Final Exam

Over spring break of my freshman year of college I came home and dropped a bomb. I informed my parents that I refused to return to college the next fall unless they consented to let me major in theatre. This was not a new topic of conversation in our house. I had graduated from high school wanting very much to major in theatre but had been told repeatedly that this was a foolhardy venture, that it was a reckless and irresponsible choice, one that my parents refused to financially support. So off I went to the Bronx with vague plans to major in English. Or sociology. Or both. But most definitely not theatre.

Over the course of my first year at Fordham it became increasingly obvious that there simply was no other academic pursuit that would satisfy me the way studying theatre would. I enjoyed my courses (well, except for math, which I failed) and didn’t object to studying theology, philosophy, literature, but at the end of the day I wanted the majority of my time to be focused on something about which I felt passionate and enthusiastic and in love. And theatre was the only thing that fit the bill.

So I marched myself home and laid it on the line to my parents: I would return to Fordham in the fall and major in theatre with their blessing. Or I’d come home for the summer, work like a dog, move into the cheapest rental apartment I could find, declare myself financially independent, reapply to college and hopefully qualify for a fat financial aid package. I would bankroll college myself.*

My parents, most likely horrified at the thought of having to explain to their friends why their oldest child was living in a VW bus and working 65 hours a week at Applebee’s, relented, and the next fall I enrolled as a performance major at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

Until the moment I officially became a theatre performance major, I had balls as big as church bells. I had played leads in all but one of the plays I’d done throughout high school. I spent every summer at performing arts camp, staying on as a counselor when I was too old to be a camper. My freshman year of college I had the chutzpah to walk into my first audition for the Mimes & Mummers (Fordham’s extracurricular theatre group at the Bronx campus), smile winningly and say that I was really only interested in being cast in one specific role in their fall musical. And cast in that role I was. But when I crossed the threshold of the Lowenstein Building at 60th and 9th and officially became a student of the Theatre Department, my self-confidence and brass evaporated.

I spent the next three years studying theatre, which I loved, but performed rarely. The school put up twelve mainstage productions over those three years, and I auditioned for and was cast in one. I did more work in the school’s black box theatre, and in my senior year was cast by the same director in not one but two new works, but by then the hairline cracks in my self-assurance had become chasms. I had lost all my swagger. I was surrounded by scores of aspiring actors, most of whom convinced (some of them rightly) that THEY were the next big thing. Their hubris topped mine tenfold. In New York City, the most ruthless place in the world for an aspiring performer, hubris counts. It’s worth something.

And I didn’t have enough.

I graduated from college with my degree in theatre three and a half weeks after I started my first job**, as the marketing director for the Actor’s Federal Credit Union. The credit union was located in the Actor’s Equity Building in Times Square. I used this address to my advantage, often joking self-deprecatingly that hey, I was working on Broadway! But in reality, my job at AFCU was a cop out. An excuse to never go on one single audition. To give up.

I gave up with great gusto. After a year at AFCU I went back to Fordham as an employee and was accepted into graduate school there to pursue an MA in Public Communications. A year after that I was recruited by a former boss to join him at Tufts University. I reapplied to graduate school in Boston and ultimately earned a Master’s at Emerson College. I had two kids. I moved to Connecticut. There was no room in my life for theatre.

But still.

I found out about a studio nearby that was offering acting classes, and signed up for one. And then another. And then, inveigled by the amazing woman who ran the studio, agreed to teach a few classes here and there. I had another baby, and while I nursed him I started scanning audition notices. Most were for community productions of popular mid-century Broadway musicals, the kind of stuff I typically hate. But one day I saw an audition notice for a production of HAIR, one of the shows I was too intimidated to audition for when it was produced at Fordham. So I went. And I was cast. And the show itself totally sucked, but I was doing it again, I was acting. I wasn’t a lead and I was the oldest one in the cast, literally twice as old as the youngest cast member, but I was on stage and that felt great.

A year later I auditioned for another play, a production of Birth, by Karen Brody, and I was cast again. And again, the experience was neither here nor there but I was doing it.

And today I got a time slot to audition for a cabaret being produced in a theatre just a few miles away from my house. You would think that by now I would be back in that ballsy, cocksure place I lived sixteen years ago, ready to demand a role I am certain only I can do justice. But instead I feel like I am about to walk into an exam for which I have barely studied. I am nauseous and sweaty and unsure. I don’t know what to wear or what to sing or how to lose 10 pounds by Saturday. But I am hopeful that on that morning I will wake up will a hint of that former bravado and nerve.

Old habits die hard. Right?


*My last two years of college I pretty much did bankroll myself. I had a large renewable scholarship through my Dad’s employer, student loans, I worked as an RA which covered $3K of tuition/year and all my housing expenses. I bought my own books and earned my own spending money. My parents sent me $40 every two weeks for groceries, but that was about it. It wasn’t until just recently as I was pouring over my student loan statements that I realized just how much of my education I financed. (I told you I failed math.)

** Never, ever let anyone convince you that your potential for future employment is a good reason not to major in the fine or performing arts. Of the dozens and dozens of people I know who studied theatre, dance, music and fine arts, not one of them is unemployed, unless it is by choice (say, to raise a family). That’s a hell of a lot more than I can say for the people I know who majored in computer science and finance.