faith, Blind Faith
60. The Mothers of Invention, We're Only In It For The Money
61. Nico, Chelsea Girl
62. Simon and Garfunkel, Bookends
63. Dusty Springfield, Dusty in Memphis
64. The Mothers of Invention, Freak Out
65. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Green River
66. John Coltrane, Ascension
67. The Who, My Generation
68. Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain
69. The Monks, Black Monk Time
70. The Red Crayola, Parable of Arable Land
71. The Doors, Waiting for the Sun
72. Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a'Changing
73. The Beatles, Beatles for Sale
74. Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, Getz/Gilberto
75. David Bowie, Space Oddity
76. Eric Dolphy, Out To Lunch
77. Albert Ayler, Spiritual Unity
78. Simon and Garfunkel, Sounds of Silence
79. Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline
80. Grateful Dead, Live/Dead
81. Sly and the Family Stone, Stand!
82. Simon and Garfunkel, Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme
83. MC5, Kick Out the Jams
84. Pink Floyd, A Saucerful of Secrets
85. Elvis Presley, From Elvis in Memphis
86. Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac (1968)
87. Tim Buckley, Goodbye and Hello
88. The United States of America, The United States of America
89. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bayou Country
90. Johnny Cash, At San Quentin
91. The Mamas and the Papas, If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears
92. The Byrds, The Notorious Byrd Brothers
93. Bob Dylan, Another Side of Bob Dylan
94. Bob Dylan, John Wesley Harding
95. The 13th Floor Elevators, The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators
96. Cecil Taylor, Unit Structures
97. The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Gilded Palace of Sin
98. Aretha Franklin, Lady Soul
99. The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo
100. The Pretty Things, S.F. Sorrow

John's Boston Debut: THE MASTER FORGER (and a special deal for my readers)

In the days following the end of WW2, wealthy Dutch art dealer Han van Meegeren faces the death penalty for selling a priceless Vermeer to Hermann Goering. Van Meegeren offers an unusual defense: he's no traitor, he's a forger. HE painted it, along with numerous other recently discovered 17th-century Dutch masterpieces. Now to prove his innocence, van Meegeren must paint for his life. Come see David Wiener's stage adaptation of the true story of the greatest art fraud of the 20th century!

 11:11 Theatre Company
presents the New England premiere of
THE MASTER FORGER
by David Wiener
directed by Brian Tuttle


with Jack Schultz (Han van Meegeren), John Geoffrion (Inspector Lyster), Tony Dangerfield (Dr. de Reinsleer), Lauren Eicher (Miss Hougen), Andy Crane (Hermann Goering/Judge Boll), David Rogers (Maj. Jones), and Gabriella Ciambrone (Girl)


Two Weekends Only!
Fri Jan 28, 8pm
Sat Jan 29, 8pm
Sun Jan 30, 3 pm
Thu Feb 3, 8pm
Fri Feb 4, 8pm
Sat Feb 5, 8pm

THE FACTORY THEATRE
791 Tremont St, Boston MA
(Orange Line to Mass Ave, or #1 bus - use rear entrance on Northampton St through parking lot)

Use the promo code CANVAS when ordering online to get $12 tickets (normally $15/$17)
Order tickets here

How Theatre Saved My Life (And Possibly Yours)

The more I read about Jared Lee Loughner (Washington Post article) and his unhappy teen and young adult years, a chill runs down my spine because his life bears striking and eerie resemblance to mine; I could easily have gone down that same spiral, and for all I know might have snapped like he did but for fortune, a handful of choices, and the love of friends and family. Oh, and Drama Club.

I too was an only child (though not quite) of a Vietnam vet father with his own set of demons to wrestle with and a teen mother who didn't really find herself until my own teens. I had neither an especially happy nor unhappy childhood, and my family could have been described as dsyfunctional. My parents were never a good match, and I realize were it not for my pending arrival they'd never have continued to date, let alone marry. My early childhood was in a trailer park. My parents fought often. On my tenth birthday they announced they were separating, and eventually they divorced. Dad never remarried, and drifted through periodic employment. Mom got her real estate license and became very successful, and its just easier for me to refer to her long-term fiance as my stepfather.

I was quite a sheltered and solitary person as a teen. Undersized (a 90-pound freshman), scrawny and awkward, I was usually the class punching bag, I never sought out friends (the few I had initiated friendship with me), I didn't date at all, rarely socializing except for group activities (Boy Scouts, wrestling team, drama club, etc). I distinguished myself scholastically though I was rather unmotivated, half-assing my way to B's and occasional A's. With a bit more effort and/or focus I would have easily graduated top of my class (instead of 8th out of 80) and gone to a better school than the University of Maine, in which I enrolled mostly by default. I interviewed at Dartmouth, and am pretty sure I'd've gotten in, but let the application deadline pass. My lack of social skills and the intensely competitive scholastic environment would have caused me to either rise or sink, and subconsciously I believed I'd've sunk. I had enough trouble with the honors classes I did take at UMaine, though I did have a respectable GPA and graduated with High Distinction.

My work history during and after college? Pretty much just like his. McDonalds, slinging popcorn at the movies, theatre camp counselor, Applebee's, a copy center, BJ's Wholesale Club, helping my stepdad (a contractor) at his building sites, and some of Kittery Maine's finer retail outlets. Eventually in my mid-20's I realized the co-workers my age were either upper management, mentally challenged or had some severe socialization issues, and that I could do better. A big step for me was when I got a job correcting achievement tests; for once I was actually using my brain and eventually I was promoted, temporarily at least, to trainer. Then I started temping at real live office jobs, demonstrating my skills with MS Office, and even landed an actual honest-to-god permanent job at Liberty Mutual, though I quit after six months for a theatre internship. I ended a nearly four year job at a major environmental non-profit when I moved up to Boston this fall. Longest time I ever spent in one workplace.

Given that my usual routine when I didn't have rehearsal or a show was to stay home and watch TV, my romantic life was pretty much a joke. I do not recall asking anyone out in my entire life face to face. I rarely went to bars, and when I did it was with a group of friends. Hell, were it not for the internet I might still be a virgin. And when I did date, rarely did it go beyond a few encounters. I learned that six months of flowery discourse via email with someone 500 miles away is trumped by one incredibly awkward weekend face to face. I also learned that there are people out there even more socially challenged than I, and dating them for a year or so won't fix them. Now I'm in a stable relationship of over two years. Well, the most stable to date.

There have been bad days. Days that could've sent me down a bad direction. One day during college, my tendency of emulating people that I admired/fancied to the point of copying was rather tactlessly pointed out to me, in front of my best friends and the person whom I admired/fancied. My humiliation burned inside me, and as I later sat alone that night and watched a news documentary about serial killers, my mind went to some really dark places. Thankfully I didn't linger long.

It's often occurred to me that I have traits similar to people with mild cases of Asperger Syndrome.

So I'm an intelligent, artistically gifted but socially awkward loner with a history of underachievement and underemployment. I'm a prime candidate to have turned into Jared Lee Loughner. So why didn't I? My best answer, along with that I managed to steer clear of drugs, hard liquor, and The Catcher in the Rye, is that I found the performing arts.

I'd been part of some school play or other since kindergarten, though the drama bug didn't really hit me until my freshman year of high school. Joining the Drama Club was one of the first close experiences I had with other people, working as an ensemble toward a tangible goal, experiencing success as we won statewide drama festivals. Although the next three years weren't as fulfilling (the drama coach left, and I found his replacement intensely disagreeable), I majored in theatre in college. Even though my talent level and social skills relegated me largely to supporting roles, I kept at it after college. I was lucky to live in an area with a large community/semi-professional theatre scene, and I spent several years working with amazing and talented people. The most important thing I gained from this experience was a peer group. A collection of colleagues and friends that I could bond with. I grew as a person, and consequently as an artist. I wasn't that good when I graduated from school, but I kept getting better. Today I'm no DeNiro, but I know what I'm doing, I almost always have a show in the pipeline, and have made strides as a local arts advocate.

Even though I was pushing carts at BJ's (along with some scary, maladjusted individuals) or temping, I was regularly acting, producing, directing, writing reviews and articles, and was a respected member of the local artistic community. That kept me going, even through occasional bouts of depression and loneliness.

My social limitations may be partly responsible for not achieving as much as I could have by now. Or I can use as an excuse that my straddling of two worlds, my work world and my acting world, has kept me from success in one world or the other; I've given up jobs for theatre gigs, and I've often foregone auditions at larger theatres since I'd never be able to get the time off from work. I'm approaching my 40th birthday and most of my peers and colleagues are at least a decade younger than me. Sometimes this bothers me.

But then I wonder what my life would have been like if I didn't go into theatre. I might have majored in math or science, I might've flunked out, I might've drifted between menial jobs, and the life I wanted might have drifted further and further from my fingers. I wonder when, if ever, I'd've moved out of either of my parents' houses. Or somewhere along the way I'd've stayed in retail and gone into management. I'd be depressed, bored, unfulfilled and alone. I might've gotten increasingly bitter and angry. I might've gone into some of those dark places and not returned.

Of course, then again maybe not. But it worries me.

I also worry that there are thousands, even millions, of people who weren't gifted with some of the social instincts that others possess, and but for a few fortuitous choices or events might wind up snapping like he did. I don't necessarily believe in evil, but I do believe that societal outliers are much more susceptible to mental illness, and their lack of ability to form positive human connections makes them prone to a spiral of bitterness, conspiracy theories, paranoia, and schizophrenia. And given that this is America, where thanks to the Second Amendment the mentally ill can get guns a whole lot easier than treatment, there's always going to be another Jared Lee Loughner. Or George Sordini. Or Seung-Hui Cho. Or Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Or Ted Kaszcynski. Or Mark David Chapman. Or John Hinckley. Or Charles Whitman. And so on and so on.

I won't be so naive to suggest that taking a drama class would've kept these people from becoming killers. But theatre has turned lives around. Gary Sinise would arguably be stealing cars today instead of being an Academy Award nominated actor who founded one of the best regional theatres in the country had he not been approached by a drama teacher to be in a high school production of West Side Story. Somewhere along the line these people needed to find something or someone that didn't make them feel so alone, that gave them some positive direction in their lives. A sense of purpose. Some hope. Some love. Drama Club or not, just someone to reach out to them. Their victims might still be alive today.

Or we can just do what America seems to do best: push these people to the fringe of society, let them simmer until they snap, react with sorrow and outrage, point fingers, bury their victims, execute/imprison/commit them, and wait for it all to inevitably happen again.

My life is far from perfect. But theatre keeps me afloat, and I'm forever grateful that it's in my life.

My Kleksography Story

DC's Rorschach Theatre recently solicited via Facebook a call for odd family stories that would then be used as launching pads for a series of short plays that would be written, cast, rehearsed, and produced in a pretty short period, presented under the collective banner "Kleksography: Home For The Holidays," and it ran last weekend.

My story was one that was submitted. I couldn't see it now that I'm Boston-based, but I'm honored to have been selected. Of course, the story was a launching-pad for the playwright's vision, and bore little resemblance to the actual event that inspired it.

So I'd like to share a slightly fuller version of what really happened.

In the summer of 2002, I was visiting my Dad in Kittery ME. I'd temporarily moved out of NYC to take an internship at Lost Nation Theatre in Montpelier VT, and I kept my stuff at his house while I was away (turned out to be five months, the summer internship and the fall Shakespeare show).

I had intended to drive to Montpelier that day, but my car (kept in his driveway for the year or so that I'd been in NYC) was acting up. So while it was in the shop, we made the best of the extra day and had a taco night. Old El Paso taco kit, just like the old days, with our regular filling: shredded cheese, lettuce, pickles, olives, tomatoes and taco sauce. We had sat down for our first round when the phone rang. He sighed heavily, thinking it was likely a telemarketer.

He wound up being on the phone for over an hour, as his tacos grew cold on the plate across from me. I could only hear half of the conversation, and couldn't piece together what was being discussed from context, but I could tell that it was definitely a significant conversation.

For Dad to be on the phone for more than fifteen minutes with me was a rarity - most of our phone conversations when I was in college, or while he was living with Grampa in Florida during his final years, or when I'd left for New York were of the "checking in" variety. Everything OK? Yup. Car running? Yup. How's New York? Fine. Got enough money? Mostly. Okay, don't wanna run up the bill, so I'll letcha go. Love ya, Kiddo. We didn't have really deep conversations.

At the time there was a lot that I was keeping from him; I wasn't out about my sexuality at the time, so we sorta kept to the tip of the iceburg. I was also aware that there was a lot that he kept from me. He almost never talked about his time in Vietnam, his divorce from Mom, etc. We never went deep. So there's a lot about my dad that I didn't know.

So after an hour or so, he sat down across from me again. Sighed heavily. Obviously he was quite emotionally moved. Then he said...

"So, John, did I ever tell you about your big sister?"

(a pregnant pause...)

"Um, nnnnnnno...."

A long explanation followed.

Once upon a time in 1968, there lived the son of a prominent city official. After graduating high school, he tooled around aimlessly in his Corvette, worked some construction jobs, and had a girlfriend. The girlfriend was still in high school, aged 16 or so. One day, girlfriend got pregnant. Parents on both sides raged. Decisions were made. In the days before Roe v Wade, it was decided that the child would be carried to term; it was a girl, and after a week was then put up for adoption. Babydaddy appears to have been given a Hobson's Choice of Vietnam or jail, so he sold his Corvette and enlisted in the army. Babymomma eventually married someone else. Babydaddy served honorably as an MP in the First Division, survived Tet, earned a Purple Heart, and came home. Shortly after, he met and married my mom, and thus begat yours truly.

A few weeks before the phone conversation, Dad attended the funeral of Babymomma's father, seeing her for the first time in years. The subject of their daughter came up. Any news, perchance, of what became of her?

Turns out that it was Babymomma on the phone. And over the course of the hour she informed him that their daughter, who was adopted by a loving family and had a pretty happy life, had nonetheless wanted to know who her biological parents were and had managed to track her down. She lived in Massachusetts on the north shore, had three children, etc.

I had no knowledge whatsoever of her existence. I knew that Dad had a girlfriend named Donna before Vietnam, but never knew about my half-sister. I'd been raised as an only child , although it turns out my mom knew about her too.

Long story short, while I was off in Vermont she contacted my Dad, they met, and once I came back I met her too. She's a sweetheart, and I'm glad to have her in my life. I've met the younger of her three kids (all are mid/late teenagers now), and the oldest is serving alongside his own father in Afghanistan.

It explained a lot about my Dad. I never knew what a burden he carried, but I could appreciate how finding her and establishing a relationship with her gave him a lot of inner peace. And were it not for a worn brakepad, I wouldn't have been present for the revelation.